Laowa Aurogon – 10x-50x Macro Lens 🤯

I always buy Laowa lenses from their website - best price, good service, and fast, free shipping to almost every country worldwide.

MICAEL's OLYMPUS MACRO KIT
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🔎 Closeup lens: Raynox DCR-250

MICAEL's SONY MACRO KIT

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[MicaelWidell]

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[macsaikrisztina]

I really appreciate manifacturers like Laowa, they are not "afraid" to bring out some crazy stuff from time to time. That makes them real pioneers.

[sebastianmenesesmunera]

Hello, I work researching wear and friction on surfaces, partially with optical microscopy, and happen to use a technique very similar to these macro composite images. I enjoyed your video a lot since my love for photographic gear came from microscopy. The main difference between your setup and an actual microscope at this point is the light source position, since in a 'common' microscope, light travels through the lens itself. With that, you avoid the so-mentioned diffraction problem. Polarizing the light source itself also helps with reflection glares like the ones in the eye of the beetle, and it's hard to do using an external source of light.
Totally subscribed.

[tecnofutura]

Hi Micael, can you recommend a macro lens between the Laowa 58mm f2.8 2X, the Laowa 90mm f2.8 2X and the Laowa 100mm f2.8 2X, I really don't know which one to buy but I want a 2X macro lens for insect photography and those 3 lenses have the same cost $499.00, I currently have a Sony a6700 with these lenses, Sony 11mm f1.8, Sigma 18-50 f2.8, Sony 70-350 and I will buy the Laowa Laowa 25mm f/2.8 2.5-5X for extreme macro and I will also buy a Raynox DCR-250. Thanks in advance

[tehpanda]

I admit it is very cool, but it seems like such a struggle to use something with that strong of a magnification. With this kind of a length laowa should start selling telescopes!

[omnirhythm]

I love Laowa's campy branding and quirky lenses. It's what keeps photography fun in times where we're getting more and more sterile, accurate image renditions.

[danncorbit]

At that magnification, pond water is great fun. Rotifers, stentors, volvox, cyclops, daphnia etc. will surprise you. Take a stem of a hollyhock and make thin crosswise slices (much easier with a microtome). It's very beautiful. You can also get prepared slides. I think what we like most about macro photography is the surprise because we can't see clearly when things get that small. And higher magnification equals more surprise. A bit of wet newspaper looks like a pile of very rough lumber with globs of black plaster on it.

[bentsai]

some of of glow/blur is from shifting the view as you move the lens closer to the subject. When you move forward to focus, the parts that are nearer are now larger in frame and out of focus, obsuring some view.

[yuxuanhuang]

I visited laowa's shop a few days ago and they do offer mount rings for this kit, only sold separately at around 50 dollars each. Those rings aren't the type with a complex shape that you would find on a telephoto lens, it is just a cube with a hole for the lens and a screw at the bottom.

[rhalfik]

Just in case someone got confused: this isn't macrophotography. Macro scale is 1:1 or close to it. This is microphotography which is closer to 1:10 and the bigger lenses here can be considered a microscope. At this scale you may as well consider getting an old microscope and a camera adapter for it. IDK about image quality but the features that a microscope has with it's perfect stability and micro-manipulator screws are a huge advantage. The only situation when you'd prefer a set like this is when you can't prepare your sample properly. I used to have access to a very good microscope at home. Of course there are limitations to every gear and the quality may vary but old microscopes are usually the best bang for your buck.

The problem with diffraction can be reduced significantly with a deconvolver. There are tutorials on how to deconvolve in Photoshop. Back in a day I was working with some old optics and had problems with image quality and I came up with my own method of deconvolving spherical aberation and coma. As long as you spend enough time on it and take notes of all the values and settings, automate actions, it's actually a viable option.

[cynvs]

So while I struggle to get the head and eyes of a bug in focus at the same time with my 1x macro lens, you struggle getting a single tiny element (apparently called Ommatidium) of the eye in focus. 😅

[carlossantini]

Not as sharp as good microscope lenses. Pretty low quality rendition.

[Lonan]

I can't think of anything else I would have wanted to use this for besides snowflakes. But surely 10x magnification should be enough?

This one is probably in the category "nice to have" rather than "must have". And also in the category "don't show the rest of the family how much it cost"

[terrygoodfellow]

Thanks for the review. I won't be buying the kit despite the temptation so to do, but I'm asking myself what benefits I'd gain. Your video made me think carefully about the macro gear I have, and what gaps I might have in the gear, matching these with the types of image I take. THNK YOU .... THANK YOU THANK YOU for making me go through that review process.

[Macro_Universe]

I wonder if the final quality image in good enough. But I love the magnification.

[martafiscus]

So cool! I have both the Laowa 60mm and 25mm and love them. Next year I’m doing a workshop with a microbiologist using all their lab equipment and software. Maybe I’ll want to invest in this new lens after that. Thank you for your thorough videos.

[bamsemh]

Have you tried reverse macro, with a mighty tele? But yeah, move to focus only works on that.

[goldandblue]

HI Micael, for extreme macro I tried to shoot on biggest pixels possible. For example I used canon D30 (very, very old 3Mp dslr). Surprisingly shots turn very sharp on this setup. Even AA filter did not take much of the sharpness. I was always wondering how photos would turn out on Sony A7S where the pixel pitch size is about 8 um. That would lower diffraction effect. I wonder how you and other would say to that? Thank you for your all videos :) Kind regards from Ireland :)

[MacM]

My thought after watching was that for the smaller magnifications, I myself have preferred less expensive forms of macro. The image at the 10X magnification is about what you can get by combining a set of extension tubes with a reversed lens, especially if the lens has great optics. Sure, the rear lens element can be exposed this way, but you can get around that problem. It's important to use a fully manual lens with an aperture ring. Reverse lens method is much less expensive also. Another thing to note is that with reversing a lens, the working distance is less but for me personally, I don't take images of moving subjects, but stationary subjects instead, so it is not a problem. That being said though, it would be interesting to see exactly how sharp those lenses are, at least compared to other lenses. $1, 500 is kind of a lot of money in my opinion, but I don't venture beyond about 10X magnification mainly because I rarely find anything worthwhile photographing, so I would rarely use this kit. That has been my personal opinion.