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ePhotozine (Click here) posted the full review of the World’s First 2:1 Magnification Lens with Infinity Focus. So it’s worth to check out the review even if they tested the lens on the Canon mount version:
At 2:1 ratio, the front of the lens is just about 5cm from the subject which can lead to the camera and lens blocking ambient light, so something you have to learn to deal with. IQ is of course of prime importance, and this lens is very sharp. If your focus is precise, you will find the detail produced is excellent. My early experience in using this lens is that it is most definitely worth the purchase price and more!
You can buy the lens for $379 from [shoplink 34680 ebay]eBay Hong Kong sellers (Click here)[/shoplink].
9 Responses
What a stupid name.
Which manufacturer will call the lens “Old Frog”?
Only PRC people will do that.
(LAOWA 老娃 in chinese stands for “old frog”)
Obviously used as tribute to Walt. (Where has he been lately?)
It’s a shame it’s just a subjective user review rather than one with more professional testing of the sharpness. I find it a little hard to believe that there’s barely any diffraction even at f/22.
If they made one of these with automatic aperture I’d definitely get one, but even with an EVF the manual aperture gives it a big disadvantage compared with other macro lenses. A noisy/grainy live view display makes it hard to accurately focus even when merely shooting at 1:1 macro. With this I think I’d need to rig up some kind of continuous LED lighting, along with flash, just to be able to focus in dull conditions.
Having 2:1 magnification with infinity focus is nice, but I can always increase the magnification of my native macro lens by clipping on a Raynox DCR-250 diopter, and it’s quick and easy to remove if I need infinity focus again.
There’s also the option of using a teleconverter: I’ve had good results using a Sigma 105mm OS Macro lens with a Sigma 1.4x TC (effectively making it a poor man’s 150mm macro). That gives 1.4:1 magnification and still maintains infinity focus, AF, and the lens’ longer working distance. Using a 2x TC instead would provide the same magnification as this lens, although it’s possible that the image quality wouldn’t match it.
I’m still waiting on mine, left hong kong on the 22nd feb… sigh
Funny, when I put the characters you typed into Google translate, I get “Old baby” which is even weirder of course.
It might be the manufacture’s brand name or something, maybe the founder’s nickname, not necessarily the lens’ name.
Actually the word should be LAOWA 老蛙， literally means old frog, instead of 老娃 (old baby)
he had a typo there. it’s 老蛙(old frog), not 老娃(old baby), MR.Old Frog is the designer of this lens. He has a partner 狂人(madman). They’re now working on a FF 15mm F4 DSLR lenses.
“ePhotozine (Click here) posted the full review”
It is not a full ephotozine review, it is a user review without any objective testing, just a few samples and empty words.