Teardowns and Disassembly
Opening up the New Canon 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS II
As with most new lenses, a Canon 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS II made it’s way back to the repair department for an initial tear-down. I know there’s some randomness as to what we tear down, but we have some reasons for doing these. Sometimes, like with this new Canon, it’s simply because we know…
An Inside Look at the Rokinon 50mm AF FE Autofocus Lens
I have had a love-hate relationship with Samyang / Rokinon lenses for a long time now. (We carry the Rokinon brand, because the distributor, Elite Brands offers repair services in the U. S.) Rokinon lenses provide good optics at an incredible price. They aren’t ‘built like a tank’ and aren’t going…
Taking Apart the New Nikon 105mm f/1.4E ED AF-S
We recently tested the Nikon 105mm f/1.4E ED AF-S lens and were mightily impressed. Optically it was better than I’d ever expected. We had idly talked about doing a teardown when stock allowed, but we got an unexpected opportunity yesterday: one of our week-old copies had some significant dust in…
This is Your (Well Our) Camera at Burning Man
In the repair department, there are things we hate. Salt water for cameras and lenses, salt water and sand for tripods and lenses. Sand in legs of the zoom mechanism of lenses ruins threads, they’ll never be smooth again. Right behind those two is dust. Dust doesn’t always destroy equipment, but…
Lensrentals’ Canon 5D Mk IV Teardown
*Courtesy Canon USA* *Lensrentals.com, 2016* Today the Canon 5D Mk IV cameras are out and I’m sure by this afternoon there will be unboxing videos all over YouTube. Aaron and I decided to do an unboxing post, too. By unboxing, of course, we mean taking it apart. If you want to make comparisons, you…
A Look at Electromagnetic Focusing
If you’re like me you like to know what’s going on inside your camera or lens to some degree. They are tools, and if I want to get the best use out of my tool I need to know it’s strengths and weaknesses. You may not have noticed, especially if you shoot just Canon or Nikon, but there’s been a…
Sony FE 85mm f/1.4 GMaster Emergency Tear Down
*Credit: DC Super Friends Feature Vehicle Assortment 2012 Series 01* OK, I usually don’t respond to requests to disassemble things. I have a day job and the blog stuff is my hobby. But every so often the Bat Signal get’s raised over Gotham Internet and Aaron and I feel the need to fight the crime…
LensRentals Tears Down the Zeiss Batis 25mm f/2 Lens
LensRentals hasn’t been able to get enough copies of the Zeiss Batis lenses to even fill our existing orders, much less enough for Aaron and I to test and play with them. But one of our customers was kind enough to drop a Zeiss Batis 25mm f/2 lens the other day. Nothing looked smashed, but after…
The Long-Awaited, Scary and Amazing Fuji Lens Teardown
For, oh, about 2 years now, every time we do a lens teardown I get emails from Fuji shooters asking me to tear down one of their lenses. There are several reasons we haven’t. For one thing, we have far fewer copies of those lenses so there is less reason to work on them. Since we can’t get parts…
A Peek Inside the Leica Vario-Elmarit-SL 24-90mm f/2.8-4 ASPH
We always get excited when a lens comes out with some new technology or major changes. This time, the new technology came from an unexpected source when Leica released the Vario-Elmarit-SL 24-90mm f/2.8-4 ASPH lens. I know most of you don’t think of Leica as technological groundbreakers and most of…
Sigma 35mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art Lens Teardown
Last week we did a tear down of the Canon 35mm f/1.4 Mk II, an expensive, large, weather-resistant lens. Then we did a tear down of the Sony FE 35mm f/1.4 ZA lens, and expensive, weather-resistant lens with very different technology. Today we’re going to tear down the Sigma 35mm f/1.4 DG HSM A1…
Sony FE 35mm f/1.4 ZA Lens Teardown
Last post, we took apart the Canon 35mm f/1.4 Mk II lens. Continuing the 35mm theme, today we’re going to do the same to the Sony FE 35mm f/1.4 ZA lens. And chill out, we’ll do the Sigma 35mm DG HSM f/1.4 Art lens next and one of the Zeiss after that. *Lensrentals.com, 2015* Before we start, let’s…