Canon 50mm f/1.2L
Practical Use of Field Curvature Graphs – the 50mm Primes
In my last two posts (1,2), I’ve been using field curvature graphs to look at how lenses behave as you stop them down. It’s been a fairly limited data set; basically 35mm prime lenses and some zooms at 35mm. I’m going to keep going with this topic and today look at a different focal length (50mm).…
Review of the Canon EOS R Mirrorless Camera
Canon has, at least in recent years, been a bit boring with their product announcements. Whereas Sigma is developing incredible lenses pushing what we once thought was once impossible, and Sony is adding focus points by the hundreds with each new announcement, Canon has just sort of coasted along,…
Canon’s Ultra Rare Lenses – Using the Canon 50mm f/1.0L
A month or so ago, I was able to get my hands on the Canon 200mm f/1.8L Lens and test it for a review on Lensrentals.com. It was an experiment of an article, as often, we try to discuss gear that we can stock and rent out to our customers. With the Canon 200mm f/1.8L being wholly discontinued and…
Canon’s Holy Grail – Using the Canon 200mm f/1.8 L USM
Certainly, you’re probably aware of Canon’s 85mm f/1.2L, and the Canon 50mm f/1.2L, but Canon has a long history of incredibly fast lenses, many of which that have since seemingly disappeared off of the face of the Earth. Many of them are now called the Holy Grails of Canon Glass and for legitimate…
Front Element Lens Protection Revisited
The internet is an interesting resource. Once you’ve put a reference up, it’s there forever. Over time, things may change, but that 10-year-old article doesn’t. A few weeks ago someone used some old articles I’d written (1, 2, 3) as a reason why he doesn’t use protective UV filters. They claimed I…
Fun with Field of Focus II: Copy-to-Copy Variation and Lens Testing
I mentioned in our first post in this series that one of the major reasons I was interested in looking at field curvatures was as a means of detecting lenses that are weaker on one side (or perhaps one corner). If you haven’t looked at that post, you really need to before you tackle this one. In…
The Ultimate 50mm Lens Comparison
I want to share with you guys a personal lens purchasing journey that I’ve been on for awhile now. My favorite genre of photography is travel photography; I love capturing landscapes, on location portraits, action sports, and general tourist stuff. It’s a very broad topic, and I want my camera gear…
Fun with Field of Focus Part 1
I’ve mentioned in some other posts that our optical tools can do a lot more than just test a lens’ MTF. For most of the last two years, though, testing MTF is what we’ve been doing. We may not seem all that busy, but we’ve assembled what is probably the world’s largest database of current camera…
How to Get More Out of Your Sports Photography
Great sports photography is not about recording moments that happen on the field of play, rather great sports photography is a medium that connects the viewer with the athlete and sport in an intimate way not possible in any other way. Most viewers of sports watch the game or an athlete on TV or in…