by Chris Gampat on April 26, 2012
Look through YouTube, forums, and other websites asking people about some of their favorite wide angle prime lenses: and you’ll probably find out about a little known gem to many: the Rokinon 14mm f2.8. Following along with Rokinon’s tradition of creating an affordable, manual focus, manual aperture, and optically sharp lens: it is a lens that takes some getting used to. To boot, I don’t often shoot this wide: so it forces me to not only get creative with my angles, but also get super duper close to my subjects.
As a note of reference: Rokinon is the same company as Samyang (their European and Asian version of the lens). They’re also sometimes known as the Vivitar, Bell and Howell and Pro Optic brands depending on the country it is sold in.
Regardless of what name the lens masquerades as, you all want to know one thing: how does it perform?
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by Chris Gampat on April 25, 2012
The other day, I met with the team over at Sony to get some hands-on time with the NEX 7. The company decided to really put their camera to the test and got ice skaters to skate around at Chelsea Piers.
So with the NEX 7 in hand and their 55-210mm telephoto zoom lens, I tried to capture the athletes in their natural element.
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by Chris Gampat on April 23, 2012
Nikon recently updated their 85mm f1.8 lens to the current G version: something it was in need of for a while. 85mm lenses are primarily used as portrait focal lengths are are preferred by many because it allows them to work up close to their subject and still not suffer from distortion. We’ve reviewed many 85mm lenses on this site, and the staff are in agreement that they’re amongst some of our favorite focal lengths.
But how does the new Nikon budget level portrait focal length do? After testing it out against the Canon 85mm f1.8 and showing off a couple of image samples, our conclusions may shock you.
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by Chris Gampat on April 20, 2012
Adapted lenses often make up the camera bag of many mirrorless camera users. In particular, old rangefinder lenses tend to be popular because of the small size coupled with excellent image quality. When one thinks of a rangefinder, one also often thinks of Leica. Indeed, the company has manufactured lenses for years and many of their lenses are available second hand on eBay at quite an affordable price.
Keeping in mind the fact that a Micro Four Thirds camera has a 2x crop factor, I’ve recently decided to try our various wide angle lenses from Leica. Though the 35mm is more semi-wide, their Summicron lens (f2) has been touted as being really quite excellent.
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by Gevon Servo on April 18, 2012
Taken with the Nikon 50mm 1.8D
Wanting to take my photography to its next logical step, I bought a Nikon D700. Formerly, I shot almost exclusively with my Nikon D90. Then when I put some of the lenses on the D700′s full frame sensor, it was like the world suddenly changed and a new day began. The vibrations were different, the feeling was different. I had to reassess things though, namely my current lenses. Testing these lenses has been a slight obsession lately, but I am done now.
If you’re thinking of upgrading, you should consider my findings.
by Chris Gampat on April 3, 2012
As what other reviewers have been touting as one of the most exciting lenses to be released in a while at this focal length, the Rokinon 24mm f1.4 is an extremely affordable option compared to the Canon L version or the closest Zeiss version. Granted, all three are still different lenses: with two of the previously stated products being manual focus only.
The 24mm focal length is one that has been targeted to street photographers, documentary shooters, landscape photographers, and loads of others. But does this latest addition really do the job that most photographers want?
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