Lens Reviews

We love lenses, especially lenses we can buy at a loveable price. Here are five lenses that are high quality and inexpensive.

Tamron recently released a fast, compact 70-180mm f/2.8 zoom lens for Sony mirrorless full-frame E-mount cameras. It’s billed as the most compact and lightest f/2.8 telephoto zoom lens in its class. We had a chance to test this lens on a Sony Alpha a7RII camera. Here is what we found.

Making a lens sharp and acceptably free of aberrations is hard. Very hard. Making a lens that can be both tack-sharp and intentionally soft, pleasantly unsharp and able to exploit the native beauty of certain optical aberrations is even harder. Then there’s Lensbaby.

Have you heard about Sigma’s lineup of fast, affordable f/1.4 prime lenses for Canon M, Sony E and Micro Four Thirds cameras? The set includes the 16mm f/1.4, 30mm f/1.4 and 56mm f/1.4. Here’s a specifications review that features images by world renowned photographer and Sigma Ambassador Jim Koepnick.

I’m a film dinosaur—about 40% of the pictures I shoot are made on black-and white film, and my favorite analog cameras range in age from 50-100 years. For the remaining 60%, I shoot digitally, sometimes with a vintage lens attached to help capture a "retro" look.

With more and more photographers considering switching from DSLRs to mirrorless cameras, one of the biggest factors in the decision-making process is lens choice. Are the new lenses designed for mirrorless cameras better than their DSLR-centric counterparts?