This week we take a look at one of the more unusual optics we've seen for quite a while. The Laowa 24mm F14 Macro Probe lens may look like something out of a science fiction movie, but as Chris and Jordan discover, it opens the door to some really interesting photo opportunities.
It would be quite easy for a DIYer to fashion a support bracket with a tripod socket for this lens. You don't always have to wait for it to be produced commercially.
For the price, you could make a really nice 24mm macro camera with 1" sensor, IS, and AF that mounted on the end of a stick with the viewfinder attached by a cable. The camera part could be waterproof and wouldn't be much bigger than the business end of this lens. with the vagaries of the relay optics and the f/14 result of blowing the picture up to FF, the IQ would be better with the 1in sensor and you would get IS and a decent shutter speed without resorting to extreme ISO settings. So this wins the "my thing is longer than your thing" contest, but in the end it is far from a satisfying result.
This is just a smaller cheaper version of the FRAZIER relay lens system that was used in Saving Private Ryan ... on the beach landing ... going along the rifle. We use a variety of these systems shooting commercials. Besides the Frazier, which is Panavision specific, there are the T-Rex, Revolution, various Innovision probes, Century Precision 2000, the Ultimate and the Skater Scope. These systems costs many $10,000 so our table top studio immediately ordered one of these. We spend that much on renting those systems for a week's shoot.
Though the relay construction looks more like the endoscopes made for medical purposes than like what's in inside the Frazier lens or the Koheisha device.
This lens looks fun, but we need flash for decent DOF for f13-16 and as light power decreases exponentially, It is not very useful for either DIY diffuser for built in flash or macro flash. It is not very productive for small insects. I prefer my own DIY diffuser instead of my Nissin macro flash which puts unnatural ring halos on insect eyes, and I use pop-up flash for this purpose. 1/8th-1/4th pop-up flash power is sufficient for DIY diffuser which produces perfect light quality, is not applicable for this lens which is too far from the flash. I wont buy this lens bec of flash inconvenience.
Your reply just embarrasses you. We've used these type of relay systems for decades without any of the issues you bring up. Have you even looked at the sample photos? Our table top studio instantly ordered one. We typically pay a $1K a week renting pro systems. This will allow us to get a lot of the shots we use probes for without having to rent these systems that cost way too much to be cost effective. Sample shots here: https://petapixel.com/2018/08/01/the-laowa-24mm-f-14-2x-macro-probe-is-a-weird-but-revolutionary-lens/
I tried LED lights before, they dont give the power and speed of normal flash. LED lights are good for video, if you have very strong but heavy LED lights you can use it for portraiture. For macro work, flash should be light so that your hands dont shake. Light LED lights are very weak and not fast enough to freeze the bug.
Excellent video, This was a great Jordan and Chris video. Informative and funny. Got down to everything I would want to know about this lens. I like the cutting too, how they go from the toilet to whats in Jordan's mouth. Great order.
I'm not sure that this is a breakthrough of any sort, given the fact that this sort of thing has been around for quite a while. Flexible cystoscopy is the examination of the inside of the bladder and the urethra using a fine, flexible fibre optic tube with a light and a tiny camera at the end. Cystoscopy, also called a cystourethroscopy or, more simply, a bladder scope, is a test to measure the health of the urethra and bladder. Cystoscopes are tubular instruments equipped with lights and viewing devices used to examine the interior of the urinary tract. There are two types of cystoscopes: a standard rigid cystoscope and a flexible cystoscope. The device presented here on Dpreview is basically the same thing; but on a larger scale. As such, I would have to opine that it is more a novelty, than anything else.
I suppose that you could have actually watched the video presented. Had you done that, you may have heard the person in the video actually ask "...is this a siily toy; or a very useful tool".
Not one, seriously, not ONE of the close-ups in the video were anything other than yucky/fuzzy. If you want to poke a lens into a dark place (including under water), just buy one of the many cheap Chinese endoscope cameras available on the market. For about £12 (say, $15) you can get multi-megapixel shots direct onto your iOS/Android/PC/Mac device - including LED illumination - and if the IPX7 sealing fails, hey, you've only lost 15 bucks/12 quid!
OH - and the image quality is WAY better than anything I saw in this video, and that remote imaging head is at the far end of a long, flexible cable!
It is true that the IQ of such things is mostly not remarkable (no experience with this one). But the couple of cheapo endoscopes I've seen were even worse. Maybe it would be better if a small wide-angle lens were mounted on a better small sensor, perhaps the Pentax Q. A small lens diameter and the extension tube are sometimes helpful with this kind of small wildlife photography, some setups also involve prisms to change the shooting angle. http://koheisha.net/
The biggest problem with most of the cheap endoscope-style cameras, is that they are focused at about 20cm (8 inches), being designed for close-up examination. This is fine for poking around in ponds or inserting into mouse holes or spiders' funnel webs, but no good if you want to see further.
Another great video of something I would never choose to buy.
I still don't understand why the lens is designed to look like this, is it really a factor of being a wide angle macro? In reality, who would choose to buy a lens that looks like this? It's not going to fit in a camera bag and trigger happy cops are going to take you out.
the thing is that insects merely react on movement. If you just move slowly enough you can come as close as you want even if you have an extremely large lens or camera. Therefore, such a long tubular extension is not as useful for bugs as you might think. If the tube moves too fast, the insects will get driven away regardeless if it is a small relay lens tube or a large lens with 70mm diameter..... If the tube moves slowly, the insects do not care about it size anyway...
