Category Archives: Meta

Meta, Review

Reviewing Lenses isn’t really worth it

54 Comments

It is this time of the year again. I sadly see many blogs loading their pages with so much advertising these days that it makes it hard to spot the actual content anymore. Some also opted for membership programs like Patreon. We on the other hand always financed this blog exclusively through unobtrusive affiliate links and donations. This is only possible because it is a passion project by people with actual jobs that just happen to love photography.

I still have no intention to add annoying adverts or introducing a membership/Patreon system, as I have always been an advocate of free internet and freely accessible information. I also don’t want to push junk software with high margins that I would never want to use myself or offer questionably useful presets.

This means I have to push this article 1-2 times per year – similar to what Wikipedia is doing every now and then – to reach more people.

There are many articles here that generate zero income: for example the Analogue Adventures and everything from the Technical Knowledge category, as these are not really about a product that could be bought by you. Same is also true for the reviews of simply bad lenses. Why would you buy them through affiliate links if we just told you they suck? 

Affiliate links also don’t work for everyone and every item. If you are not from Canada or the US, B&H is surely less attractive. Many people from Europe don’t like ordering directly from Asia because of import duties and some items may also not be available through our affiliate partners at all.

Thinking of reviews of affordable vintage lenses: if you buy a lens for $50 on eBay, we only get a $1 commission for that. So in these cases, you would do us a bigger favour by donating $5 and buying that lens at a lower price locally (if possible), than using the affiliate links.

If you find yourself in one of these categories – or if you simply want to support us without using affiliate links – you can do that by using this Paypal donate button under our articles:

via Paypal (BastianK)
via Paypal (Martin)

The money you donate will go directly to the author of that article. Even though the blog had two million visitors last year according to our statistics, only around 100 decided to make a donation (you know who you are, thanks a lot for that!), so you can make a real difference here.

And if you often find yourself ordering from one of our affiliates: why not bookmark and use any of our Amazon or eBay links as starting point for your purchases? It won’t cost you anything extra and helps us a lot. It doesn’t matter what you order, whether it is photography related or not, as long as you clicked on one of the links first.

Some articles highlighting the work we do here you might have missed:
Different Filter Stacks and what they mean for us: Sony E | Nikon Z | Leica M | Kolari UT
Comparison: Super Fast 35mm f/0.95 | f/1.2 Fullframe Lenses
Sony FE Lenses: The honest Guide for the A7/A9/A1 Series

And some quirky and rare lenses you won’t find being reviewed this thorough anywhere else:
Review: TTArtisan 75mm f/1.5 – A Modern and Affordable Zeiss Biotar 75/1.5?
Review: Laowa 8-15mm f/2.8 FF Zoom Fisheye
Review: SLRmagic 50mm 0.95 Hyperprime LM
Review: Nikon 200mm 2.0 IF-ED Ai – The first of its Kind

Meta

Site Update: Gallery

9 Comments

The header bar has a new category called “Gallery”, you can also go there directly here.

This is for those of you that are mainly here for the pictures and less so for the lenses. I am starting with 9 different galleries and before extending those, I first want to see what the feedback looks like. 

So drop a message in the comment section, especially if you encounter any kind of issues.

Meta

Recent Updates and Upcoming Content

8 Comments

Recent Updates

Those that are part of our Discord community are always up to date what is coming next, for those that are not I put together this small summary.

Over the past weeks I have been updating all these guides once more. This is always a lot of work and not a lot of fun, so I hope you continue to find them useful. It is also the ideal moment now to complain that your favorite lens is not included 🙂

Some time ago I also removed the FE list from the header bar, as it hadn’t been updated in 6 years. To my surprise no one complained about it, so I guess no one is missing it.

Upcoming Content

There are many exciting reviews to be released in the coming weeks and months. We have received some extremely promising unreleased lenses, where we have to wait with publishing their reviews until they are finally being officially released – which sometimes can take several months.

nikon 58mm 1.2 ai ai-s f/1.2 noct fast 1977 reportage press review 42mp sony nikon z 61mp z6 z7 z8 z9 a7riv a7rv contrast sharpness bokeh vignetting portrait coma
Sony A7III | Nikon 58mm 1.2 Ai Noct-Nikkor | f/1.2

There will also be new reviews of affordable as well as expensive and exotic lenses from different decades.

The Analogue Adventures will also continue. Some new film stocks hit the market, but I will also be having a look at many discontinued ones, especially slide films. This is mainly thanks to two of our readers, who tracked down plenty of these for me.

Supporting Us

This website is advertising free, except for the unobtrusive affiliate links. Please have a look at some of our competitors (e.g. opticallimits, cameralabs, dustinabbott or sonyalpha.blog) and ask yourself if that is the user experience you are looking for, where you cannot change the page even once without a pop up showing up, you have advert bars at the bottom or side and ads are even being scattered across the actual content, so you are more likely to accidentally click on them.

If not, keep in mind you can support us and keep this page advert free by using these donation buttons:

via Paypal (BastianK)
via Paypal (Martin)

Meta, Nikon

Call out to readers: Looking for a Nikon Z 35mm 1.2 S

16 Comments

Dear readers,

I plan on doing a comparison of super fast 35mm fullframe lenses (very similar to my comparisons of Super Fast 50mm M-mount lenses and Fast 28mm lenses) and I already gathered the Sigma 35mm 1.2 DG DN Art, Samyang 35mm 1.2 XP, Voigtländer VM 35mm 1.2 Nokton III, Laowa 35mm 0.95 Argus and a new unreleased 35mm 1.2 AF lens.

I would love to include the recently announced Nikon Z 35mm 1.2 S in this comparison, that should hit the market on February 26th. Sadly at the moment I don’t have 3.250€ lying around to just buy one (remember: reviewing lenses doesn’t make you rich).

I reached out to Nikon Marketing Germany, but I haven’t heard back from them yet and as I haven’t worked with them before and just a year ago we started doing Nikon reviews on a bigger scale I doubt I will.

So if someone among you (preferably from Germany) has a Nikon Z 35mm 1.2 S on preorder it would be great if you would consider sending it to me first for a week, as then I could include it in that comparison, which would be a great service to the community.

I know chances are slim, but I also know we have a great community, so I am taking my chances here.

Just leave a comment to get in contact!

Thanks in advance
Bastian