Lens Reviews

If there’s a more challenging photographic discipline than wildlife photography, I don’t know what it is. It requires heavy and expensive long focal length lenses, a sturdy tripod, and the physical prowess to schlep all this gear through physically demanding environments. If you’re thinking “that’s not you, Joe,” you are correctamundo so I asked a few friends for advice on telephoto lenses and this is what they told me.

The new super wide angle Distagon T* f/2.8 15mm lens for Canon and Nikon mounts is neither lightweight nor inexpensive (1.6 lb for Nikon, 1.8 lb for Canon mount, $2950) but what you get from this manual focus lens is exceptional image quality and facility that is perhaps unmatched by any other lens in its focal length class. With a 95mm filter thread and integral and fully compatible lens shade, the lens offers an extraordinary 110-degree angle of view that is pleasure to work with on a wide variety of subjects. The fast f/2.8 aperture is matched on the narrow end by a minimum aperture of f/22, which at 15mm means there’s potential for extraordinary depth of field effects using the 10-inch closest focusing range. While decidedly not a portrait lens, the 15mm is ideal for landscape, street photography and creative advertising work, as well as architectural and urban photography, as I discovered in mybrief time working with it.

Hands on with a Hasselblad X1D II 50C medium format mirrorless camera, Hasselblad 24mm f/4.8 HCD wideangle lens and the enigmatic Hasselblad XH Converter 0,8. Does this change our attitude toward converter lenses? Continue reading to find out.  

It's not what most photographers would consider essential glass, but in mid-2017, when I heard it was available, I knew the 8-15mm f/3.5-4.5 fisheye Nikkor was a lens I'd like a lot. What I didn't realize was how much "a lot" was going to be. It turned out that I liked to have it with me whenever I was photographing.

As digital SLR cameras have become more affordable, an increasing number of photography and imaging enthusiasts have made the shift to digital capture. But there's one common complaint--the ultra-wide angle lenses designed for 35mm systems do not produce an expansive angle of view with any of the affordable digital SLRs. Because such cameras employ a sensor that's...

Every lens maker offers standard types of lenses: wide angle, normal, and telephoto zooms plus several primes in popular focal lengths. Although highly useful, these lenses alone do not represent the breadth of offerings available. Hidden away within the lineups of many lens makers are specialty models which, even if they aren’t suitable for one’s purposes at any given time, are fascinating not only for their unique qualities but also because they might someday be the perfect tool for a specific shooting situation.