Category: Technical Discussions
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Taking Apart The Sony A7rIII – In Search of Better Weather Sealing
Weather resistant – _A term that consumers falsely define as ‘weatherproof’ and camera companies accurately define as ‘the warranty doesn’t cover water damage_’. The Cynic’s Photography Dictionary The Sony A7R III has been out for quite a while. Generally, it’s a superbly popular camera with…
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MTF Tests of the Sony FE 24-105mm f/4 OSS
## Or ‘My Last 24mm-105mm Lens Test Ever’ Obviously, I have angered the Lens Testing Gods, since for the second post in a row I’m testing 24-105mm f/4 lens; this time the Sony 24-105mm f/4 OSS lens. As I’ve mentioned in the post on the Sigma 24-105mm f/4 many initials Art lens, while these are…
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Customer Stories – Photographing the SpaceX Falcon Major Launch
Something we’ve discussed before on this blog is how Lensrentals.com operates. While many of the people who work here are photographers and videographers as well, we’re still very much a specialty service. Our job is to get the tools you need to help create your work. So while we’re in the service…
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MTF Testing for the Sigma 24-105mm f/4 DG OS HSM Art Series Lens
I generally let you know what my expectations are before I start, to hopefully let you know where my personal opinion affects things. The fact that I’m just posting tests of the Sigma 24-105mm f/4 DG OS HSM Art months after the lens was released tells you a lot. I’m not excited about testing…
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The Six Major Differences Between the Panasonic GH5 and Panasonic GH5s
As we mentioned in our recent article showing off the Most Rented New Products of 2017, people love the Panasonic GH5; and our video techs love it too. With 4:2:2 10-bit in 4K, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better video camera in a smaller package. But this year at the Consumer Electronics Show,…
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Finally, Some m4/3 MTF Testing: 25mm Prime Lens Comparison
This blog is a little different. It’s geekier than most, of course. Also, I don’t use it to make income, and that makes it a bit scattered. A mainstream blog has to cover all the hot topics. I get to cover what I’m interested in at the moment. More importantly, I don’t have to cover everything, so…
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MTF Testing the Canon 85mm f/1.4 L IS
### The King is Not Dead The Canon 85mm f/1.2 II lens, the king of creamy bokeh, is basically a 40-year old optical design first released in 1976 (in FD mount) and released as an EF mount lens after some slight optical modification in 1989. The “II” version, released in 2006, was an…
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Most Popular Photography and Videography Gear Rented in 2017
As we put in our final weeks of 2017, it’s important to reflect on all the exciting things that happened over the year, and focus on what we can do even better for 2018. As always, we like to put a bow on the year and share with you our most rented gear of the year. 2017 was our biggest year ever,…
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Comparing the Canon 85mm f/1.4L IS Against the Competition
Talk to any photographer who specializes in wedding or portrait photographer, and you’ll get a unanimous agreement as to what the preferred focal length – the 85mm. And with good reason; the 85mm is such an incredible focal length because of the nearly true to life compression it provides (with…
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Battle of the Best Gimbals – DJI Ronin 2 vs. Freefly Movi Pro
When it comes to innovative gimbal designs, Freefly Systems and DJI are at the top of their class. The Movi M10 revolutionized filmmaking for a vast population of shooters (myself included) when it was released in 2013. Across the globe, DJI didn’t waste much time developing the original Ronin –…
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Testing Lenses: Finding The Best Average Focus Point
You have been patient, my friends. You have made it through the first article, where we looked at how MTFs improve stopped down and saw it was a bit different for every lens. You enjoyed the second article, where we looked at the Best Individual Focus MTF (BIF MTF) which showed how good the MTF…
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Testing Lenses: Best Individual Focus MTF Curves
OK, in the last post we did something useful, but rather boring: we looked at how MTF changes when lenses are stopped down. Today we’re going to use a more powerful optical bench tool, the MTF vs. Field vs. Focus. Unless you work in a metrology lab (and probably not even then, very few are…











