Author Archives: Roger Cicala
Stop it Down. Just a Bit.
by Roger Cicala
If you read much that I write, you know I love’s me some wide-aperture prime lenses. I like the narrow depth of field that isolates my subject, and the ability to shoot in low light. More than anything else, though, I love a nice sharp lens with superb resolution and excellent contrast. A lot of people [...]
Are Zooms Always Sharper at One Extreme or the Other?
by Roger Cicala
There is a statement often repeated about zoom lenses, which I have assumed to be generally true, or at least historically true. “All zooms are sharper at one end than the other.” I also hear a lot of people saying they bought Zoom A because it’s sharper than Zoom B. Is that sharper everywhere? Just [...]
The Limits of Variation
by Roger Cicala
A few people were more than a little amused that I, the ultimate pixel-peeper, wrote an article demonstrating that all lenses and all cameras vary a bit; that you can’t find the ultimately sharpest lens. Each individual copy of a given lens is a little different from the other copies. A single copy will behave [...]
Notes on Lens and Camera Variation
by Roger Cicala
A funny thing happened when I opened Lensrentals and started getting 6 or 10 copies of each lens: I found out they weren’t all the same. Not quite. And each of those copies behaved a bit different on different cameras. I wrote a couple of articles about this: This Lens is Soft and Other Myths [...]
Lens Genealogy – Part 2
by Roger Cicala
For those who missed all the excitement, in Part 1 of this series I discussed that almost all modern SLR lenses derive from one of 6 types of lenses that were basically in use by the 1920s. Part 1 covered the first three lenses: the Symmetrical, Double Gauss, and Petzval lenses. Those three lenses give [...]
New Cases
by Roger Cicala
Sometimes it’s the little things that drive us nuts. One of those little things has been lens cases, especially for lenses with wide hoods like 16-35s taller lenses like 70-300s. There were soft cloth pouches from the manufacturer but they provided zero padding and protection. There were dozens of third-party cases, but they generally had [...]
The Rapple 4000 (or Roger designs the perfect camera)
by Roger Cicala
I had an epiphany of sorts this weekend. I took home the new Schneider 50mm f/2.8 Super Angulon. For those of you not in the loop, this is a 50mm tilt-shift SLR lens made by a company that is best known for it’s Cinema lenses (along with filters, glass, and some other stuff). The point [...]
58 Lines by 36 Photographers
by Roger Cicala
I loves me some quotes, so I thought I’d gather up my favorites and share them. I tried to get to 88 lines, wanting to pay tribute to the ultimate 80′s cult band, the Nails (or the less classic “88 lines about 44 Simpsons“). But when the dust settled I only came up with 58 [...]
Lens Genealogy Part 1
by Roger Cicala
In which I begin to answer the question “Why Do You Put the Lens Diagrams on Your Website?” Where do new lens designs come from? I knew that today’s lenses are all designed using computer programs, but I was surprised to find new lenses aren’t designed from scratch. Designers start with an existing lens design [...]
The Apocalypse of Lens Dust
by Roger Cicala
Apocalypse (from the Greek apokálypsis; “lifting of the veil” or “revelation”): An event involving destruction or damage on an awesome or catastrophic scale. A disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind. How appropriate the word apocalypse is for this little article. At least once a week I see a post somewhere from a fairly inexperienced [...]