Does anyone have the Laowa 100mm x2 macro lens?

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clarnibass
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Re: Does anyone have the Laowa 100mm x2 macro lens?

Post by clarnibass »

lothman wrote:
Sun Jun 06, 2021 5:36 am
I changed the lens, they also meant that there should be no grease.
All I've seen had grease, I doubt there are any without. Unless they change it at some point.

clarnibass
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Re: Does anyone have the Laowa 100mm x2 macro lens?

Post by clarnibass »

RobertOToole wrote:
Sun Jun 06, 2021 8:55 am
I'm planning on getting the Laowa 100mm f/2.8 2x Ultra Macro APO in the office soon, maybe in a week or so. Should be able to post some test images soon after for anyone interested. Let me know any of your ideas for a comparison, my first thought is Laowa 100mm f/2.8 2x Ultra Macro APO vs Canon MP-E at 2x.
I don't know if you should compare it with it or not, but for me the Laowa is a replacement to a few setups, a reversed coupled lens, a reversed lens and extended lens (all at about x2). Of course this depends on the lenses used, I had a Nikon 105mm AFD and a Nikon 55mm f/3.5 manual lens (55mm was reversed, used the 105mm for coupling). I extended the 105mm for longer working distance compared with the 55mm. The reversed lens and coupled lenses setup had a particularly short working distance. The 105mm was very good by itself but extended that much it was awful. The simple setup and working distance at x2 are the main reasons I got the Laowa.

Lou Jost
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Re: Does anyone have the Laowa 100mm x2 macro lens?

Post by Lou Jost »

I had a Nikon 105mm AFD and a Nikon 55mm f/3.5 manual lens (55mm was reversed, used the 105mm for coupling)
I've often wondered about that combination. How was it at nominal m (1.9x)? Working distance would have been 46mm, similar to that of the Laowa.

RobertOToole
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Re: Does anyone have the Laowa 100mm x2 macro lens?

Post by RobertOToole »

clarnibass wrote:
Sun Jun 06, 2021 8:36 pm
RobertOToole wrote:
Sun Jun 06, 2021 8:55 am
I'm planning on getting the Laowa 100mm f/2.8 2x Ultra Macro APO in the office soon, maybe in a week or so. Should be able to post some test images soon after for anyone interested. Let me know any of your ideas for a comparison, my first thought is Laowa 100mm f/2.8 2x Ultra Macro APO vs Canon MP-E at 2x.
I don't know if you should compare it with it or not, but for me the Laowa is a replacement to a few setups, a reversed coupled lens, a reversed lens and extended lens (all at about x2). Of course this depends on the lenses used, I had a Nikon 105mm AFD and a Nikon 55mm f/3.5 manual lens (55mm was reversed, used the 105mm for coupling). I extended the 105mm for longer working distance compared with the 55mm. The reversed lens and coupled lenses setup had a particularly short working distance. The 105mm was very good by itself but extended that much it was awful. The simple setup and working distance at x2 are the main reasons I got the Laowa.
Good to know, thanks for the tips!

Best,

Robert

clarnibass
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Re: Does anyone have the Laowa 100mm x2 macro lens?

Post by clarnibass »

Lou Jost wrote:
Sun Jun 06, 2021 8:53 pm
I had a Nikon 105mm AFD and a Nikon 55mm f/3.5 manual lens (55mm was reversed, used the 105mm for coupling)
I've often wondered about that combination. How was it at nominal m (1.9x)? Working distance would have been 46mm, similar to that of the Laowa.
It was very good, my best setup for (about) x2, compared with the other two options I had. It was much better than extending the 105mm (which was pretty bad).
I can't compare them because I sold most of my Nikons including the 105mm when I changed to Sony and got the Laowa.

I can check later, but a quick search shows the Laowa has approx 70mm working distance.
I don't trust my memory that much... but I'm pretty sure that coupled lens setup was under 40mm, possibly closer to 35mm.
So unless that Laowa spec is wrong, they are not close at all.

Lou Jost
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Re: Does anyone have the Laowa 100mm x2 macro lens?

Post by Lou Jost »

but I'm pretty sure that coupled lens setup was under 40mm, possibly closer to 35mm.
So unless that Laowa spec is wrong, they are not close at all.
Yes, I see that the working distance for the Laowa is a lot better than for the lens combo.

Lens combos have a flange-to-subject distance equal to the flange-to-sensor distance for the front lens. For Nikon that is about 46mm. But that is a bit longer than the working distance because the lens mount takes up space between the flange and the subject. So your estimate of 35-40mm for the actual WD is pretty good.

clarnibass
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Re: Does anyone have the Laowa 100mm x2 macro lens?

Post by clarnibass »

I measured it exactly. It's just my bad memory that I'm not sure what it was :|

The Laowa has a larger front diameter though. I guess it's possible to calculate the equivalent, at least for lighting. For photos of living things it is probably a little different (I'm half guessing distance makes more of a difference in that case than apparent distance/size).

