You’ve heard of autofocus lenses, and you’ve heard of manual focus lenses, but what about lenses that are a little of both? Laowa’s new 180mm F4.5 1.5x Ultra Macro APO is a first for me – it’s an autofocus lens…
Sigma has been releasing one hit after another in 2025, and it feels like a full time job just to keep up with all the new lenses. This most recent tranche of lenses has a number of huge releases: the…
Each one of Viltrox’s Pro series lenses have proven to be serious disruptors in the lens market. The 75mm F1.2 set the bar from what was optically achievable in a fast APS-C telephoto, while the 27mm F1.2 proved to be…
About five weeks I reviewed the new Viltrox 15mm F1.7 from their AIR series, and while I was researching competitors for that lens I realized that Sigma didn’t have anything wider than 16mm in their APS-C prime lenses specifically designed…
In 2024 TTArtisan released their first full frame lens in the form of the AF 75mm F2, which I gave a largely positive review here. It offered a compact size, nice build, and good performance in an inexpensive package. Autofocus…
Sigma is on a roll. They have essentially saturated the market with both traditional focal lengths and then more extreme prime and zoom lenses, often releasing focal length and aperture combinations previously unseen on Sony E and Leica L. But…
Viltrox’s AIR series has become a favorite of a lot of APS-C photographers for a very good reason. These lenses have all punched way above their weight optically, and while the build formula is simple, these have all been very…
Samyang is back…but now they are LK Samyang. My first LK Samyang lens in over two years was of the Schneider-Kreuznach x LK Samyang 14-24mm F2.8 FE. Just two months later, however, LK Samyang reached out to me to look…
It was just a few months ago that I happily gave the Schneider-Kreuznach x LK Samyang 14-24mm F2.8 FE a positive review. It had been two full years since I had done a Samyang review. That was long enough that…
Tamron has proven to be one of the most successful designers of zoom lenses in the modern era. They are the largest third party lensmaker in the world (in 2025), and part of that is because there are actually a…
The very first lens I reviewed from Laowa was their 12mm F2.8 Zero D wide angle prime, which I reviewed at the end of 2016 on Canon EF mount. I ended up buying that lens later on, though actually to…
All of Nikon’s Z-mount F1.2 S lenses are extreme instruments. They are big, heavy, and expensive…not for the faint of heart. But if you’re interested in premium performance (and you have a strong back), they are delivering uniquely amazing results.…
The company Kase has long been known as a filter maker, with a wide variety of filters and filter systems. But they have just released their first lens, and it is a surprisingly ambitious one. The Kase AF 85mm F1.4…
No modern camera company does “vibes” quite like Fuji (well, maybe Leica, but that’s a whole other level of customer). It’s not unusual for a new Fuji camera (particularly X100 series) to be sold out not just for months but…
I noted in my recent review of the Nikkor Z 50mm F1.8 S that Nikon’s marketing strategy at the typical prime focal lengths (35mm, 50mm, and 85mm) is a bit unconventional. In the past the usual strategy was entry level…