Lens Reviews

Sometimes an old fashioned recipe and the latest modern technology don’t mix: zap-blasting your grandmother’s vegetable soup ingredients in a 10,000-watt microwave instead of slowly simmering them for six hours, for example. But other times strange bedfellows bring out the best in each other. Such is the case with Lensbaby optics on modern digital cameras.

The Technical Image Press Association (TIPA) member magazines recently convened for their General Assembly to vote for the best photo and imaging products launched by the industry in the last 12 months. The voting took place during the General Assembly that was held in spring 2015 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

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.

Over the past few years an amazing transformation has been taking place in photographic lens design. As a result, scores of innovative new interchangeable lenses have recently been announced by major camera manufacturers, and by optical specialty companies such as Sigma, Tamron, and Tokina.

Sigma has long been a leader in the third-party lens market, producing an astounding array of glass that’s compatible with major DSLR systems from Nikon and Canon (plus their own camera line) as well mirrorless and other camera manufacturers. While the collection of lenses has been staggering, it’s not always been easy to figure out if a Sigma lens is a high-end professional product or a consumer-level piece of optics from name and price alone.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: everyone has their favorite lens and in my pack, you will always find one in the 400mm variety. To wit, I have Nikon’s newer Nikkor 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6 G ED VR, the 200-400mm f/4 G ED VR and the standard-bearer of them all: the prime Nikkor 400mm f/2.8 AF-S lens. Before that, I had a few of the pre-set, manual focus 400’s but when the Nikon F4 was introduced, the game really changed, especially when it came to wildlife or other land moving objects. I was hooked.

It’s been my experience that there are a handful of special objects in the world that have developed cachet or “mojo” and are emotionally appealing to people in various fields. Some of these unique items engage our interest because they’re otherwise unassuming objects which have become associated with unusual people or events. I think of the track shoes Roger Bannister wore on May 6, 1954 when he ran the world’s first sub-4 minute mile. I think of “Brownie” and “Blackie,” two of Eric Clapton’s Fender Stratocasters. The console Sam Phillips used in Sun Studios to record Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Roy Orbison must drip with “mojo,” as does Pete Seeger’s banjo, no doubt.