Top all-time · #1319
Lensrentals Blog
Company blog · lensrentals.com/bloghardwarebusiness
Lensrentals Blog is the company blog at lensrentals.com, writing about hardware and business. Since 2011, 54 different Hacker News readers have linked it 66 times, most often “Rental camera gear destroyed by the 2017 eclipse”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-09-23, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (29) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link the Lensrentals Blog for its lens tests and camera and lens teardowns, such as stopped-down aperture measurements and front-element scratch tests. Its teardowns are often recommended.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 29 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Welcome to Lensrentals.com We rent lenses & cameras for Canon, Nikon, Sony, Leica, Fuji, video equipment, and more with nationwide shipping and great customer service!
Most-linked posts?
- Rental camera gear destroyed by the 2017 eclipse4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2017-09-02
- The Broken Element: A Canon RF 100-500mm f4.7-7.1 Teardown3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-01-22
- /blog/2008/10/front-element-scratches/3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2019-01-26
- /blog/author/roger/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-05-10
- /2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-05-10
- The Man Who Almost Never Succeeded (2012)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-03-08
- How to Ruin Your (or Our) Gear in 5 Minutes (Without Water)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2013-08-12
- Assembling the C-4 Optics 4.9mm f3.5 Hyperfisheye Prototype2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-02-21
What Hacker News says?
Yes, I am not disagreeing with you. Sony's mirrorless bodies are presently the best and the Sony GM lenses also have the best-in-class image quality, surpassing DSLR lenses. For example the Sony GM 135mm f/1.8 is the sharpest available 135mm lens [1] and the Sony GM 24mm f/1.4 is the sharpest available 24mm lens [2]. Sony's ecosystem also has many amazing third-party lenses. A personal favourite of mine is the Voigt…
Comment linking /blog/2019/08/some-new-wide-angle-lens-mtf-tests-sony-24mm-f1-4-gm-sony-35mm-f1-8-tamron-35mm-f1-4-sp/
on “Olympus quits camera business after 84 years”Submitted Rental camera gear destroyed by the 2017 eclipse as a story · 599 points
HN discussionAlthough not primarily a review site, Lens Rentals has a very detailed blog about all things DSLR and mirrorless camera related ( http://www.lensrentals.com/blog ). Lens Rentals and its blog was also started by a doctor (Roger Cicala) and he remains the main contributor to the blog.
Comment linking /blog
on “The Road Ahead”Submitted Disassembling the Sony FE 135mm F/1.8 GM as a story · 167 points
HN discussionThere's measurements to support your feeling that primes are better than zooms: https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2019/11/stopping-down-some-... and https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2017/02/things-you-didnt-wa...
Comment linking /blog/2017/02/things-you-didnt-want-to-know-about-zoom-lenses/
on “iPhone 16 cameras vs. traditional digital cameras”Submitted The Man Who Almost Never Succeeded (2012) as a story · 106 points
HN discussionSide-topic. Shooting Holi [1] without putting your camera in an airtight sealed enclosure is a good way to ruin your equipment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holi http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2013/05/how-to-ruin-your-gea...
Comment linking /blog/2013/05/how-to-ruin-your-gear-in-5-minutes-without-water
on “The algorithm for a perfectly balanced photo gallery”Submitted The Great Flange-to-Sensor Distance Article as a story · 24 points
HN discussionLensrentals | Full Stack Software Developer | REMOTE | https://www.lensrentals.com/ Lensrentals is the largest online rental provider for photography and videography equipment in the United States. We have a couple hundred employees at our Memphis warehouse, a few locations with associated staff in other states, and a full remote in-house software team of 7. Our stack is mostly Rails on PostgreSQL + Go backend servi…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Who is hiring? (June 2022)”Submitted Rental Camera Gear Destroyed by the Solar Eclipse of 2017 (2017) as a story · 11 points
HN discussionIf you like teardowns, I will plug the Lens Rentals blog @ https://www.lensrentals.com/blog which features teardowns such as https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2021/01/the-secret-of-the-b...
