Lens News

High-quality 10mm ultra-wideangle f/2.0 lens for way less than 200 bucks? Are you serious? We took a hard look at TTArtisan's $159 all-metal 10mm f/2 ASPH manual-manual lens for APS-C format cameras. Here's what we think.

Ricoh recently announced a 24-70mm high-performance K-mount lens for PENTAX DSLR cameras. The HD PENTAX-D FA 24-70mm f/2.8 ED SDM WR lens offers a versatile focal length range and weather-resistant design that makes it ideal for a wide variety of applications—from wedding, portraiture and sports, to nature, landscape and travel. 

There are two types of fisheye: circular and diagonal. The Rokinon 8mm f/3.5 Aspherical Fisheye Lens is of the diagonal type, delivering a rectangular image with cropped-sensor lenses. The lens I worked with is designed for the Nikon DX (APS-C/cropped) sensor. The APS-C version provides a 180-degree field of view. Other versions are available for other “cropped-sensor” interchangeable-lens cameras, including Micro Four Thirds. My tests were conducted using the Nikon D300.

Rokinon's new Xeen is a pro level cine lens system with a surprisingly affordable price tag, for this type of video quality and performance. The Xeen system includes three lenses: 24mm, 50mm, and 85mm.

Nikon COOLPIX L830
The COOLPIX L830 is an ergonomically designed high-ratio zoom camera with a 3” high-resolution tilt LCD monitor. It features a 34x optical zoom range plus a 68x Dynamic Fine Zoom (an enhanced type of digital zoom) range and a 16MP backside illuminated (BSI) CMOS sensor. It records Full HD (1080p) video, even in low light, and reduces the danger of camera shake with the aid of the Lens-shift Vibration Reduction (VR) system. The L830 model’s intelligent features include Easy Auto mode and Smart Portrait System as well as 18 Scene modes and a selection of special effects. The model is available in black and red and has a retail price of $299.95.

There are plenty of bargains out there for older lenses that can be mounted directly on modern cameras, or by using an affordable adapter depending upon the specific brands. And not only are these vintage options cheap, but sometimes they outperform their modern counterparts in term of imaging characteristics and build quality.

Korean lens manufacturer Samyang has announced a new 135mm f/2.0 ED UMC len. The lens,  which will be available in The lens in Canon, Nikon, Sony E and MFT mounts, is a full frame compatible, prime telephoto lens with a fast f/2.0 aperture and 11 elements in 7 groups.