The cheat sheet? It’s optically good, even more so on FX than DX, but you’ll encounter some wicked barrel distortion at 16mm (no problem for Photoshop or Lightroom, though). And DP’s take on that VR, arguably not needed on a wide-angle? Well, it doesn’t hurt it, does it? and it gives you more latitude with low-light or high aperture shooting. So that’s that.

Hit the external link, as usual.

Lensbaby Soft-Focus Optic

So, Charlie Sorrel, Gadget Lab’s resident camera nut, has finished his casual hands-on review of Lensbaby’s two newest optics, the soft-focus and fisheye swappable optics for all of the current generation Lensbaby lenses. And, he tries them on a D700 and a Panasonic GF1, so you get both ends of the sensor-size spectrum.

Now, maybe it’s just my love of everything Dave McKean has ever done, but I do think the soft-focus lens is more useful and desirable than Charlie does, but I agree whole-heartedly with his assessment of the fisheye optic as a cheap route for those who want that and already have a Lensbaby.

Also, I never found the optics to be all so finicky to swap around, but your mileage may vary, of course.

Anyway, not much to say otherwise, if you want to know his thoughts you should really just hit the external link below.

AF-S NIKKOR 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II

So, Nikon’s new top-pro standard telephoto zoom, the AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm 1:2.8G ED VR II, has been reviewed by the venerable review staff over at DPReview. The conclusions are so unsurprisingly positive as to be pedestrian, but they’ve got their really useful sliding charts for sharpness at all focal lengths and apertures, so that’s worth checking it out alone.

If ya wanna read it yourself, your hyperlink chariot awaits: http://www.dpreview.com/lensreviews/nikon_70-200_2p8_vrii_n15/

From Imaging Resource's Tests

Having survived the slings and arrows of both DPReview and Imaging Resource, the new 20mm f1.7 pancake for Micro Four-Thirds from Panasonic comes out pretty well. There’s a bit of a discrepancy between the sharpness results from DPReview and IR, with Imaging Resource showing it far more favorably (might’ve been the body it was tested on, apparently that E-P1 has some chops as well).

Now, we just finish the wait for them to come in. Want one complete with the sexy new GF1 body? Best get on our wait lst, do that here.

DPReview’s pretty stellar lens review team hit up Canon’s not-so-long-ago revamped 24mm tilt-shift recently while I wasn’t looking. Backing up to glance over everything today, I have to say, it’s certainly worth that “L” in its name. Up there in the post header graphic you can see it’s sharpness stopped down about a half stop, two-thirds stop from wide open, and you can see that 2/3 of the frame are sharp-sharp-FRIGGIN’-SHARP, well exceeding the theoretical resolution limit of the rather demanding 5D Mark II,and the corners only dip down to about as soft as the kit lenses from Canon perform on a good day. For a full-frame lens, that’s stellar.

Fall-off (vigenetting) is soemwhat pronounced, but I think that’s what gives full frame that “oomph” in so many wide-open shots, so I have no complaints there, and either way it’s not so bad a moment in Lightroom couldn’t raise them back up admirably.

Read the whole thing, if you haven’t already, here, and then email us at info -at- robertsimaging.com to get on our backorder list, or hey! Just hit us up the comments, and we’ll get you added.

Again, we’d like to remind those of you without much IS experience that it works by countering for how your hands naturally shake at long expsures, IS can’t restore sharpness lost to moving subjects at long shutter speeds. Its use in low light is primarily architectural, if you’re looking to shoot parties and bars you’ll still need higher ISO, faster lenses, or a good flash gun.

Read their findings and whitepapers on IS testing here: http://www.slrgear.com/articles/index.html