| Latest Review Posted | Venus Optics Laowa 25mm F2.8 2.5-5x Ultra Macro
This is a hard lens to work with, if I had a real need for this kind of magnification, I’d be happier with it and going forward, but after shooting with it for a whole month, I believe I have a firm base for when this is needed and when it's not and for me as a landscape shooter, generally this lens is not needed, any old macro lens should do the job for many subjects. But...if your interest lies somewhere in 2.5-5x magnification...this is the ticket.
It's a small lens, solid all metal body with very smooth focusing action. The f-stop at the nose of the lens is a little hard to find when shooting, and you need to find it as you really have to focus at f2.8 to see the subject then stop down to get a reasonable DoF.
Almost all my images where shot in my home office with the subjects on my desk. I did do a few images outdoor, handheld – in bright sunlight. Clearly working on a tripod it the preferred way to go, because the DoF even at max f-stop of f16, is so thin, it is extremely easy to miss sharp focus, Buy when you do, it's very sharp. This happened more times than I liked. I suppose one could focus stack with it for better results, but I haven’t ever done one of those. Except of one day, I shot all images with my old friend the K-5, I did one with the K-1II and really, I didn’t notice much difference in process, handling, and image quality.
Looking back at my images, there really aren’t any I’m proud of, although this amount of magnification reveals much more about... |
