Gear Talk => Lens Talk => Topic started by: Bjørn J on June 24, 2015, 13:06:22
Title: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Bjørn J on June 24, 2015, 13:06:22
Chinese company Venus Optics has launched a 15mm lens with 1:1 macro capability - and 6mm shift when used on DX-sensors. http://photorumors.com/2015/06/23/venus-optics-announces-the-laowa-15mm-f4-the-worlds-widest-11-macro-lens/ I don't know anything about the quality of Venus lenses, but it's an interesting idea.
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Bjørn Rørslett on June 24, 2015, 13:18:48
The presentation tells a skewed version of reality. The background sharpness is mainly a function of magnification of detail, so depth of field will be minimal when you get close despite the short focal length. Perhaps setting the lens to f/32 imparts a rough indication of what the background might be, at the expense of killing all foreground detail.
This single factoid is more important though: Min. working distance 0.47 cm (1:1)
Translated to normal language this means you do well in leaving the petal-shaped hood at home, because you can never use it for close-up. Plus getting your close-up subject properly illuminated will be a true challenge.
Price is pretty low, though ....
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Michael Erlewine on June 24, 2015, 15:17:28
If this new offering from Venus is anything like their 60mm Macro x2 lens, forget about it. The focus throw is probably going to be <90-degrees, which makes it pretty much impossible for a WA-Macro lens to focus. I sent their 60mm lens back. It was roughly sharp, but poorly corrected, and, as mentioned, just about impossible to focus... and I was on a tripod in good light.
I wish the big companies would produce a rectilinear fisheye lens of about 15mm or so that had a long focus throw, and was as corrected as these fisheye lenses ever are, which is not much.
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Erik Lund on June 24, 2015, 16:06:03
If this new offering from Venus is anything like their 60mm Macro x2 lens, forget about it. The focus throw is probably going to be <90-degrees, which makes it pretty much impossible for a WA-Macro lens to focus. I sent their 60mm lens back. It was roughly sharp, but poorly corrected, and, as mentioned, just about impossible to focus... and I was on a tripod in good light.
I wish the big companies would produce a rectilinear fisheye lens of about 15mm or so that had a long focus throw, and was as corrected as these fisheye lenses ever are, which is not much.
Indeed its about 90 deg Focus throw...but for a 15mm... it's much different 'feel' than a 60mm lens the optics don't need to move at all, almost anyway
Re: --- a rectilinear fisheye lens... ---- You must make up your mind its either or - You can't have both :)
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Bjørn Rørslett on June 24, 2015, 16:13:14
For close-up work one really needs either a fairly long lens, around 100 mm or so for FX, to get a decent working distance, OR, a lens with the shortest possible focal length (< 1-2 mm) to get increased depth of field. However, with the latter case you will have almost no working distance at all *and* the format coverage is tiny. Really tiny. So tiny that m43 suddenly looks like a 4x5" in comparison.
I guess this is the Heisenberg uncertainty principle applied to photography. Or in the vernacular version: There is no free lunch. It's either-or.
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Michael Erlewine on June 24, 2015, 16:57:24
I find myself using the Nikkor 16mm rectilinear fisheyelenses (I have the earlier on one as well) quit often, which are not circular fisheye lenses. I would like an Otus-standard one of those non-fisheye fisheye lenses, which I realize is almost impossible to build.
The 24mm Sigma ART lens is quite useful in that respect, because you can get quite close 9.84" (25cm). Here is a quick shot I took this morning of some Evening Primroses in our yard, which shows that this lens does a decent job until the Zeiss Otus version of this length of lens comes along.
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Asle F on June 24, 2015, 17:03:21
For 1:1, it can be hard to use. But for environmental closeups, I like the idea. Today I use 20mm/3.5 and 24mm/2.8 with K1-ring, but a lens that can focus continuously up more close than I need, would be a good thing.
It's called macro lens, and with macro as in big, it is not a bad description, because the lens is big, probably too big for much of this usage. I'm skeptical for several reason. Michael mention some of them.
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Michael Erlewine on June 24, 2015, 17:08:02
Not understanding what you want me to mention. Perhaps you could rephrase the question please.
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Erik Lund on June 24, 2015, 17:25:16
I find myself using the Nikkor 16mm rectilinear lenses (I have the earlier on one as well) quit often, which are not circular fisheye lenses. I would like an Otus-standard one of those non-fisheye fisheye lenses, which I realize is almost impossible to build. ...
It's not called rectilinear, it's a 'Full Frame Fisheye' lens the 16mm f/2.8 180 deg diagonal capture and the old 16mm f/3.5 170 deg only straight lines though the center remains straight.
Rectilinear lenses are corrected so that straight lines remain straight even when they are off center...
