Lens News

Canon made some unexpected lens news overnight: the company introduced the lightweight and compact Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM standard lens. This fixed focal length lens is designed for advanced amateur photographers and has an effective focal length of 80mm when paired with an APS-C sensor-based EOS camera such as the Canon Rebel T6i.

The reality is you can make portraits using any lens but most photographers will tell you the ideal portrait lens has a focal length in the range of 85-135mm. The first dedicated portrait lens was the 150mm f/3.3 Petzval developed in 1840, which had a 30-degree angle of view and was considerably faster than lenses of the period. It was so legendary that Lomography recently produced a new version for Canon EF- and Nikon F-mount cameras that costs $599.

Massive, exotic telephoto lenses are always fun to imagine shooting with and here’s one giant piece of glass that’s actually designed to capture rockets launches. According to the seller on eBay, the Jonel 100 2540mm F/8 Mirror Lens was used for capturing Saturn V and other similar rockets as they were launched into space.

Zeiss just launched the Batis 2/25 and 1.8/85 lenses, which are are the first full-frame autofocus lenses with an OLED display for Sony's mirrorless E-mount A7 camera series.

In the market for a new Canon lens? Now could be a good time to buy. Canon announced yesterday it has slashed the prices on 33 of its high-end EF L series lenses.

Some photo assignments require you to bring out the big guns. And when it comes to digital photography, there are few bigger guns than medium format systems. More digital SLR users have been making the jump to medium format now that several new models are equipped with CMOS sensors that can capture relatively low-noise images at high ISOs, shoot photos more quickly, and capture HD and even 4K video. Combine these handy features with the massive amount of resolution and extremely high image quality you get from the huge imaging chips in medium format camera systems, and there’s no better time to go big. Here’s a look at the latest cameras and lenses from five major medium format brands.

Rokinon & Samyang just introduced two new high-end lenses: a 100mm F/2.8 Macro and the new Cine DS 135mm T3.1 Macro. (The Korea-based Samyang company owns the Rokinon brand.)