Characterized by its close-focusing capabilities and apochromatic design, the Nikon Z-mount Laowa 100mm f/2.8 2X Ultra Macro APO from Venus Optics is a unique and versatile short-telephoto prime. Featuring a pair of low dispersion elements, color fringing and chromatic aberrations have been virtually eliminated throughout the focusing range in order to achieve high clarity and color accuracy. The lens has a manual focus design to suits its macro capabilities, which permit working with subjects as close as 2:1 with a minimum focusing distance of 9.7".
- Z-Mount Lens/FX Format
- Aperture Range: f/2.8 to f/22
- Two Low Dispersion Elements
- Maximum Magnification: 2:1
Venus Optics Laowa 100mm f/2.8 2X Ultra Macro... Overview
Venus Optics Laowa 100mm f/2.8 2X Ultra Macro... Specs
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Venus Optics Laowa 100mm f/2.8 2X Ultra Macro... Reviews
Great lens for the purposes it was built for!
I noticed a few reviews knocking this lens for lacking autofocus and passing electronic information. I am not going to rate down for that. During Macro and still life photography, I'm never going to use autofocus. Outside of macro and still life, my most common subject in the 100mm range is portrait work. Where I'd rather use a 70-180 or 35-100 lens. Which for me, both have autofocus. In other words, I don't need autofocus for this lens. The electronic info would be nice. But never actually look at that data for my Macro shots. And it's nice to have a much cheaper than $1000. The optical performance is outstanding at all F-Stops. I have not bench-mark tested the lens in a lab. There probably is some image quality loss at wide open or at F/22. But in the real world, at F/2.8, loss of sharpness due to shallow depth of field is showing up far before lens quality shows up. At F/22, if I'm pixel peeping I can see sharpness loss. But even at F/22, depth of field is pretty shallow starting at about .2 to .5 reproduction. Again, a non-topic in the real world for me. The only time I notice significant loss of image quality is when I get above 1.5x Macro closeups. However, 80% of my Macro work tends to be about .3 to 1.3 close-up. Much closer than that and the subject is almost on the lens. Lighting gets difficult. And depth of field is almost nothing. I LOVE moving past 1:1 macro ratio. But much past about 1:1.3, I start losing interest. Focus ring damping and speed are pretty much right where I want it. I didn't like the lens hood at first as it is a bit awkward and feels unsecure at first. But once you get used to it, it functions well. Surprisingly light given a 100mm Macro. I LOVE having on-lens depth of field markings on the Lens. (Why, WHY is this not a standard on all modern fixed lenses?) If you have a high-mega pixel camera body, this makes an excellent lens for digitizing your old film negatives. Just placing the film on a light box and shooting at F/8 or F/11, focusing on the film grain and not only getting sharp images, I'm getting sharp grain in the images. The only "problem" I've had in that regards is that for old film that has expansion/contraction cracks in the gelatin, it is sharp enough to do an excellent job of reproducing those cracks. I would generally say that if your full frame camera with this lens isn't giving you high enough quality for your tastes, you may need to move to a traditional 4x5 film workflow.
Lock
This lens does not lock in place. I have a canon 4000D and a 5D Mark IV and it does not lock onto either camera. It also came with a filter that I did not order. The lens is shown to be compatible with my cameras. The EF mount is true, however, when turning into place, it does not lock. This leaves the lens vulnerable to falling off. My camera shows, “make sure lens is in place.” However, It does take the photos.
