Category Archives: Opinion

Guides, lenses, Opinion

Sony FE Lenses: The honest Guide for the A7/A9/A1 Series

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Choose the right lens for your Sony Alpha with the help of our independent knowledge gained by writing many in-depth reviews.

We are a team of five photographers who all use the FE system and this blog is focused on lens reviews. So we have an in-depth knowledge of these lenses not only because we use them all the time but also because we have reviewed many of them in detail. We are also independent from any lens manufacturer and when you check our reviews you will see that we do not hesitate to name any shortcomings of a lens.
We will also talk about lens aberrations, if you don’t know too much about these terms maybe have a look at our article Lens aberrations explained first.

In this article we mainly list lenses which have electronic contacts to communicate aperture and focal length to the camera. There are also quite a few lenses which have an E-mount but no electronic contacts. Most of these are SLR-lenses with a modified mount and  we decided against covering these because we think that most of them are not very attractive lenses. We do however cover some of the attractive ones that have been specifically designed for E-mount.

We do also have guides for:
9-18mm ultra wideangle FE lenses
20-28mm wide angle lenses
35mm FE lenses
50mm FE lenses
85-135mm FE portrait lenses
Macro lenses for the FE system
That may contain some adapted/exotic options not listed here.

If we have left any question unanswered please leave a comment or contact us on social media and we will do our best to answer it.

Last update: June 2023, Sigma 14mm 1.4,7Artisans 15mm 4.0, Viltrox 16mm 1.8, Sigma 17mm 4.0 and Laowa 28mm 1.2 added

Continue reading Sony FE Lenses: The honest Guide for the A7/A9/A1 Series →

Meta, Opinion, The creative process

The complexity of deciding which lenses to pack

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Introduction

Now I have way more lenses than anyone possibly needs – luckily this was listed as kind of a requirement in the job description here –  but when that is the case it also gets more difficult to decide what lenses to bring on a trip or an assignment. Going by the discussions in the forums I participate, and on our Discord, it seems I am not alone here.
A community member said it would be interesting to know about my thought process of deciding which lenses to bring on a trip, so here we are.

My approach

These days I often build my kit around lenses that still need to be reviewed. This will also heavily influence what cameras I pick. But let’s forget about that for now and keep it to the lenses I actually own.

ms-optics ms-optical apoqualia 35mm 1.4 fast noctilux angenieux leica m10 24mp 42mp review sharpness bokeh vignetting
Leica M6 | MS-Optics 35mm 1.4 Apoqualia | f/2.0 | Gold 200

Continue reading The complexity of deciding which lenses to pack →

Analogue, Leica M, Meta, Mr. Ding Studio, MS-Optics, Opinion, Techart, TTArtisan, Zhong Yi

Review Highlights of 2022

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Introduction

laowa 35mm 0.95 worlds fastest lens review bokeh 42mp 61mp laowa venus optics venuslens fullframe contrast resolution bokeh optical vignetting fall off
Sony A7III | Laowa 35mm 0.95 | f/0.95

Having reviewed a lot of things this year I thought it might be a good idea to mention this year’s highlights, giving them some well deserved spotlight.

Unfortunately there was also a noticeable amount of junk I reviewed, so this list ended up being a bit short.

Continue reading Review Highlights of 2022 →

Analogue, Leica, Leica M, Opinion, Projects, Voigtlander

Analogue Adventures – Part 7: Cinestill 800T

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Introduction

cinestill 800t tungsten kodak vision 3 cinefilm c41
Cinestill 800T

When looking for a higher ISO color film in 2022 – especially one for shooting under artifical light without the need for additional color correction filters – the Cinestill 800T is pretty much without competition. But there are a few things to be aware of, so let’s have a closer look.
Processing and scanning was done at urbanfilmlab in Germany.
The pictures you see in this article are from 2 rolls.

cinestill 800t 800 tungsten cinefilm kodak vision 3 review m6 leica analogue analog
Leica M6 | MS-Optics 50mm 1.0 ISM | f/2.0 | Cinestill 800T
cinestill 800t 800 tungsten cinefilm kodak vision 3 review m6 leica analogue analog
Leica M6 | Cinestill 800T | MS-Optics 50mm 1.0 ISM | f/1.4
cinestill 800t 800 tungsten cinefilm kodak vision 3 review m6 leica analogue analog
Leica M6 | Cinestill 800T | Voigtländer VM 28mm 2.0 | f/2.0
cinestill 800t 800 tungsten cinefilm kodak vision 3 review m6 leica analogue analog
Leica M6 | Cinestill 800T | MS-Optics 50mm 1.0 ISM | f/1.4
cinestill 800t 800 tungsten cinefilm kodak vision 3 review m6 leica analogue analog
Leica M6 | MS-Optics 50mm 1.0 ISM | f/1.4 | Cinestill 800T
cinestill 800t 800 tungsten cinefilm kodak vision 3 review m6 leica analogue analog
Leica M6 | Cinestill 800T | MS-Optics 50mm 1.0 ISM | f/1.4

Continue reading Analogue Adventures – Part 7: Cinestill 800T →

Meta, Opinion, photography, The creative process

Bokeh Explained

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Introduction

ttartisan 50mm 1.4 m m-mount leica m10 sony a7riii a7riv sharpness bokeh resolution contrast review
Leica M10 | TTArtisan 50mm 1.4 | f/1.4

The bokeh quality – or a lens’ rendering for that matter – is probably one of the most discussed and maybe also most important aspects of a (fast) lens. While many people think only the focal length and the maximum aperture are important, there is actually much more to it, as I will try to show you in this article. This knowledge may also aid you in finding the best lens for your specific needs.

Sony A7rII with metabones Leica-M adapter and MS-Optics Aporis 135mm 2.4 bokeh loca
Sony A7rII | MS-Optics Aporis 135mm 2.4 | f/2.4

There are two main things to consider here: bokeh quantity and bokeh quality, which we will both have a look at.

Continue reading Bokeh Explained →