Fotohacker » lenses

How lenses are made [video]

Jason — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 10:59:32 +0000

There’s a great show in Canada called “How It’s Made”, which airs on the Discovery Channel. They get invited onto the factory floor for all sorts of manufactured items. This video follows the process of putting together a lens on the JML Optical assembly line. As you would likely guess, the process will vary between manufacturers, but this might give you a little insight as to why those camera lenses are so expensive.

Three new lenses from Pentax

Jason — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 23:14:45 +0000

Pentax, who is steadfastly holding up against the larger camera manufacturers, has three new lenses being showcased at PMA and the Photo Imaging Expo.

The first is a 55mm f/1.4, the second is a 60-250mm f/4, and the third lens is a 17-70mm f/4. All three lenses feature the SDM ultrasonic focusing. The 55mm sounds particularly nice, since it’s a very fast lens and will give you a great amount of control over your depth-of-field.

For more information on Pentax lenses, see the Pentax site.

Nikon shows off three new lenses

Jason — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:37:03 +0000

This morning, Nikon unveiled the D60… and just shortly after, they also announced three new lenses. Two of them are specialty lenses, and the third is an all-purpose lens. These come on the tail end of the D60 announcement, and should be shown off at the PMA trade show in Las Vegas – though you can see them here.

The first is the AF-S Micro-NIKKOR 60mm f/2.8G ED – a macro lens that’s been around for a while, but updated with an AF-S motor like it’s big brother, the 105mm AF-S lens.

The second is a PC-E NIKKOR 24mm f/3.5D ED – a perspective control lens, which comes in the D variety – so will remain backwards compatible with film cameras that require the aperture dial.

The final lens is a general purpose AF-S DX NIKKOR 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR – a sort of replacement for the 18-70mm DX lens which offers a slightly wider and slightly longer zoom.