All Posts
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…
My Last Circular Polarizer Post
I posted an article about circular polarizing filters recently, letting you see some data I obtained for Lensrentals when they were reviewing which of the polarizing filters were among the best. I concluded that they all polarized light really well. I also said that none of the CPs I tested seemed…
Reviewing the Canon EF-S 35mm f/2.8 Macro IS STM
Whenever we get a new Macro lens, I’m usually one of the first to take it home and try it out. One of the things I love about Macro Photography is how accessible it is. Getting up close and capturing the hidden world of detail that exists in everyday life is fascinating to me and I don’t have to…
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…
Guide to Wilderness Photography and Timelapse Filming
Whenever I get back from a big adventure, friends ask how it went. Inevitably I must answer, “it involved lots of misery and sleep-deprivation, but I think some of the pictures turned out.” …If this sounds familiar, you might be a wilderness landscape and nightscape photographer. This article is…
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…
My Not Nearly Complete, But Rather Entertaining, Circular Polarizer Filter Article
So, a while back I wrote a not quite complete article on UV filters. To do that, I had to buy new testing equipment and learn to test filters. This was not what I wanted to do when I grew up. But somebody has to do it, and I did get to buy new toys. More importantly, Tyler (Who handles the…
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…
Taking Apart the Sigma Cine 85mm T1.5 FF Lens
We’ve been impressed with the Sigma Cine lenses. We weren’t surprised that they’re generally sharper than classic Cine primes; that’s what we’ve come to expect from Sigma. We were pleasantly surprised by the smoothness of focusing and aperture and the apparent build quality. Since we’d previously…
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…