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Leaked photos, video and specs reveal new Laowa 90mm f/2.8 2x macro lens for full-frame mirrorless

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Well, it looks like Venus Optics is getting ready to announce at least one more lens. Not surprisingly, it’s a macro lens. Photos and specs have leaked for an upcoming Laowa FFii 90mm f/2.8 CA-Dreamer 2x Macro lens, that will be available in mounts for Sony E, Canon RF, Nikon Z and Leica L.

The lens is expected to be officially announced on May 23rd and while are no sample photos to show what the view through the lens looks like, enough specs have leaked to cover the basics. There are also some leaked photos and Sony Alpha Rumors even posted an unboxing video to YouTube by Camera Beta.

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Top tips to capture your most beautiful wild flower photographs ever

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Now that spring is finally here we are entering (hopefully!) wildflower season. Not only is this a beautiful time of year but it also lends itself to a host of wonderful photographic opportunities. Landscapes can be transformed into a colourful patchwork and it’s often worth going back to a place at this time of year to see how different it looks.

In this video, Leigh “Snap Chick” takes us through a few of her tips for getting the most out of the outdoors at this time of year.

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Laowa has released a 0.7x focal length reducer for its 24mm f14 probe macro lens

Laowa has released a 0.7x focal length reducer for its popular and unique 24mm f/14 probe macro lens. Like all focal length reducers, this one allows you to view a wider field of view on sensors smaller than full-frame. In the case of APS-C and Super 35mm it brings the probe lens to just a hair under its full-frame field of view, while on Micro Four Thirds, you’ll get about the same field of view as you would on APS-C without the reducer.

Also like your typical focal length reducer, you get a slightly wider effective aperture, too. In this case, it brings that f/14 up to f/10, making things a little easier on your lights. There are multiple version of the adapter with mounts on one side for either the PL or EF mount lens and mounts on the other for either Sony E, Fuji X, Canon RF, Micro Four Thirds or L mount.

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These trippy “micro landscapes” are made only with light reflected in opals

Macro and microscopic photography open up a whole new world of possibilities, making even ordinary objects extraordinary. But what about shooting those objects that already are extraordinary? Well, Christian Stangl decided to give it a shot and he has created something truly wonderful.

Teaming up with musician Max Cooper, Christian created a video to his song by playing with opal. He used a macro lens, some lights, and water, and created one of the trippiest and most beautiful macro videos I’ve seen.

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Crystals growing in 8K looks like a vast and beautiful expanding antarctic wasteland

Growing crystals fascinated me as a kid. I remember my parents buying me an Introduction to Chemistry experiment kit – which actually contained a “flexidisc” (a flexible album, basically) of Johnny Ball narrating and guiding you through the experiments. There were a bunch of different crystal growing experiments contained within that I just had to try. In fact, they might actually have been the only experiments in the kit that I did try.

So, you can imagine my eyes widening when I saw this music video for Sébastien Guérive’s Bellatrix, shot and directed by French video artist Thomas Blanchard, which is four solid minutes of crystal growing, shot in glorious 8K on the RED Helium 8K with the Canon MP-E 65mm f/2.8 1-5x macro lens.

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This 3D printed adapter for microscope objectives produces amazing macro shots for less than $25

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Macro is one of those subjects that kind of has two extremes. Either you can go way over the top expensive, with decent macro lenses starting at quite a few hundred dollars or you can go super cheap, utilising tools such as extension tubes with your “normal” lenses. But there is a third alternative, a mix of inexpensive and DIY. And this project from Nick Sherlock takes that DIY route to a low budget extreme with some pretty amazing results.

He designed an adapter for Sony E and Canon EF mount cameras that can be easily 3D printed and allows him to connect an inexpensive $23 4x microscope objective and essentially use it as a macro photography setup. And while it’s no Laowa probe lens, the objective being so small also means you can poke it through things to get much closer to your subject without too much interference.

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If you like bugs, macro and timelapse you’ll definitely want to watch “-N- Uprising ‘The Green Reapers'”

I see a lot of macro and timelapse scroll by my screen and when the two come together, they can produce something that’s just wonderful. When you add bugs into the mix as well, you get something that’s a little bit extra special, like this beautiful short film from Thomas Blanchard.

Despite describing this as an “experimental film”, Thomas combines both of these techniques masterfully to make this incredible creation. It took four months worth of patience to make and is comprised of 8K video of insects on the RED Helium 8K and 8K timelapse of carnivorous plants on the Canon EOS 5DS R DSLR.

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Winners of the Close up Photographer of the Year 2021 announced

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A collage image of dead insects found inside a light fixture has won the title of Close up Photographer of the Year 2021. The image was taken by Norwegian photographer and dentist, Pål Hermansen after finding the insects inside a defective lamp on the side of his house.

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How to take professional looking photographs of your own iris

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In this video, macro photographer Jens from Another Perspective walks us through how to take these intriguing ultra-close ups of your own or somebody else’s iris. Once the iris is cut out from the background in Photoshop it provides a unique view of what the eye looks like, in a way that you would never normally see it. Just a quick word of warning: I’m a bit squeamish when it comes to eyes so for anyone of a similar disposition you might want to skip this tutorial!

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TTArtisan’s new $113 40mm f/2.8 Macro for MFT, Fuji X and Sony E looks pretty sharp

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TTArtisan has announced its manual focus 40mm f/2.8 Macro lens for APS-C mirrorless and Micro Four Thirds. Despite being an APS-C lens and only manual focus, there’s no EF-M or APS-C Z mount for this one (not yet anyway, although I hear EF-M might be on the way), just Fuji X and APS-C Sony E mounts. The lens offers a minimum focus distance of 17mm with 1:1 magnification.

Update: October 25th – It’s now available in Nikon Z flavour.

Although the lens was only officially announced today, it’s been in the hands of reviewers for a little while. Christopher Frost got his hands on one and took it for a spin on his Sony A5100. It’s a pretty ugly looking lens, although the images don’t look half bad, especially when you consider the lens costs less than $115.

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