Category: Sony accessories & lenses

Lens repair

You must not be too easily frightened to go and reapir your own photographic lenses. But with some patience, some tidiness and a lot of concentration… This is exactly what Fredy Willette of Alpha-Numérique teaches us in his article Réparation d’un problème d’engrenage sur un objectif non motorisé (Google English translation).

Sony opens the NEX lens specification

Sony has announced officially and publicly that they are going to completely share the specifications for NEX series lenses. It will become possible for third-party lens manufacturers to create optical products for the Sony NEX hybrid mirror-less photo cameras. Here is very good news for the Sony customers. But it’s even better when we read…

News for the Sony A77

The interview that Mark Weir, Senior Manager of Technology and Marketing at Sony Electronics, gave to Imaging Resource is choke full of relatively precise informations about what will be the Alpha 77 (forecasted successor to the Sony Alpha 700, as high-end for the APS-C sensor SLR photo cameras for Sony). You may read it all,…

Minolta APO white lenses

Best Sony SLR lenses for wildlife photo

When Sony first entered the SLR market in 2006, not many people were sure it would be a successful move for a company with a no significant reputation outside of the compact point-n-shoot world of cameras. However, they drew a bold ace by buying the assets of Konica-Minolta (essentially all SLR photography assets for Minolta).…

Sony: A toast to absent friends!

When they presented the new Sony Alpha 560 and Sony Alpha 580, yesterday, Sony published a family photo for the two Alpha and NEX ranges. Nobody is missing. But two products are obviously absent: The Sony Alpha 700 has been removed completely from the photo. There no longer is any 500mm f/8 mirror tele-lens (which…

Photography, so many failures!

photo credit: davidgsteadman When buying a photo camera, we often research in order to decide if this is the best camera, if its features will be goo enough, but will it be robust enough? Will it be useful or necessary to purchase a warranty contract extension? Will it fail very soon? When somebody asks me…

A fish-eye lens at rock-bottom price

When you use an expensive SLR camera you are often tempted to purchase a specialty lens like a ultra-wide angle (fish eye) lens. But, apart from the rare occasions when you really need it, it’s too expensive for you and me. Why not build it yourself? Instructables does the demonstration with a Nikon D90, but…

Focal length and photo lenses

Tamron rewrote its web site. This was the occasion to move the Lens Comparison Tool but it is still useful to compare a 400mm with a 500mm (or a 35mm with a 50mm). But you can also find a similar tool at Olympus (and it takes into account the specificities of 4/3 sensor format, of…

Upcoming Sony Alpha 800

PhotoRumors is telling us about an anonymous leak describing a possible new Sony Alpha 800 with the following features: 16.2 MP full frame sensor EXMOR R (new technology) 100-25600 ISO 8 frame/sec SSI, same a900 OVF, new AF system, GPS and WiFi built-in 3.5″ LCD display Pop-up flash Flash sync: 1/500s Camera level 23 AF sensors…

All lens tests are wrong

I recommend reading a nice little post titled “All lens tests are wrong” that concludes that the only good test for a lens is to use it during a full year. Not wrong, but I still recommend to also check my list of web sites with photo lens reviews.

Comparison of 80-200mm zooms

DPreview has a good comparison of 4 zoom lenses opening at f/2.8 for SLR cameras: Canon 70-200mm F2.8 L IS USM Nikon AF-S VR 70-200mm F2.8 G Sigma 70-200mm 1:2.8 EX DG Apo Macro HSM II Tamron 70-200mm 1:2.8 Di LD (IF) Macro Since they are one of the most coveted segment of the SLR…

Web sites for lens reviews

It is often difficult to group lens reviews in order to compare/evaluate a little more than their mere physical characteristics (focal length, aperture/diaphragm, or even number of individual lenses). But how would you evaluate/review optical quality? When I see the really impressive differences between two lenses, I would be prepared to judge from their price,…

Super-zoom from Sony

We were waiting for it, we were speaking about it, we were murmuring. Here it comes. Sony just let some information leak about their new super-tele-lens to complete an already rather rich list of good quality lenses: All the details about the Sony 70-400mm f/4-5.6 G SSM are in the original post on Roumazeilles.net.