Lens Reviews

Few things are as exciting as using a brand new lens for the first time. To photographers, a new lens is like an empty canvas to an artist, or a fresh storyline to a novelist. Fortunately, despite the unsettled tenor of the world situation, 2020 has witnessed an outstanding and diverse collection of exceptional lenses.

Shutterbug once again worked with EISA, the world’s largest independent collection of magazines and websites focusing on consumer electronics, to select the ten best lenses of 2020. Here are our choices. As a voting member of EISA, Shutterbug helped choose these outstanding lenses, which we feel are the best you can buy right now.

Our choices for the ten best lenses you can buy in 2020 run the gamut from super wideangle to super telephoto, and one thing is certain: not one of them will disappoint you. So, take a look at our choices for the ten best lenses of 2020 below (with links to where you can purchase them) and find something amazing to start shooting with today.

Just introduced, the compact Tamron 70-300mm f/4.5-6.3 Di III RXD zoom for Sony full-frame mirrorless cameras has an affordable ($549) price tag. It’s eighth in the series of Tamron lenses made specifically for Sony E-Mount cameras, and it’s the world's smallest and lightest telezoom in its class.

We love lenses, especially lenses we can buy at a loveable price. Here are five lenses that are high quality and inexpensive.

Tamron recently released a fast, compact 70-180mm f/2.8 zoom lens for Sony mirrorless full-frame E-mount cameras. It’s billed as the most compact and lightest f/2.8 telephoto zoom lens in its class. We had a chance to test this lens on a Sony Alpha a7RII camera. Here is what we found.

Making a lens sharp and acceptably free of aberrations is hard. Very hard. Making a lens that can be both tack-sharp and intentionally soft, pleasantly unsharp and able to exploit the native beauty of certain optical aberrations is even harder. Then there’s Lensbaby.

Have you heard about Sigma’s lineup of fast, affordable f/1.4 prime lenses for Canon M, Sony E and Micro Four Thirds cameras? The set includes the 16mm f/1.4, 30mm f/1.4 and 56mm f/1.4. Here’s a specifications review that features images by world renowned photographer and Sigma Ambassador Jim Koepnick.

I’m a film dinosaur—about 40% of the pictures I shoot are made on black-and white film, and my favorite analog cameras range in age from 50-100 years. For the remaining 60%, I shoot digitally, sometimes with a vintage lens attached to help capture a "retro" look.