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The development of Sony’s 300mm f/2.8 lens was announced in January of this year. At the time, it was announced with an early 2024 release date. And it’s a lens that many Sony wildlife and sports shooters have been waiting to hear more about.
Well, there’s still no real news, but it is confirmed to be testing in the wild. Sports photographers Bob Martin and Nick Didlick have been posting images to Instagram, purported to be shot with the new lens.
Have you ever wondered about the secret inner workings of modern lenses? If you’re like me, you have but are way too incompetent to ever want to actually take one apart yourself. In fact, camera brands and lens manufacturers are often quite secretive about what goes on ‘under the hood’ so to speak.
In this video, Gordon Laing from Camera Labs was lucky enough to be invited to film a Canon engineer stripping down an RF 28mm f/2.8 STM pancake lens.
Vignetting: sometimes you love it and sometimes you hate it. Sometimes it creeps into your photographs unintentionally and sometimes you decide that a vignette will help to draw focus to your subject and it’s exactly what your image needs.
Vignetting describes the darkening that can appear at the corners of a photo. It is sometimes called light fall-off, because it refers to the difference in brightness between the centre and edges of your photo. Vignettes can be added deliberately to photos but often occur because of optics. In this article, we will look at the different types of vignettes and what causes them, as well as how to remove them and how to add them if you want to, too.
We’ve seen some pretty cool camera-inspired watches so far. But Horage’s Lensman 2 Exposure wasn’t just inspired by photography and made for photographers. It features a rotating bezel that lets you calculate exposure and choose proper camera settings, which is especially useful if you shoot film. It’s your little cheat sheet that can always be with you and tell you both time and camera settings. Pretty cool, huh?
How many of you use a 50mm f/1.8 lens? Its popularity across the board has given this lens the nickname of the ‘nifty-fifty’. So-called because of its small size and correspondingly small price tag, but great value. It’s often the first prime lens that photographers buy and is still a firm favourite for many.
But are you getting the most out of your lens? Joshua Peg asks this question as although he believes that the 50 mm f/1.8 lens is pretty great, it still has some limitations, and many people may not be reaching their full potential when using it. In this video, he walks you through how to make the most out of the popular nifty-fifty.
When it comes to 3D printed lenses, they usually suffer from some limitations that manufactured lenses do not. Two of those limitations specifically are the lack of a variable aperture that can be stopped down and focus adjustment. Some 3D printed lenses get around the focus issue by using a commercially available helicoid lens adapter. And to solve the aperture problem, they may have swappable inserts.
Well, this 163mm f/2.5 3D printed telephoto lens from Felix Steel at Pixels and Prisms features both a fully adjustable 12-blade diaphragm aperture (a first for full-frame 3D printed lenses) as well as a manual focusing mechanism that can lock in the fully extended or fully retracted positions. Aside from the glass, it’s 100% 3D printed and can be built for less than $15. It’s also open source.
Lomography’s Art Lens series has grown with the addition of the Daguerreotype Achromat 2.9/64 lens in both Onyx Black and Silver Graphite finishes. The lens was first launched by Lomography back in 2016 via Kickstarter and now it’s a regular fixture in the lineup for a price of just $299. It’s their take on the historic lens that came at the creation of practical photography in 1938 with the combination of the Chevalier Achromat Lens attached to a Daguerreotype camera.
The lens is said to have a “series of beautiful aberrations” that “bathed images in an alluring veil of light” creating glazy, soft images at wide apertures. Lomography’s original release of this lens helped to revive the lost aesthetic. At a focal length of 64mm, the lens goes from silky soft-focus images wide open at f/2.9 to razor-sharp from f/5.6 onwards.
Venus Optics, the company behind Laowa lenses has just announced the release of their latest full frame lens in the Argus series. It’s a 45mm f/0.95 and according to the company, offers a field of view that is appealing and natural to human eyes. They go on to say that “With the super shallow depth of field at f/0.95, it easily creates a dreamy and romantic rendering.”
Nikon has announced the release of their new Nikkor Z 40mm f/2 lens for the Z mount mirrorless camera series. A compact and lightweight prime lens with “high portability ideal for casual everyday shooting” according to the Nikon website. This lens furthers the lineup for their full-frame Z mount mirrorless cameras.
Perhaps you remember these gorgeous lens-inspired watches from TACS. The Japanese brand has done it again, this time creating Automatic Twin Lens. It’s an elegant TLR-inspired watch for all you vintage camera enthusiasts. I find this one the most beautiful so far, so let’s take a peek at the story behind it.
Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.
Alex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe
Dave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.
John Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
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