Nikon, Canon, Leica, Pentax, Sigma, Tokina, and a host of other lens makers are all striving to bring you the sharpest lenses with all optical aberrations reduced to the minimum. That's too bad! Because with lenses, as with life, sometimes it's the imperfections that make things interesting.

Charles Cawley's Medieval Lands is an encyclopedia of every major European noble family (and most minor ones) from AD 500 to 1500. Even as a work in progress, its scale is staggering.