Lens News

Amazon Prime members – and you know who you are – you have until Wednesday at 2:59 am ET (or 11:59pm Tuesday PT) to take advantage of all the great photography gear deals out there for Amazon Prime Day.

One of the most misunderstood and overlooked of photo accessories is, without a doubt, the lowly lens hood. At best, most photographers simply take lens hoods for granted. At worst, they leave them in their camera bags where they serve no purpose except to take up valuable space where you could be storing filters or extra batteries.

While the main body of my work has been with lenses such as the 24mm fixed, wide angles, and mainly my trusty 16-35mm zoom, I have often found myself wanting a long zoom for the scenes that present themselves along the way. It’s not that I am unwilling or just plain lazy to get closer—a long zoom, like the recently released Tamron 100-400mm, simply changes the way I see and helps me explore other visual options.

Nikon announced this morning that it is developing the AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR, an FX-format (aka full frame) fixed focal length super-telephoto lens, which the company says will “strike the ideal combination of portability and performance.” Nikon did not release images of this upcoming lens; the photo above is of the AF-S Nikkor 500mm f/4E FL ED VR lens from 2015 for reference.

Just the good stuff, according to us.

Yes, this seemed counterintuitive to us too but it’s actually pretty clever. Photographer Pierre T. Lambert, who we have featured on Shutterbug.com many times, has a neat trick that will help you capture unique photos: put something in front of your lens.

What is the best lens for portrait photography? That is an eternal debate amongst photographers, one that pro portrait shooter Manny Ortiz has jumped into with the below video.