Gear Talk > Lens Talk

Venus Optics 15mm f/4 Wide-Angle 1:1 Macro Lens

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Michael Erlewine:
Of course I always have to see for myself, or most of the time. A 15mm macro lens? Give me a break. Yes I had to try it, although everything I know about lenses was waving me off.

And yes, my instincts were correct. This is not an exceptional lens. In fact, it is a one-trick pony; nothing more. If you want to photograph a subject that literally is touching the front lens (or nearly), then this lens will do it. That’s the only good news. Well, it is pretty sharp in the center, but focusing the damn thing is nearly impossible. The focus throw is so small (about 90 degrees) that the tiniest movement is too much, and that makes focus stacking not a lot of fun. Keep in mind that the Leica 100mm f/2.8 APO Macro Elmarit-R has a focus-throw of some 720 degrees.

I could live with that (perhaps) or stick in on a focus rail, but the lack of correction negates whatever results I might get from the close-focus. It is sad. We need a really good lens that does what this lens promises to do, but physically can’t deliver.

Again, the bottom line for me is that the overall quality of the image (despite whatever “sharpness” we can derive from it) is just not good enough for prime time, at least for the kind of work I like to do.

I will probably keep playing with it, but I have already reached the breaking point into disappointment, so I am most likely sending it back. I would love an “ultra-wide macro lens,” but perhaps that term is an oxymoron.

Here are a few samples on the Nikon D810, but I did not take a lot of pains to make these, just enough to form an opinion, which I now have. Yes, I could make this lens work, sort of, if I really wanted to. Yet, since the only kind of photo it makes, the one-trick for this pony, is that ultra-close wide-angle shot, but, then, the image quality would always mostly suck.

Your thoughts?

Fons Baerken:
reminds of a fisheye

you could probably do the same with wide angle lens plus K-1 ring



the humble cv 20mm f/3.5 with k-1 ring stopped down,
the ir effect is my edit

Bjørn Rørslett:
Why am I not surprised? These results are as I would expect from the design specification. Plus the short working distance is highly impractical and the attraction of a steep perspective quickly vanishes.

Michael Erlewine:

--- Quote from: Bjørn Rørslett on September 22, 2015, 20:31:50 ---Why am I not surprised? These results are as I would expect from the design specification. Plus the short working distance is highly impractical and the attraction of a steep perspective quickly vanishes.

--- End quote ---

I agree, of course. I just wanted to see for certain that this could-not or has-not been done.

Michael Erlewine:

--- Quote from: Fons Baerken on September 22, 2015, 20:30:53 ---you could probably do the same with wide angle lens plus K-1 ring

--- End quote ---

Well, yes. I do that all the time, use the K-1 ring. However, in my experience the K-1 ring is still too much for wide-angle lenses at the range of 15-16mm, which is where I would like to be.

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