If it is watertight, it may, however, be used in ponds for water flees etc...
1) maybe you could attach a gentle strap between a tripod leg and end of lens, just enough pressure to stabilize but not compromise the integrity of the lens mount,
2) as a swimmer, i know the human eye cannot focus underwater unless there is a pocket if air in front of the eye, hence the use of swim goggles or a swim mask... i assume there is no such limitation with a camera lens?,
3) will/could they offer a longer barrel? Would that incur an even smaller aperture?,
4) i think for most "looking down the pipe" purposes, one of those $20 fiber-optic inspection cameras may suffice...
But seriously: this is obviously a specialist lens which may be useful for entomologists or for people who study pond life or for structural engineers who want to document the sloppy work at a particularly inaccessible joint etc. etc. There are many uses for such a "barrel" and unlike some here I don't find it at all silly. My only gripe is the price, as this is essentially quite a simple lens.
There is a distinct possibility that you might scare some people with that thing. Put the camera up to your eye with that silly thing on the end of it, and you are definitely going to look like you are getting ready to shoot someone. Don't be surprised if you get a visit from the local gendarme, or be the star attraction on someone's Facebook page. Are you ready to go viral. HAHAHA!!
Huh huh huh huh he said 'probe.' Hey, they put a specific place at the beginning of the video for probe jokes :-D
With that said.. it's a pretty cool idea for a lens. Looks like it could be useful and if reasonable enough in price, I'd buy one.
One feature that I'm kinda surprised they didn't add however, is some sort of little battery for the LEDs along or at the base of that big long probe. The video touched on this-maybe the next iteration will have such an addition.
He was using a USB pack and it lasted him 45 min, he didn't say what size but let's guesstimate based on the size it was a good 5,000mAh+... A lipstick sized one (typically 3,000mAh or less) would already yield <30 min, a little battery the size of say an AAA might be kinda pointless.
A longer cable into a bag/pocket is probably the best bet even if it's a little inelegant. I imagine people using it for serious video work would have a cage unto which they can rig up the battery etc.
First thing to do once you bought one: Paint the barrel into orange color. At least couple inches from the tip! This is in case you would like to have a chance to review your photos later same day.
I have a few tips for using this lens on an a7x camera that can use the apps like the a7RII can: 1. Get the Lens Application app. 2. Register this lens as normal in the app, but DO NOT set the focal length to 24mm but like 200 up to 800mm, as IBIS uses this value and when shooting this close you need a high setting like that. One has to try out what gives the best for a few magnifications. Then, create 2-3 or 4 settings with the same lens but with different setting for focal length and you can switch rather quick and easy within the app. Have done that with 3 of my lenses, 60mm 2:1 Laowa macro, the Yasuhara - Nanoha x5 micro lens and also the Laowa 25mm f2.8 Ultra Macro 2.5-5x. Yes, you can skip the app and just adjust manually the focal-length but the app gives at least a clue what lens was used in exif, what you wrote in the app, and it’s faster to just change the version of the lens than fiddle with the settings.. Continues on previous post…
Correction: The app above is the >Lens Compensation< app and not "Application".
Yea, I can't either as many of the apps was so useful, they skipped it and never made any substitute for the a7RIII/a9, like the Time Lapse, Smart Remote, Touchless Shutter, Digital Filter, Smooth Reflection just to mention a few of those I bought. Well, they didn't kill the App Store, still works to buy for the a7RII but they killed support of it for newer cameras :-( One can still use the other way, manually adjusting the focal-length tho...
...continued... 3. Use a longer cable for the LEDs and strap it along the lens towards the camera and beyond to a pocket, pouch or whatever you will have your power pack placed in. 4. Make a float that fits the lens barrel and wrap some duct-tape at a safe distance from the non waterproof area on the lens barrel and also some at about 10cm (4") down towards the tip. Then you will notice when you are getting to deep into the water. 5. Bring duct-tape or similar to tape some of the LEDs to get at least some shades in the shot.
Have some more but can't explain it atm as I running out of words for it :-)
Why would anyone consider the Pentax ecosystem dead? They still make and support the cameras, have made and are making new lenses.. seems pretty alive to me.
I imagine they're auto generated, based on the wrong links to similar gear we've seen in the past... And in this case the Laowa probe is unique enough that it didn't find anything. :P
Drones photographing from high above, sensors capturing scenes in near total darkness, IS eliminating all movement, AF/AE & HDR yielding perfect focus and exposure, AI deciding when and where to make "great" images, and the ubiquitous smartphone documenting all human activity 24/7. Now this device for getting deep into every possible nook and cranny.
DPR has turned into the back pages of Popular Photography back in the '60s, full of creepy ads for periscope lenses used to shoot around corners and over walls, X-ray cameras for seeing through clothing and doors, and every other form of futuristic bizarro world photographic gizmo imaginable.
When I saw this I was reminded of a nature video of these super aggressive ants where the photographer was using a probe camera to get "up close and personal."
Slightly off topic - with more and more reviews/hands-on's going through DPR TV, is there any chance we can have the scripts/transcripts posted up alongside? ...maybe with some screenshots?
Yep, me too. I'm not interested so much in the latest trend of "video reviews" on this site. In fact I think I watched one, then gave up. I know they're probably a lot quicker (and cheaper?) to do than a "hand-written" version, but how about catering for those who prefer the latter?
Chris and Jordan were purposely hired for video content, and you're greatly undermining the work that goes into it, but either way they're not taking any time away from the staff that would normally write other pieces... They're not even in the same county.
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