Canon shook up the photography equipment rental space last Wednesday when the company announced that Canon Singapore would soon be launching a lens-rental program of its own, dubbed “Try and Buy.” Overlooking the slightly presumptuous name, the program will allow pros and amateurs alike a chance to try out lenses that might otherwise land beyond the boarders of their budget. Read more…
Newer Leica lenses have a special lens code on the mount flange of each lens that informs the camera of what’s mounted on it, and allows lens-related EXIF data to be embedded inside photographs. If you have an older Leica lens or a third-party lens on your hands, you might not have this special code, but did you know that you can apply the code manually to a code-less lens using black and white paint?
La Vida Leica! has published a tutorial showing how simple the process is: it only takes around $15 and 15 minutes to do.
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A Nikon Repair Center based in Taiwan reports that it recently repaired a damaged Nikkor lens by boiling it. The lens, an $1,800 Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8, had been accidentally dropped into the ocean and damaged by salt water.
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Sick and tired of your white Canon L lens clashing with your black lens hood? No? Oh well, Vello‘s new line of lens hoods probably isn’t meant for you. The maker of 3rd party Canon lens hoods has launched three new lens hoods that come in white to match the color of Canon’s high-end telephoto lenses.
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Big focal length usually translates into big money. If you don’t have thousands to spend on a high-quality far-reaching super-telephoto lens, the fine folks over at Screaming Tree Films came up with this 800mm Frankenlens that’ll only make your wallet around $100 lighter (as opposed to thousands).
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Launched in 1992 and discontinued in 1996, Nikon’s Nikonos RS was considered one of the best underwater photography solutions back in the 90s. The cameras and the 50mm f/2.8 macro, 28mm, 13mm fisheye, and 20-35mm lenses still sell for relatively high prices these days. Unfortunately for Nikon enthusiasts, the RS mount lenses were not compatible with F mount cameras… until now.
Underwater photographer Andrej Belic spent over a decade dreaming of using an RS lens on his Nikon DSLR, and over the past year he was able to get the combo working.
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Apparently if you shoot in certain environments that are cold enough, beautiful patterns of snow and ice form on the front element of your lens. This is what photographer Alessandro Della Bella‘s glass looked like as he was shooting at an altitude of around 10,000 feet on Mount Titlis in temperatures of around 1° F.
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Check out this DSLR Paparazzi lamp, created by Spanish design studio Monoculo Design Studio. It’s a wooden hanging lamp that’s shaped like a gigantic Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 camera lens.
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Lens caps are a great solution for protecting the front element of lenses when they’re not in use, but can be misplaced when you take them off. On the other hand, screw-on lens filters are a great solution for protecting the lens’ glass as well, but they introduce an additional layer of glass between your camera and the world. Is there a middle ground?
At the CP+ trade show in Japan, Kenko International is showing off a new product that aims to deliver the best of both worlds. It’s called the Flip Cap, and is a lens cap that screws on permanently, but flips out of the way when you’re using your camera.
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Freelensing. It’s been around for a while. It’s essentially the “poor man’s tilt shift.” All the technique requires is disconnecting a lens from the camera body and floating it around in front of your sensor to shift the focal plane in weird directions. It takes practice to get accurate with it, but overall the technique is pretty straightforward.
I wanted to take it a bit further.
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