Recent Posts
7Artisans Sells a 135mm F1.8 for $689 and Canon RF Owners Still Can't Buy One
I bought into Canon on purpose. Not once — twice. The R8 for full frame, the R100 for the days I want something I won’t cry about dropping. I like Canon’s color science, I like where Canon puts its buttons, and I have defended the RF system in conversations where defending it made me look like a hostage. Nobody tricked me into this mount. I walked in.
So understand that what follows isn’t brand tribalism.
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Canon EF 135mm f/2L on the R8 and R100: Does It Add Anything to an 85mm and 100mm Kit?
A photographer running two Canon mirrorless bodies, an EF-to-RF adapter, and a pair of fast EF telephoto primes sits in one of the most common upgrade traps in the adapted-lens world: the kit already works, the next lens is legendary, and nobody can quite explain what it would actually change. The specific case here is an EOS R8 and an EOS R100 paired with the EF 85mm f/1.8 USM and the EF 100mm f/2 USM, with the EF 135mm f/2L USM as the candidate purchase.
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Overhead Shooting: Getting the Angle Without a Ladder
Some subjects simply don’t cooperate with eye level. Arches, coffered ceilings, hanging signage, and upper facade details all sit above the natural sightline of a standing photographer, and craning the neck back only gets you so far before the framing falls apart. The fix doesn’t require a ladder or a stepstool. It requires raising the camera itself.
Why Overhead Framing Works A camera lifted above the head changes the geometry of the shot without changing your physical position.
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Shooting a Restaurant Open Kitchen in Mixed Light
An open kitchen is one of the least cooperative environments you can point a camera at. The light source is whatever the restaurant installed for cooks, not photographers, and it rarely agrees with itself from one fixture to the next. In this frame the copper hood throws a warm, almost orange glow across the top third, while the stainless prep line below sits under a cooler, harder white. Shooting straight into that split without a plan produces a mess of clashing color temperatures.
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Two-Camera Carry: Why Photographers Shoot with a Backup Body
Carrying two camera bodies at once looks like overkill until the moment it isn’t. The setup shown here is a common one: two Sony bodies on separate straps, a longer lens raised overhead for a detail shot while a second body with a shorter lens rides on the chest, ready without a lens swap.
The Case for a Second Body The most obvious reason is failure protection. A dropped body, a corrupted card, or a battery that dies mid-shoot doesn’t end the session if a second camera is already loaded and ready.
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Voigtländer APO-Lanthar 90mm f/4 Close Focus Announced for Leica M-Mount at 235 Grams
Cosina has officially announced the Voigtländer APO-Lanthar 90mm f/4 Close Focus, moving the lens from its CP+ 2026 prototype showing to a confirmed product for Leica M-mount. Shipping is expected to begin in August.
The headline is physical. At 53mm in diameter, 54.8mm long, and 235 grams, this is a 90mm telephoto that behaves like a compact prime. That matters more on a rangefinder than on any other body: long M-mount lenses tend to intrude into the optical viewfinder, and a barrel this short keeps that intrusion minimal.
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Voigtländer APO-Skopar 75mm f/2.8 VM Announced for Leica M-Mount at 191 Grams
The Voigtländer APO-Skopar 75mm f/2.8 VM is the sibling lens to the newly announced APO-Lanthar 90mm f/4 Close Focus — both shown as prototypes at CP+ 2026 — but it reached market first. Cosina gave the 75mm its full announcement in April, with a Japan launch in May.
The pitch is size. At 44mm long and 191 grams, the APO-Skopar 75mm is closer to a standard 50mm prime than to a typical short telephoto.
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Tamron 12-20mm F2.8 Puts a Full-Frame 12mm Zoom in a 570-Gram Body, With No Front Filter Thread
Tamron has announced the 12-20mm F2.8 (Model A084), a fast ultra-wide zoom for Sony E-mount and Nikon Z full-frame mirrorless. The number that matters is the wide end: 12mm on a full-frame sensor is a 122-degree diagonal field of view, and holding F2.8 across the whole range puts this lens directly at astrophotography and cramped-interior work. What makes the announcement worth a second look is the packaging. At 119.3mm long and 570g on the Sony mount, this is not the usual full-frame ultra-wide brick.
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Sony RX10 V: One Fixed Lens, 24-600mm, and the Case for Travel Universality
The most interesting thing about the Sony RX10 V isn’t a spec bump — it’s that the fixed-lens, do-everything premise of this camera still exists at all in 2026, and Sony just doubled down on it. While the rest of the industry has pushed shooters toward interchangeable-lens mirrorless kits, the RX10 V is built on the opposite bet: one body, one lens, zero compromises on range, and nothing to swap, drop, or leave in a hotel safe.
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Shooting Air Shows: Getting the Shot When Aircraft Move Fast
Air show and aviation photography rewards patience more than gear, but the gear still has to keep up. Aircraft move fast, cross the frame at odd angles, and rarely give you a second attempt — so the difference between a keeper and a miss usually comes down to a handful of habits built before the plane even shows up.
Shutter speed is the first decision, not an afterthought. For a frozen prop disc with visible blade detail, something in the 1/500s to 1/1000s range usually works well.
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