Venus Laowa 15mm f/4 Wide Angle 1:1 Macro Lens with Shift for Nikon F Mount Black

Works fine a liitle bit hard to mount on my nikon at first, but I get used to it after some time thanks

This is a fun lens with lots of value for the price, but I wouldn't recommend it for DSLR users. Mirrorless use will mitigate a lot of the lens' shortcomings.It took me a while to learn the flow to use the lens and there's still a lot of guessing and hope. The most frustrating thing is that focusing is tough on a DSLR since exposing the image doesn't clamp down the aperture - you have to do it yourself (after focus, before exposure). Added to that, the lens isn't fast (f4) and you're probably focusing on a small portion of a wide scene.There's a cushion in at 15mm, there's a rich depth-of-field. The cutting side of 15mm is that it can be difficult to balance exposure over the image in a single exposure.Pros:- The lens provides an unusual perspective, allowing you to get up close to a small feature and frame it with a distant background.- Relatively inexpensive, since you don't get AF or camera-controlled aperture.- It's a relatively compact lens, so it's easy to travel with/keep as an extra option in your kit.- Unlike a lot of macros in its price class, it focuses at infinity, at least with full-frame, so you get weird-macro and extreme-wide two-fer for your bag. There's a shim for APS-C that will achieve general focus.Cons:- The lens is dim, so focusing on wide scenes is tough -- impossible unless the lens is near wide open. (Mirrorless: magnification and viewfinder exposure fixes.)- The aperture isn't controllable, at least from my Nikon D850. I have to compose and focus, then lock down the aperture before shooting.- The lens hood isn't entirely stable and is so close to the edge of view that you can frequently see it in the image.- The lens cap is tough to seal.If you don't have anything similar in your camera kit and this lens won't bust your budget, it will provide you with a creative path. Just go mirrorless first.

This lens is a very unique piece of glass.For the price you get something that really adds new perspective and creative capabilities to the artist. This lens is surprising sharp, and not as difficult to work with from some of the articles I have read. I took a chance on it and was quite pleased with the performance. I've shot this on s D3200 as well as a D7200. The macro shots come out quite clear, and it's very interesting to be able to get a sense of the environment with such a close up shot.The petal lens hood is very finicky to screw on and off. When taking very close shots, you almost always have to take it off or it will either bump into your subject and cast a shadow. 1:1 is very difficult to utilize and I haven't yet found a situation where I wanted to press the front element against anything, because you almost have to when using the closest focus...The lens overall feels very sturdy and solid, and has a good weight to it. Good combination of brass plastic and metal. Besides my troublesome pedal hood, everything else is pretty solid. One thing to note is that it was impossible to see where the lens needs to line up with the camera body lens mount. There is a microscopic red dot on the metal, near the shift release that is very difficult to see.Speaking of shift, it's a great addition honestly, and gives me additional incentive to use this lens for adding more interesting perspective, or straightening out lines of tall buildings when shooting this at this focal length.The lens shifts up and down well enough and definitly provides some interesting results.As far as sharpness goes, it will actually surprise you. My expectations were average, and my copy of this lens really impressed me in terms of sharpness.

Close focus is amazing... decent bokeh.

Lens is solid, heavy and seems well-built. The plastic petal lens hood, however, is extremely fussy and difficult to attach and detach. If you are interested in the shift movement for architectural use, (my primary motivation for this purchase) you should know that the shift function ONLY works with the camera in the horizontal orientation. Unlike other shift lenses I have used, this lens does not have a 360-degree rotating lens mount that also allows for shift movement in vertical or other orientations. As an example, if you want a vertical photograph of a tall building using the shift movement, you are out of luck. Also, the shift mechanism is fairly crude; it is a simple lever lock that allows you to shift the lens up or down, but you must push it manually with your finger, there is not a rotating screw type of adjustment. The lens locks with detents into full up, full down, or middle positions. Intermediate shift positions are by friction-fit only, no way to lock it in. The shift function is somewhat limited on full-frame cameras as vignetting appears, but it seems to allow for full shift movement on aps-c and m4/3 formats. The lens will focus extremely close, right up to the front element. Barrel distortion is relatively high, about a +10 correction setting in Adobe products. If I had to do it over again, I would instead buy a high-quality shift adapter, and an appropriate lens.