Money can buy anything - Almost
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Erik Lund on June 24, 2015, 17:27:44
For 1:1, it can be hard to use. But for environmental closeups, I like the idea. Today I use 20mm/3.5 and 24mm/2.8 with K1-ring, but a lens that can focus continuously up more close than I need, would be a good thing.
It's called macro lens, and with macro as in big, it is not a bad description, because the lens is big, probably too big for much of this usage. I'm skeptical for several reason. Michael mention some of them.
The 20mm 3.5 Ais can be modified for close focus at 18 cm to the film plane, it's just a small cut with a Dremel
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Asle F on June 24, 2015, 17:28:00
The 20mm 3.5 Ais can be modified for close focus at 18 cm to the film plane, it's just a small cut with a Dremel
It is easy for you to say ;)
I have seen a post about that in the old nikongear. If my memory serves, someone stated that the same could be done with the 24mm/2.8. But I do not remember how you did it. And of all my lenses, the 20mm/3.5 is the one I do not want to destroy.
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Bjørn Rørslett on June 24, 2015, 17:47:13
Both 20/3.5 and the 24/2.8 will benefit in their close focusing capability if visited by Erik's Dremel :D
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Erik Lund on June 24, 2015, 18:09:23
My 20mm 3.5 is actually the lens that has come closest to getting destroyed during a modification - when gluing in a small piece of tube, for enabling the aperture follower to the added extension of the lens, I accidetially dropped a large drop of super glue into the aperture blades... a loud arghhhhhh followed by frantic fiddeling with tools and more or less ripping the blades out of the aperture housing, soaking them in Acetone... it took some time before the lens was in one working piece again now with the cleanest aperture blades ever :)
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Bjørn Rørslett on June 25, 2015, 10:46:48
I did a little more snooping on the Venus website in order to understand the alleged claims for this 15 mm lens.
Apparently they used a Nikon D800E for the published sample photos. The lens is not CPU-enabled and thus no meaningful information about how far the lens is stopped down is revealed. However, judged from the sharpness of which dust and grime on the 800E sensor is exhibited, it must have been stopped down very far. My guess is that they have gone the entire way down to f/32 and had to add flash to the main subject to get acceptable shutter speeds. The overall low contrast points to the same conclusion.
The lens might be quite sharp, if the aperture setting was minimised, but it certainly obeys the law of physics. So the depth of field is, even at the assumed f/32 setting, quite restricted in the near range. The short focal length means blur circles are smaller thus an indication of what the background looks like can be seen, but with no real sharpness to it.
There is no free lunch. Buying an ultrawide lens in order to get a "deep field" really does not work. You will still be left with an illusion. Even advertising writers have to admit to this basic fact of life.
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Akira on June 25, 2015, 13:07:01
For the true super-wideangle closeups, you might need collimated lenses like these...
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Bjørn Rørslett on June 25, 2015, 13:15:05
As long as the recording sensor size is small enough, you can always use very short actual focal lengths and thereby gain an improved depth of field. Within limits, though, as there is no magic wizardry involved. The influence of the aperture for depth of field is linear whilst magnification influences planar, ie. to the second power. Only when focal length falls below 2 mm will it start to have some impact on the actual depth of field. However, such short focal lengths cannot cover anything except a likewise tiny sensor.
The site you linked to, Akira, was in Japanese thus I missed the most of the text, but the illustrations indicate that some kind of relay system is used. This has the useful property of moving the taking lens well away from the camera thus facilitating close-ups in nature. Highly practical for video projects.
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Akira on June 25, 2015, 13:33:42
Bjørn, yes, they all use relay lenses. The relay lenses they use are high quality ones for microscopes, similar to your contraption using 19mm Macro Nikkor.
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Bjørn Rørslett on June 25, 2015, 13:38:22
Is there any web site one can download sample photos taken by their products? Would be interesting to know more details.
In recent BBC nature productions on the world of small animals, relay lenses obviously were used frequently. They "improved" the results by shooting with bluescreen backgrounds so partly sharp footage of elephants or lions could be mixed into the video sream. Yet overall a pretty impressive TV series.
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Dr Klaus Schmitt on July 05, 2015, 18:19:30
Here is a link to a fullsize D600 shot: (http://www.koheisha.net/microwidelenz/TypeSC_ResolutionTest01/DSC_0762s.jpg) http://www.koheisha.net/microwidelenz/TypeSC_ResolutionTest01/D600Fullsize01.html (http://www.koheisha.net/microwidelenz/TypeSC_ResolutionTest01/D600Fullsize01.html)
(c) Koheisha.net
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Erik Lund on July 06, 2015, 08:19:19
The site is loading very very slowly her in Europe!
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Dr Klaus Schmitt on July 06, 2015, 08:28:50
Not for me and Germany still is part of Europe .... (why is your time 10h ahead Eric??)
