Lens News

Canon kicked off its once-every-five-years Canon Expo 2015 show in New York City yesterday where the Tokyo-based company pulled back the curtain on some potentially ground-breaking imaging technology. Shutterbug was on hand for the event, which is part science lab and part marketing showcase, along with thousands of buyers, dealers, and distributors of Canon products eager to see what the company has up its sleeve.

Tamron has annouced two intriguing new prime lenses: the Tamron SP 35mm f/1.8 Di VC USD and a 45mm f/1.8 Di VC USD. Both lenses offer close focus (7.9 and 11.4 in. respectively) and both are compatible with full-frame and APS-C sensor DSLR cameras.

Lensbaby Spark: This lens is ideal for young enthusiasts, students or beginner photographers who want to break out of traditional photography. The Spark is a fun, affordable way to capture selective focus images with your DSLR camera. It features a unique selective focus optic and a tilting lens body—allowing users to capture creative images in-camera that have a sweet spot of focus surrounded by blur. It is an all plastic (except for multi-coated glass doublet optic) 50mm selective focus lens with a f/5.6 fixed aperture made for use with for Canon and Nikon DSLRs. Spark is compatible with the rest of the optics in the Optic Swap System, and with all Lensbaby 37mm threaded accessory lenses. The suggested retail price is $89.95. 

My wide-angle lens was perfect when the late-evening shadows crept across the mountains of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The sweeping landscape, wide open and treeless, was suited to the wide field of view. Until, that is, the weather turned, and with it, my perspective on that wild place. I woke one morning to rain pattering intermittently on the nylon of my tent. Between showers, I emerged to find the mountains obscured by scudding clouds.

Kenko Tokina has introduced the new Hoya HD3 series of pro photographic filters. The HD3 UV and Circular Polarizer filters are designed to give photographers the ability to capture high-quality images in extreme settings without loss of color balance, contrast, or clarity due to adverse environmental conditions.

A lens aficionado once told me, “the more reach you have, the more you want.” This remark, of course, was directed at the wide array of telephoto lenses available today for outdoor photographers and their obsession with getting up close and personal with wildlife.

Tamron has introduced a new telephoto lens capable of zooming from 18 to 200mm and made for use with APS-C DSLR cameras. The Tamron 18-200mm F/3.5-6.3 Di II VC lens (B018) is the successor to the 18-200mm F/3.5-6.3 XR Di II LD Aspherical (IF) macro lens (A14). Incorporating image stabilization, the 18-200mm VC is designed to deliver great image quality and is the lightest zoom in its class.