As some of you have noticed, beginning of 2023 I set up a Discord server for the Phillipreeve.net community and I am happy to report that there are many active members and it allowed me to be closer to the community as well.
Also some memes have been exchanged/created and I thought for those that aren’t members (yet) I will share my favorites here.
Sigma is definitely getting featured a lot, often for their questionable APO designations in the past, but sometimes also for their decisions to spend R&D money to realize very niché lenses.
Here one of our readers actually put a lot of effort to add CAs to the right side of the frame.
Unsurprisingly also Leica gets his fair share of memes.
I was thinking of the Zeiss Loxia/Touit lens caps here, but they weren’t even the ones this was aimed at.
These two I created, to showcase what reviewing lenses really looks like – contrary to popular believe.
This one is definitely true for me as well, as I am always waiting for a shipment of some new (or old) lens.
This was also created by one of our readers. You can find myself in the lower right corner.
I did the math and if all our readers (2 million per year minus bots) would spend those $255 via affiliate links, I would be a millionaire by the end of the year…
…well, until spending that money on new lenses.
I hope you enjoyed some of these, I am sure there are more to come.
Further Reading
- All Lens Reviews
- Sony FE lenses: Our Guide to Portrait Lenses
- The Best Lenses for Brenizer/Bokehpanoramas
- Review: Nikon AF 28mm 1.4D
- Review: Nikon 55mm 1.2 Ai
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That last one … I feel seen.
Always remember: if you buy an exotic lens it should be sent to me for a review first 🙂
I can’t wait to save up for an actual APO lens so I can ship it back to Germany for you to roast 😉
(In all seriousness, I find your reviews informative and amusing, and I’m not terribly attached to the (non-)performance of the bad lenses that I like to use)
I am not necessarily a fan of perfectly corrected lenses.
What I don’t like is slapping Apo tags on stuff that doesn’t deserve them and then asking astronomical prices for them 🙂
The Sigma 15mm f/1.4 Fisheye is a “niche lens” because of being ‘type-cast’ as good mainly for astrophotography, but I think this is an underestimation of its potential in combination with good defishing software (such as the latest version of ACR and/or DxO Viewpoint). I would love to see a comparison of a defished image from that lens against the same scene taken with the Laowa 9mm f/5.6 rectilinear lens. Since Bastian finds the latter lens useful, he might find the Sigma to deliver even wider and sharper images and still able to capture handheld in dim interiors with minimal distortion, vignetting, flare, and other artifacts. I have only worked on samples from DPReview, but I plan to rent the L-Mount model to shoot with my Lumix S1R in High Res capture mode.
How often do I have to tell you that you do not get a wider field of view with a defished fisheye lens than with any rectilinear shorter lens?
And the image quality of the fisheye lens will always be abyssmal compared to a rectilinear lens once defished.
Fisheye lenses make sense for:
Astrophotography (especially scientific applications)
360° panoramas (usually with the help of a tripod, so f/1.4 doesn’t seem to matter that much)
If you really like the distorted look
Plus framing with the goal of defishing is a pain… Been there, had fun with it for a bit, but I wouldn’t ever buy a FE with that as the primary use case. Now if anyone else had the live def ish option that Oly/OM has…
My experience with the Rokinon 7.5mm fisheye lens with Olympus MFT camera in 80 MP High Res capture mode then defished w/ software has been anything but “abysmal” and I rate its IQ highly. Of course, it requires proper processing techniques to get the best results. Full frame FE should be far better with Panasonic’s 187 MP High Res capture mode, and the Sigma FE lens is amazingly sharp even wide open, judging from samples on DPR. Unless you have done a direct comparison using the best defish processing techniques with a FE against a rectilinear-corrected extreme WA lens, you don’t know the potential. Have you seriously done this?
Here’s a sample on my website – go to Image #8 –
https://johngaylordphotography.com/galleries/architecture_sampler/architectural_sampler.html
I was told Germans don’t have a sense of humor, yet here we are 😂
The news at Sony Alpha Rumors is that Fuji is releasing a Medium Format 102MP X100VI-style camera, with a 35mm f/3.2 fixed lens.
Yes, you read that exactly right.
This ridiculous absurdity, should receive more scorn than Zeiss’ pointless anergonomic –sorry didn’t find a direct antonym– black brick, touted as the perfect userflow to directly upload pics to Social Media.
What the actual ffff is the application of this camera?!
A 3Lb (1.360gr) point-and-shoot camera with 200MB files that you can’t fit in any pocket, presumably überexpensive as a luxury toy exclusive for the desperate of something new to throw their cash at, and who already own a Leica Q2 and find it too low-res and passé for their glamorous lifestyle snaps?!
This is how you spend the R&D budget after your company took a hit from the recent stockmarket crash?
The only serious application for this camera that immediately comes to mind, has to be that of the proto-ape at the beginning of Kubrick’s Odyssey in Space, who finds a big enough femur to smash those proto-Tapir skulls with.
I hereby proudly nominate this uniquely superlative insult to photography, industrial design and ergonomics, for the 2024 philipreeve.net Foul Lemon Awards, in the categories of Most Useless Product and Highest Accomplishment in Waste of Time and Engineering Efforts, and for a well deserved honorary Sigma Apo Seal mention.
P.S.: Here’s my pic submission for that meme: https://popcornsg.s3.amazonaws.com/articles/1536806259-experien.jpg
Cheers!
I might have to give that award to the Leica D-Lux 8 though.
A rererelease of a 10 years old camera with less controls to reduce production cost at a higher price than the original.
They are definitely both up there, at the very summit of well earned anti-photographic disgrace. I vote for a shared 1st place for both abominations — they both certainly make the cut.
If YouTube channel photography product reviewers have an ounce of dignity, they will snub this camera, or at the very least make fun of it, but they are usually complicit in giving these shameful industry blunders a pass, by providing content and attention.
Some photo product critiques and sarcasm must be a part of consumer culture, if there’s any hope to steer clueless company and marketing departments in the right direction.
More of those memes guys, good humor is always welcome.
Cheers!
I love that know about and not know about apo meme LAMO.
I relate so much to the APO meme. I have myopia and wear eyeglasses for vision correction. I’m not able to bear with the higher refractive index materials that have lower Abbe number (and thus more chromatic aberration). The blue/yellow fringe on high contrast edges drive me nuts, but apparently most people are ok with them.
Welcome to my world…