Digital Camera News and Reviews

Olympus Zuiko 70-300mm

Wrotinak is an infamous photographer in the Olympus community with his helpful guides on the Four Thirds system. When I bought the Olympus E-500 DSLR his guide about this camera helped me a lot.
This time Wrotinak have written a “user report” on the Olympus Zuiko 70-300mm f/4.0-5.6 ED lens. I own this lens myself so I was pretty excited to see Wrotinak testing this lens.
As this lens is a part of standard range from Olympus you can’t expect too much from it, but it is able to produce surprisingly good pictures. One tip is to stop it down a bit to get sharper pictures and F/8 seems to be the sweet spot for this lens.

Read the full user report of the Olympus Zuiko 70-300mm f/4.0-5.6 ED lens here.

Sony 100mm f/2.8 macro

Popzone has reviewed the 100mm f/2.8 macro (SAL-100M28) lens from Sony. This lens was originally designed for Minolta DSLR’s, but has been redesigned for the Sony Alpha mount.

Popzone ends up giving the Sony 100mm f/2.8 macro lens an ok review as the lens is able to produce very sharp pictures. The build quality is decent, but could been better and it is the same with the auto focus speed. There is also some chromatic aberrations in out of focus areas.
The price tag is a bit steep at about 580US$ so maybe one should look at alternative lenses before deciding on the Sony 100mm f/2.8 macro.

Read the full review of the Sony 100mm f/2.8 lens here.

Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G

Dpreview.com has reviewed the popular Nikon lens AF-S VR Zoom Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G ED-IF both for DX (APS-C) and FX (35mm full-frame) Nikon DSLR camera bodies.

Dpreview ends up giving the Nikon lens a “Highly Recommended” rating for the DX-format as the lens produces excellent images on this format. The Nikkor 70-200mm also got a very good image stabilzation and superb build quality.
For the FX-format the lens get a bit lower score with a “Recommended” rating as this lens is really constructed with the smaller DX-format in mind. Pictures made with the Nikkor 70-200mm on a FX-camera (D3) has soft corners and some vignetting. This might not be a problem for many photographers, but to some it’s a big con.
Overall the Nikon AF-S VR Zoom Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G ED-IF seems like an excellent lens.

Read the full review of the Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G lens here.

Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8

The German site PopPhoto has reviewed the Tokina AT-X 116 PRO DX AF 11-16mm f/2.8 lens for Canon mount. The lens is also available for Nikon APS-C DSLRs.
This ultra-wide angle lens from Tokina got a constant aperture at f/2.8 and got 18-26mm (35mm equivalent) field-of-view. It seems like an interesting ultra-wide lens alternative.

PopPhoto ends up giving the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens a very good review claiming the lens to be the best ultra-wide angle lens for Canon APS-C DSLRs.
Seems like a very good buy considering that the Tokina lens costs about 600EUR/US$.

Read the full review of the ultra-wide angle Tokina lens here.