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Erik Lund on July 06, 2015, 09:37:40
It is loading very very slowly in Copenhagen Denmark then. My timestamps is correct when I see them :) but report it in Beta Issues if you see something else
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Frank Fremerey on July 30, 2015, 07:21:27
to me as a layman in this field the pictures are just what I like to achieve. Esp the spider series and the twowering musroom pretty much show the pictorial field I like to explore.
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Akira on July 30, 2015, 09:17:47
Is there any web site one can download sample photos taken by their products? Would be interesting to know more details.
Bjørn, sorry that I totally missed your inquiry. I would have forwarded you to the very samples Klaus posted.
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Jan Anne on January 01, 2016, 13:35:19
Here's a video review
Found on http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/sony-tidbits-294/
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Michael Erlewine on January 01, 2016, 14:00:50
I now have the Venus/LAOWA 15mm Macro lens, but it arrived toward the end of the growing season and I have not had quite enough time to play with it enough.
The 15mm is much better than the 60mm Venus Macro that I returned, but still this is a very finicky lens that one has to master. But with great care, I believe I can do some very interesting work with it. Of course, it is no Otus, but I am moving more and more toward lenses with a unique (perhaps one-trick) use, but that one-trick is the one I am often after.
This shot is with the Nikon D810 and the Venus 15mm to give a sense of what might be possible.
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Jakov Minić on January 01, 2016, 14:21:31
Michael it looks like it's very sharp. You didn't post a stacked image I suppose? I am really curious of this lens :)
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Michael Erlewine on January 01, 2016, 14:38:37
I am almost certain it is stacked, of course.
Where I don't fit in to all this kind of discussions is that I like to stack lenses that are very sharp wide open and that have razor sharp DOF. I don't care about the very thin DOF because I tend to stack that razor-thin DOF into whatever object or mass i want and leave the rest of the photo out-of-focus or whatever. So, where some folks say that wide-open fast lenses have too narrow of DOF for regular use. Of course, that is fine with me. The Venus 15mm is flawed in probably many ways, but if we can get away from being too clinical and go instead for "mood" or impression, then learning to use this kind of lens is worthwhile.
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Bjørn Rørslett on January 01, 2016, 14:57:57
The main problem with such a lens design is the extremely short working distance. At 1:1 you are down to a few mm clearance to the front element.
At the same time, the focal length is way too long to give any extra depth of field.
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Michael Erlewine on January 01, 2016, 15:07:58
The main problem with such a lens design is the extremely short working distance. At 1:1 you are down to a few mm clearance to the front element.
At the same time, the focal length is way too long to give any extra depth of field.
Right, but for my work I create depth-of-field by stacking focus; I paint it on, so to speak, so I want everything else as bokeh. Too near the front of the lens does not bother me. Again, I see this kind of lens as a specialty lens for a special kind of photography. It would not be for me a walk-around-lens. I will try to start a thread soon on what I term "Impressionistic" or "Mood" lenses and we can try to drill down on those qualities. When I hear folks decrying too narrow DOF, I just say "Great!" That's the difference I was trying to point out.
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Akira on January 01, 2016, 15:30:05
Jan, thanks for sharing the review video. I kind of tried similar method with my Samyang, but haven't had any decent images. :(
Michael, I like the sense of "being there" that the super-wideangle-macro shot in your image.
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: BW on January 01, 2016, 20:14:42
I have the Venus optics 15 mm macro lens and have used it since august. It´s a lot of fun to use the lens and it gives a perspective not easily found in other lenses. I have used it with the Df and D750 (+OMD E-M1). I find it easy to focus and easy to use both for macro and more general purpose use. I´ve also used it reversed with some luck. Stopped down it kan be a pain inn the ass to focus because of the dark viewfinder. It can also be quite a challenge to use with the R1C1 because of the near focus limit. The Aphid shots almost stretched my patience to the breaking point and gave me a sore neck and back for days. Oh, man, that was a lot of use/d. I badly need some synonyms....
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Michael Erlewine on January 01, 2016, 20:30:17
It is an interesting lens, the Venus 15mm. It is sharp enough, not too well corrected, but OK, and you can, as you did with some of your photos, get in real close. This is another specialty lens that I look foreword to using more. I started another thread on these lenses with unusual bokeh and light response.
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Jakov Minić on January 01, 2016, 23:34:42
Børge, lovely images! I am getting hooked!
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Dr Klaus Schmitt on January 02, 2016, 14:52:20
Nice shots BW indeed. Seems to be a fun lens to use.... Still I'm missing the very wide and almost sharp BG others have achieved like Solvin Zankl here:
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: BW on January 02, 2016, 16:49:08
Completely stopped down the diffraction is quite grueling, so its hard to achieve the sharpness you get around f8-11. My technique is´nt perfect either. So I am used to not getting as sharp pictures as other people might get ;)
Title: Re: The world's widest 1:1 macro lens
Post by: Erik Lund on January 02, 2016, 18:11:11