Comment linking /blog/2021/01/the-secret-of-the-broken-element-a-canon-rf-100-500mm-f4-7-7-1-teardown/
on “Fluorite lenses: Corrective capabilities beyond ordinary optical glass”Submitted Rental Camera Gear Destroyed by the Solar Eclipse of 2017 as a story · 4 points
HN discussionHis lens tests are excellent. The lens rentals blog is the best place to find them [0]. If you're in market for high quality lenses, lens rental blog is a great resource. I also like cameralabs' lens tests [1]. Not as scientific as lensrentals, however, it has real samples and images of charts for comparison, so you can get a sense for what the different resolution means in image resolution. It also tests things bey…
Comment linking /blog
on “Why are modern 50mm lenses so damned complicated?”Submitted Stopping Down Some Bargain Primes and Zooms as a story · 3 points
HN discussionRoger Cicala knows a lot about lenses and pushed lens manufacturers to have better testing and quality, he created https://www.lensrentals.com/ because he got sick with low quality checks of lenses: When I started Lensrentals I had a lot of conversations with service centers that went like this. Me: "That lens you repaired still sucks". Person at service center: "No, it’s within specs". Me: "What are the specs?" Ser…
Comment linking /
on “Why are modern 50mm lenses so damned complicated?”Submitted Things You Don’t Know About Stopping Down Your Lens as a story · 3 points
HN discussion> DPreview largely seems to write for the crowd that doesn't even care about the art aspect and just wants validation that they have better photo gear than others. To be fair, the author of this article is Roger Cicala of LensRentals fame [1]; optical testing is his bread and butter. He's also the first to point out that optimal lens performance is neither necessary nor sufficient for good photography, and is famous…
Comment linking /blog/author/roger/
on “Why are modern 50mm lenses so damned complicated?”Submitted Why Side-Mount Buttons and Ports Break on Cameras as a story · 3 points
HN discussionWhat are folks' favorite overviews on how these lenses work? Basic optics from my high school physics classes topped out at the telephoto lens from the article, what would be a good place to start to get a better sense of how the designs in the article help with distortion? [Edit: Found https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2011/08/lens-geneology-part... , which looks like a promising start]
Comment linking /blog/2011/08/lens-geneology-part-1/
on “Why are modern 50mm lenses so damned complicated?”Submitted Disassembly of the Canon RF 50mm f1.2L as a story · 3 points
HN discussionMy FIL (a serious amateur photographer) regularly rents specialty lenses from http://lensrentals.com They rent cameras too, not just lenses. The RED Raven model (one of the NetFlix approved models) rents for $490/week. That's just for the "body" (what RED calls the "brain"). A full kit with accessories is $850/week. Lenses are on top of that.
Comment linking /
on “Approved Cameras”Submitted Lensrentals Repair Data: 2012-2013 as a story · 3 points
HN discussionIf I'm not mistaken Sony G lenses are the greatest offender in terms of the amount of plastic used in the $800-$2000 price range: https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2016/04/sony-fe-85mm-f1-4-g... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMXjJxFXRVs
Comment linking /blog/2016/04/sony-fe-85mm-f1-4-gmaster-emergency-tear-down/
on “DSLRs are dead, and lenses are never going to be the same”Submitted Hammerforum.com as a story · 3 points
HN discussionReminds me of the article from Lensrentals about how much front element scratches affect photo quality. Apparently not very much. Wait, did they say scratches? They meant a completely cracked front element. https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2008/10/front-element-scrat...
Comment linking /blog/2008/10/front-element-scratches/
on “2.7-meters Telescope mirror shot 7 times (1970)”Submitted The Broken Element: A Canon RF 100-500mm f4.7-7.1 Teardown as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThere's some history of "organic" or at least "natural" ingredients in photography. See, for example, the early "autochrome" color process. It uses dyed potato starch as color filters. Lampblack (granted a petro-byproduct) separated the potato bits. The plate is coated with shellac (secreted by the female lac bug).[1][2] Other big photo ingredients, past and present, include egg whites (for albumen prints)[3], gum a…
Comment linking /blog/2019/05/how-potatoes-and-gelatin-created-color-photography/
on “How to develop black and white film at home with coffee (2019)”Submitted More Ultra High-Resolution MTF Experiments as a story · 2 points
HN discussionYou can also just rent. I rented one here: https://www.lensrentals.com/rent/oculus-quest-all-in-one-vr-... For a try-before-you-by thing, I'd recommend doing 2 weeks. For the first few days, it was, "OMG, the future!" Then for a few days it was, "Not overwhelming, but still cool!" By the end of the 2 weeks, though, we were happy enough to return it.
Comment linking /rent/oculus-quest-all-in-one-vr-headset-128gb
on “Valve drops VR support for macOS”Submitted Assembling the C-4 Optics 4.9mm f3.5 Hyperfisheye Prototype as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
