Technical Discussions
About Getting Your Camera Wet… Teardown of a Salty Sony A7sII
People think that because I expect the worst and try to prepare for it, that I’m negative. That’s not it at all. I’m not a negative person; I’m cheerfully cynical. If I expect the worst and it doesn’t happen, I’m happy because things went better than I expected. If I expect the worst and it does…
The 8K Conundrum – When Bad Lenses Mount Good Sensors
_This is a guest post from Brandon Dube, whose name you’ve seen on many of our articles. In addition to his metrology work, he also does high fidelity numerical optical simulation, and spends his summers at places like NASA/JPL working on the cameras that are going in the Mars 2020 rover._ _This…
Four Lighting Techniques to Try on your Next Photo Shoot
I’m a lighting guy. Ask any of the higher-ups here at Lensrentals.com, and they can confirm that I’m always pressuring them to get more lighting options available for rent (with varying degrees of success). For me, I was taught that photography translates to the capturing of light on film (or in…
The Extreme Batis: MTF Tests of the Zeiss Batis 18mm and 135mm f/2.8 Lenses
I’ve been slow to test the Batis lenses for several reasons. We can never get enough copies when they’re first released and by the time we do have enough copies I’ve got six other things to do. That said, I did give an overview of the Batis 25mm and 85mm a while back and even did a teardown of the…
The Minolta 40-80mm f/2.8 Gearbox Zoom; The Clockwork Lens
**There were giants in the earth in those days . . . They were mighty men, men of renown. _Genesis 6:4_** I’ve always been fascinated by the history of lenses. I write about it a lot. To me, the most fascinating items are those made many years ago, with what we would consider wholly inadequate…
Looking at Clear and UV Filter Spectrograms
I’ll start by saying, this is not an article – or at least not a complete one. When I wrote My Not Quite Complete Protective Filter Article, I promised to try to add transmission spectrograms so that you could see not just the wavelength I tested for transmission, but also how the rest of the light…
Understanding Camera Log & How It Can Improve Video Workflows
Video imaging techniques historically, have been a battle of compromise between quality and price point but the prosumer digital video market is finally showing signs of bargaining power. In terms of image quality, raw offers unparalleled advantages because you are capturing sensor data rather than…
A Breakdown of Lighting Options Available for Photo and Video
A month or two ago, I wrote an article about the fundamentals of lighting and discussed core lighting techniques used for both photo and video to better understand artificial light both in a studio or on location. Continuing the trend, I wanted to answer the question that so many people will often…
Rental Camera Gear Destroyed by the Solar Eclipse of 2017
We recently had quite a spectacle in the United States, with a Solar Eclipse reaching totality throughout a large portion of the United States. Being that this was the first solar eclipse passing through the Continental US since 1979, excitement ran wild on capturing this natural event using the…
Sony FE 16-35mm f/2.8 GM Sharpness Tests
Well, I’ll say to start with I’ve probably had more requests for the Sony FE 16-35mm f/2.8 GM MTF tests than any lens in recent memory. People are excited about it. About half the requests have been very reasonable “I’m hoping to see MTF results before I decide between this lens and that.” And, as…
Taking Apart the Zeiss 85mm T2.1 CP.3 Cinema Lens
Long ago, in an office far, far away we did a teardown of the Zeiss 85mm CP.2 lens. Since we’ve already seen the earlier model, we thought it would be interesting to take a peek inside the new Zeiss 85mm CP.3 lens as well. We’re going to have to work on them eventually, and it’s always good to have…
Why We’re Going to Start Testing Cinema Lenses. And Why We Haven’t Before.
Here we go again. This isn’t my first time pissing off the status quo; I’ve been doing it for years. We spent the last few years developing better metrology (lens testing) for photography lenses. The reason was relatively simple; photography cameras with higher resolutions began to see flaws that…