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Nikon 58mm f/1.4 is (hopefully) Not About the Numbers
## The Silence We have a routine when a new lens comes out at Lensrentals: the first new copies get sent to me for optical testing. I have about 4 or 5 hours with them because they’ll have to be packed up and shipped out to the customers that have been waiting for them and expect them tomorrow. So…
D610 Initial Dust Assessment
Way back when, I wrote about the dust problems we were seeing in Nikon D600 cameras. There was enough of a furor about it that when the Nikon D610 was released I assumed that the dust problem would be fixed. But I’m rather the paranoid type, and I never like assumptions, so as soon as the first…
Photo Geek Awards Get No Respect
When I came up with the idea for the Photogeek Geek Photo Contest, it was mostly for fun. I didn’t think too many people would actually enter. But at last count there are nearly 100 entries up on the contest page already. There are even a couple of people who managed to capture the bokeh of a…
The Most Honored Photograph
* Photograph in public domain, this copy from Naval Aviation Museum * Doesn’t look like much, does it? But, depending upon your definition, this photograph, a team effort by 9 men, is the most honored picture in U. S. History. If you want to find out about it, read on. It’s an interesting tale…
The First Annual Photogeek Geek Photo Contest
I’ve been writing a lot of geeky testing stuff for the last couple of weeks, most of which can be summed up as ‘take some pictures; if they look good everything is fine.’ So last weekend, I went out and took some pictures. It was pretty fun. So much fun that I thought maybe I could have a photo…
Bad Times with Bad Filters
A long time ago I wrote a blog post called Good Times with Bad Filters about how cheap UV protective filters are different from good ones. It was mostly in fun. Today I’ve got a post about how cheap UV filters may hurt your lens. It’s not in fun. Here at Lensrentals we see lenses come back with…
There Is No Perfect Lens Test, Either
In my last article, I wrote about the fact that every copy of a given lens has some bit of sample variation. This affects lens reviews, whether lab-based or photography-based, because the copy they tested will be just a bit different from the copy you buy. I suggested, that if you want to get a…
There Is No Free Lunch, Episode 763: Lens Adapters
Lens adapters can be useful things sometimes, letting you mount one brand of lens on another brand of camera. One thing that has always bothered me, though, is the idea of doubling the number of lens-mount interfaces. When you look at the thick metal pieces on the front of the camera and the back…
There is No Perfect Lens
## The Three Questions I get asked a couple of questions every time I publish a graph showing Imatest results for multiple copies of lenses like the one below. Most people understand that some copy-to-copy variation is inevitable in the manufacturing process. Most are surprised, though, at how…
Lensrentals is Coming to Nashville!
We are happy to announce the opening of our satellite location in the Nashville area. Our Nashville office will serve as a pick-up center beginning on September 12th. There is no charge to pick-up from the Nashville location. Initially, all Nashville orders will be available the next day, although…
Fun with Color Vision
I’ve been doing a lot of technical things lately, writing up our repair data and investigating methods of reducing optical variation in lenses. So I thought I’d take a bit of a break and write a post about something fun. Human vision is always fun to me, since it’s an area where I can apply both my…
Lensrentals Repair Data: 2012-2013
Correction: Lenses called “Rokinon” in the “Weeks to Failure” rate incorrectly included Bower & Samyang branded products. Because of this error, data for lenses called “Rokinon” lenses has been removed. We apologize for this inaccuracy, and any confusion that may have resulted therefrom. ## What Is…