For a long time, third-party optics usually meant compromise somewhere, but in 2024, does that apply anymore? Is it possible for a photographer to be perfectly happy shooting with, for example, Sigma lenses and nothing else?
Hoya Corporation, a vast optics company known in the photography community for its lens filters, experienced a cyberattack last week that continues to disrupt its production and fulfillment systems.
Unistellar is bringing its Smart Solar Filter to the Odyssey line of telescopes with plenty of time to spare ahead of the highly anticipated solar eclipse hits North America this spring.
If you've watched PetaPixel's YouTube reviews or read our written reviews, you might have heard or seen some strange terms. LoCA? Bokeh? Ghosting? Breathing? Field curvature? What do they mean?
Metalenz, a maker of flat "meta-optic" lenses for 3D imaging, has launched its metasurface optics technology on the open market in partnership with semiconductor foundry United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC).
Unistellar has announced a new Smart Solar Filter for use with its smart telescopes, allowing them to be able to photograph the sun and observe sunspots in real-time.
ShiftCam's LensUltra smartphone lenses are the world's first to be crafted with fluorite, which the company says provides photographers with "unmatched clarity" and "enhanced bokeh."
The French photo software company DxO has released an update to its Optics Modules that it says will give photographers the best possible performance from their camera and lens combinations, correcting lens imperfections and softness with "unparalleled precision".
Nikon has announced that it has invested a financial stake in Unistellar SAS, a France-based smart telescope company. Nikon says that it hopes the investment will promote "the creation of business synergies" for both companies.
When Sony and Sigma released lenses with nearly identical specifications (or at least nearly identical target customers), photographic gear scheduling marked a rare alignment. Photographically speaking, the concurrent launch of these two similar lenses is the equivalent of a full solar eclipse—incredibly rare and also amazing to see.
The team from Syrp Lab decided to find out what the difference would be between a photo lens and a cinema lens -- and which looks more "cinematic" and why.
If you've ever noticed an unsightly colored fringe or halo on objects in your photographs, you've seen chromatic aberration. It's a common problem in photography and can detract from an otherwise good image. Fortunately, there are ways to minimize or even eliminate it, both before you hit the shutter button and after when editing your picture.
In recent years, some lens designers have updated their lenses with new lens coatings. For instance, Pentax's newest limited lenses feature an existing optical design with only a few improvements, including a better lens coating.
Canon has updated its augmented reality headset in the new MREAL X1. It has a wider viewing angle along with the ability to fuse real-life scenes with computer-generated elements in real-time.
MS Optics has added the Sonnetair 50mm f/1.3 to its lens catalog and like most of its lens designs, it has an old-school 60s vibe that screams a vintage look and buttery bokeh.
Optics 2022 from Boris FX brings some seriously impressive special effects (SFX) tools like color grades, easy masking, and impressive lighting effects in a package that can be used as a stand-alone application or as a plugin for Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom Classic.
Academy award-winning software developer Boris FX has launched a new version of the Optics plugin for Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom Classic that the company says will add "the same high-end cinematic look and effects to photos that the film and television industry has relied on for over twenty years."
Meyer Optik Görlitz has announced that it has opened a new manufacturing facility in Hamburg, Germany. This new lens factory welcomes visitors, will expand to include a showroom, and will be used to produce new lenses for global distribution.
The focal length of lenses doesn't cause perspective distortion, which is often explained as "lens compression." Period. Now before you call me crazy and dismiss whatever I have to say, I’d like to invite you to take a dive into how lenses work and what actually causes perspective distortion.
Corning has announced a new Gorilla Glass brand glass composite that is designed specifically for use in smartphone cameras and claims it has a unique combination of advanced optical performance, superior scratch resistance, and durability.
Nikon has partnered with telescope brand Unistellar -- a self-described astronomy disruptor -- to advance telescope technology for consumer applications and bring the average enthusiast "closer to space."
Researchers from the University of Ottawa have developed a concept that would reduce the size of lenses by a huge margin and effectively eliminate the size of modern optics if combined with a metalens. The team tackled not lens elements themselves, but instead the space between them.
