2:1 lens

[Alan7140]

Got to get me one of these new "Brightin Star" 2:1 Marco lenses, worth every cent of the $250 price just for the front ring nameplate, if nothing else... 😂🤣😂

[crowecg]

Quite a bargain.  That is less than half the price of the Laowa 2:1, which itself is quite good value compared to other macro options for fuji.

 

Shooting at 2:1, now that is a challenge!

[Dallas]

…Polo…

[Alan7140]

Of course I was having a giggle at that mis-spelling that has somehow made it into production (which probably doesn't bode well for the actual quality of the lens), but I'm seriously looking for a 1:1 or greater lens to replace the second Zeiss 50mm macro lens I've had, which recently failed in exactly the same way as the original, supplied D.O.A. to me back in 2014 (and replaced by Zeiss under warranty). The local distributor didn't bother to reply to my email on their site regarding this second identical failure, namely that the lens crashes the camera immediately on power-on with "turn camera off and on again", which achieves nothing other than repeatedly turning the camera off and on.

 

I then went direct to Zeiss in Germany who replied within 12 hours asking me to send the lens to the local distributor for repair appraisal, and who have now had it for over a week according to Australia Post "signed for" delivery tracking. Needless to say I've heard zip from them as yet, nor do I expect to, given past dealings with them. Therefore it looks like I can spend nearly two grand on the new Fuji 80mm 1:1 macro (except the focal length is too long for convenient use on a copy stand), or forget about the convenience of auto focus and buy one of the several Chinese Marco lenses that have appeared recently.

 

In desperation I'm using an old Russian Industar 50mm 61L/3 M42 lens (only 1:0.75x, though) using an adapter for Fuji-X, and I also bought a 7Artisans 60mm 1:1 Macro as a further stop-gap as it was cheap and immediately available (although it has the real hassle of having a "de-clicked" aperture ring which is a Royal pain-in-the-arse when used on a copy stand as the lens has to be manually stopped down for each exposure and opened up by hand again for focusing, as well when doing several stitched sections of an original for higher resolution even the slightest bump on the aperture ring means a mismatch in exposure density when stitching.

 

I do have some M42 extension rings for extending the Industar's close-up range, but the whole assembly with the M42 adapter then becomes rather wobbly (same problem if using my after-market X-Mount extension rings on the camera side of things).

 

So I'm now stuck waiting until I get word as to whether the Touit can be repaired or not, and if I haven't heard back from them soon the distributor will be getting a less-than-subtle prompt from Zeiss Germany direct, of that they can be sure. Their heel-dragging last time when the original Touit failed lives strongly in my memory - back then after an inordinately long time I engaged Zeiss Germany's assistance and I had a new lens delivered direct from Japan (they're made by Cosina) within a few days.

 

[crowecg]

On the spelling issue, there was a “water metre” cabinet at the Monash University Caulfield campus for a while, but it has been changed since then.   I think I might have a photo of it somewhere.

 

I’ve been quite happy with the Laowa, although I might be a little less fussy with my focusing where I just rely on the viewfinder to compensate and leave the aperture at the shooting aperture rather than opening up for focussing.  Whilst the idea of 2:1 macro sounds nice the practicalities of shooting at that magnification are a challenge - I’m in the process of planning a little mounting table to try playing with high magnifications.