Lens News

Rokinon unveiled two new high-speed lenses today: the 21mm F1.4 wide angle and 50mm F1.2 portrait lens. Designed for mirrorless compact system cameras, these lenses are available in mounts for Sony E Micro 4/3, Fuji X and Canon M cameras in black or silver models.

Zeiss has introduced a new line of six high performance lenses designed for high-resolution DSLR cameras from Nikon and Canon.

Tamron has annouced two intriguing new prime lenses: the Tamron SP 35mm f/1.8 Di VC USD and a 45mm f/1.8 Di VC USD. Both lenses offer close focus (7.9 and 11.4 in. respectively) and both are compatible with full-frame and APS-C sensor DSLR cameras.

Lensbaby Spark: This lens is ideal for young enthusiasts, students or beginner photographers who want to break out of traditional photography. The Spark is a fun, affordable way to capture selective focus images with your DSLR camera. It features a unique selective focus optic and a tilting lens body—allowing users to capture creative images in-camera that have a sweet spot of focus surrounded by blur. It is an all plastic (except for multi-coated glass doublet optic) 50mm selective focus lens with a f/5.6 fixed aperture made for use with for Canon and Nikon DSLRs. Spark is compatible with the rest of the optics in the Optic Swap System, and with all Lensbaby 37mm threaded accessory lenses. The suggested retail price is $89.95. 

My wide-angle lens was perfect when the late-evening shadows crept across the mountains of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The sweeping landscape, wide open and treeless, was suited to the wide field of view. Until, that is, the weather turned, and with it, my perspective on that wild place. I woke one morning to rain pattering intermittently on the nylon of my tent. Between showers, I emerged to find the mountains obscured by scudding clouds.

Kenko Tokina has introduced the new Hoya HD3 series of pro photographic filters. The HD3 UV and Circular Polarizer filters are designed to give photographers the ability to capture high-quality images in extreme settings without loss of color balance, contrast, or clarity due to adverse environmental conditions.

A lens aficionado once told me, “the more reach you have, the more you want.” This remark, of course, was directed at the wide array of telephoto lenses available today for outdoor photographers and their obsession with getting up close and personal with wildlife.