Photographer Michael Shainblum is has shared multiple videos and tutorials about landscape photography and in two recent uploads, he juxtaposes what can be done with two different perspectives -- wide-angle versus telephoto -- in a very familiar environment.
Leica is further diversifying its portfolio or partnerships into a new home theater projector manufactured by JMGO. The two companies originally teamed up in 2020 and the new JMGO O1 Pro is the first fruit of that partnership.
If you've heard of Fresnel lenses in photography before but have no idea what they are or how they work, here's a fantastic short primer. In this 3.5-minute video, physicist David G. Willey (AKA the Mad Scientist) explains the science behind the lens style using a simple and easy-to-understand model on a blackboard.
Kenko Tokina has announced that it has entered a business alliance with Carl Zeiss in Japan. Starting on April 1, Tokina will take over the sales and repair of all Carl Zeiss interchangeable photo lenses.
Using physical glass elements for camera lenses has been at the core of imaging technology for centuries, but MIT engineers have now fabricated a new "metalens" that can focus on objects at multiple depths without changing its physical position or shape.
A team of engineers at MIT and the University of Massachusetts at Lowell have created something that, on the surface, seems impossible: they've designed a 180° fisheye lens from a single, 1mm-thin piece of calcium fluoride glass that is completely flat.
It's common knowledge that most lenses are at their best (i.e. sharpest) between f/5.6 and f/8, depending on the lens. But why is that? Why does stopping down further actually make the image softer? This is what YouTuber ZY Productions explains in the video above.
My name is Mike Keesling, and I have what I think is an interesting perspective on image creation and I wanted to share it with you.
Engineer and YouTuber Ben Krasnow over at Applied Science has put together a fascinating little optical demonstration that explains the physics behind 'hypercentric' optics and how they allow you to see around and behind objects. He even shows you how to build your own.
Since I first started camera scanning, I've always advocated using the highest resolution camera you can get ahold of. (My first camera scans were with the 1.3-megapixel Nikon E2n, so it's been a long road.) That advice is changing.
Over the past few years, I've experienced a number of lenses that were optically stunning. Near-perfect examples of optical technology, lenses like the Sony 135mm f/1.8 (which I reviewed and loved) and 24mm f/1.4 (also loved) along with the Canon RF 28-70mm f/2 or their RF 50mm f/1.2 all exhibited these traits of pushing towards "perfection."
Schlieren imaging is a fairly standard optical technique for visualizing heat, sound, or pressure differences in air. Technically, a schlieren system is able to see clear disturbances in air due to slight differences in the speed of light in the air. The technique can be sensitive enough to see the heat rising off a human hand at room temperature.
Well-known (and controversial) photographer and gear reviewer Ken Rockwell recently put together a fascinating video that is probably best described as a crash course in Nikon lens history. The video covers 100 years worth of Nikon's optical heritage, from the company's original rangefinder glass all the way to the latest lenses for the brand new Z-mount.
A team of researchers from the University of Utah have made a major breakthrough in optics by developing a new kind of flat lens that's only ten microns thick, making it "a thousand times thinner than regular lenses." And apparently, it doesn't sacrifice performance.
A couple of weeks ago, we shared some photos of the world's largest optical lens, which had just been shipped to the SLAC laboratory in Menlo Park, CA, where it would be joined with the world's largest digital camera. Unfortunately, we obviously weren't actually there for the reveal of this record breaking lens, but YouTube channel Physics Girl was.
I was excited when Canon and Nikon finally stepped into the mirrorless game seriously more seriously, releasing their full-frame mirrorless cameras in 2018. Nikon launched their Z6 and Z7 with the new Z-Mount, while Canon released the EOS-R with a new RF-Mount.
When you look through your viewfinder and things seem a little bit blurry or lacking definition, it's probably because you are using an “el cheapo” lens. So you read reviews and buy a much more expensive lens, and what do you do next?
Researchers have created the first "metalens" that can focus the entire visible spectrum of light onto a single point in high resolution. The breakthrough brings metalenses one step closer towards replacing bulky camera lenses with much smaller chips.