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Aaron Closz

Teardown Of a Canon 35mm f/1.4 Mk II Shows Its Tank-Like Build Quality

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As soon as we optically tested the Canon 35mm f/1.4 Mk II lens we couldn’t wait to tear into one for a couple of reasons. One was that Canon has been making a lot of interesting advances in lens mechanics lately, so we’re always excited to look inside their new lenses. Another was that Canon claimed this lens had increased weather resistance and durability. You know I’m pretty cynical about claims like that until I see what’s inside for myself. And finally, well, it’s been really busy all fall and Aaron and I really just haven’t had time to tear apart some new lenses, so we were having withdrawal.

We got a little time this week, so we used it to take apart the new Canon 35mm f/1.4 Mk II. Those of you who like to follow along from home with your own lens go get your #2 JIS screwdriver and a spanner wrench and let’s get to work!

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Sony’s New FE 90mm f/2.8 Macro Lens Takes On Canon’s 100mm f/2.8 In Lensrentals’ Resolution TEst

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We got a pre-release set of Sony FE 90mm f/2.8 G OSS Macro lenses in for preliminary testing last week, and I was kind of excited about this lens for a couple of reasons. First it simply gives me a nice short telephoto prime option that has been lacking in the lineup (although the Zeiss 85mm Batis lens will be coming along fairly soon). Second, it gives me a true macro lens at the focal length I prefer.

I hoped that the combination of a good macro lens with the A7r sensor would turn out to be a winner. We used our Imatest lab to compare Sony 90mm f/2.8 G OSS lenses mounted to Sony A7r cameras, and compared them with Canon 100mm f/2.8 IS Macro lenses shot on Canon 5DIII cameras in our Imatest lab. (For those who are curious, we can’t test Sony E mount lenses on an optical bench because the electromagnetic focus system requires electrical power to operate. Until we do some really geeky, overly complex engineering modifications, the optical bench isn’t an option for Sony E mount lenses.) It would have been nice to also compare with a Nikon D810 and Nikon 105 f/2.8 Micro lens, I know, but our time is limited.

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