Medwar
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Re: Does anyone have the Laowa 100mm x2 macro lens?

Post by Medwar »

RobertOToole wrote:
Sun Jun 06, 2021 8:55 am
Let me know any of your ideas for a comparison, my first thought is Laowa 100mm f/2.8 2x Ultra Macro APO vs Canon MP-E at 2x.
Of course Minolta 5400 vs MP-E vs Laowa 100mm is what comes to mind first.
But please, could you also consider testing Laowa 100mm as TL for the Mitutoyos? Adalbert has posted that he got very good results by pushing down the Mititoyos using Canon 100mm macro L on APS-C.
I wonder if Laowa 100mm can be used the similar way or not.
Thank you very much!

RobertOToole
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Re: Does anyone have the Laowa 100mm x2 macro lens?

Post by RobertOToole »

Medwar wrote:
Tue Jun 22, 2021 2:46 am
RobertOToole wrote:
Sun Jun 06, 2021 8:55 am
Let me know any of your ideas for a comparison, my first thought is Laowa 100mm f/2.8 2x Ultra Macro APO vs Canon MP-E at 2x.
Of course Minolta 5400 vs MP-E vs Laowa 100mm is what comes to mind first.
But please, could you also consider testing Laowa 100mm as TL for the Mitutoyos? Adalbert has posted that he got very good results by pushing down the Mititoyos using Canon 100mm macro L on APS-C.
I wonder if Laowa 100mm can be used the similar way or not.
Thank you very much!
Hi Medwar,

Just happen to be testing the Laowa 2x and Sigma Art 105 now and do plan to test both as a tube lens. Also I'm trying to figure out a way to do some type of bokeh test. I've tried in the past and gave up due to the difficulty framing a similar background with various lenses so it might have to be a uniform field of something similar like water droplets etc maybe? I'll come up with something.

Both the Laowa and Sigma Art are excellent BTW, some of the best macro lenses I've tested, the Laowa is better than I expected, the Sigma is just awesome.

Best,
Robert

lothman
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Re: Does anyone have the Laowa 100mm x2 macro lens?

Post by lothman »

RobertOToole wrote:
Tue Jun 22, 2021 7:43 am
Both the Laowa and Sigma Art are excellent BTW, some of the best macro lenses I've tested, the Laowa is better than I expected, the Sigma is just awesome.
so we will see a price drop in Printing Nikkors soon :-)

RobertOToole
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Re: Does anyone have the Laowa 100mm x2 macro lens?

Post by RobertOToole »

lothman wrote:
Tue Jun 22, 2021 7:53 am
RobertOToole wrote:
Tue Jun 22, 2021 7:43 am
Both the Laowa and Sigma Art are excellent BTW, some of the best macro lenses I've tested, the Laowa is better than I expected, the Sigma is just awesome.
so we will see a price drop in Printing Nikkors soon :-)
No not that good!

The Printing-Nikkor still, is on another level compared to the retail market lenses. The Sigma 105 is almost perfect, but its still not the same as the PN. I'll share some images soon. I'm almost done processing the A7RIV corner crops now.

Best,

Robert

clarnibass
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Re: Does anyone have the Laowa 100mm x2 macro lens?

Post by clarnibass »

Robert when you have the review can you post a link here please? I have it but I'd still like to read it.

RobertOToole
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Re: Does anyone have the Laowa 100mm x2 macro lens?

Post by RobertOToole »

clarnibass wrote:
Fri Jun 25, 2021 8:37 pm
Robert when you have the review can you post a link here please? I have it but I'd still like to read it.
Yes, I will be sure to post a link.

I've been stuck working on other things this week (taxes, business loan, accounting)
I should be able to put a lot of time info finishing the 1x test and moving to 2x hopefully. Found some time to work on some ideas for a bokeh test today.

Best,

Robert

RobertOToole
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Re: Does anyone have the Laowa 100mm x2 macro lens?

Post by RobertOToole »

Laowa 100mm 2x Test Update

Spent almost the entire weekend working on various bokeh tests. The good news is I actually came up with a decent target and tested about 9 lenses, including the Laowa 100mm 2x.

This test uses a silk flower, Cosmos replica, which turns out to be great since the petals are made of a fiber material (not silk) that makes sharpness really easy to judge.

So this is really a 0.35x Bokeh + sharpness test all in one. A7RIV, 0.35x. Full image and 100% petal crops. Sneak preview thumbnails from the test:


_PM-Bokeh-1.jpg

_PM-bokeh-2.jpg

I will upload 2500 pixel and 1500 pixel + 1500 pixel crops to my site and share a link when I'm finished.

Best,

chris_ma
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Re: Does anyone have the Laowa 100mm x2 macro lens?

Post by chris_ma »

Very interesting. Nice to see some „real world“ images.
I would have expected the differences in bokeh to be bigger, but on the other hand the difference in color is bigger then what I thought.
chris

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