I bought this for a short animated film project. To my surprise, the lens is very good. Sharp images and video. The lens is built solidly and has some heft to it. I use it on my Nikon Zfc and the lens weighs it down just a little bit, but nothing bad. The few video shots I've taken with the TTArtisan are sharp and colorful. I took some test footage of my eye and this lens captures it in clear detail.Using manual focus takes me back to my early days in photography which is fine. The lens focus ring is smooth and I can change the aperture with ease. The only minor complaint I have the having to unscrew the lens cap, but I can always buy an easier lens cap if I want to.The price of the lens belies its quality. Fun lens!

Great value for money four thirds macro lens.

Bought for digitizing my slides and negatives. Works really well in conjunction with my Valoi easy35 scanner. This has greatly accelerated scanning time compared with my Nikon Coolscan dedicated scanner. I can scan 36 slides/negatives in a few of minutes compared with 10 minutes per frame. The lens produces sharp, crystal clear images. Would highly recommend.Only slight downsides are that it is quite heavy and took 3-4 weeks to arrive.

It's $99! A better macro lens will cost you $400.

Paired with my GX85 and a speedlight I've managed to take a few good pictures with this. I like it, but it has a lot of limitations. Firstly, there's some internal reflections that may ruin some of your pictures, especially when the background is dark and there's something shiny just out of the frame. If you're using a speedlight be mindful about this. Secondly this prime lens does a zooming in action when focusing, it's weird and I don't like it. Thirdly in a micro four third sensor you start to see heavy diffraction at f/11 and f/8 is a little less sharp than f/5.6, as you can imagine, that's not ideal in macro because of the tiny DOF you have even at f/11. f//8 is the sweet spot for this macro lens.

Nice super sharp macro for Fuji

Was bummed out that the Fuji 60 could not go 1:1 looked at other imports but clicked on TT on impulse and price as if I really wanted top notch macro I have adapted Nikkors. Yep I am sounding kind of dumb. The lens is very well built the focus ring moves like it should with no play left or right as you dial in no slack, unlike its 35 f1.4 sister which has a tiny bit of slack. Was very impressed with its imaging qualtiy. In test I went from 2.8 up and must say the lens is sharp wide open but gets better. No definitve tests just shooting a couple of nik knacks on a bookshelf. So I feel its a good buy. My adapted Nikkors are limited by their cheap adaptors, my fault inherent cheapness so yes there is some guilt about throwing over Fuji and Nikon for this lens and I'll ... MoreWas bummed out that the Fuji 60 could not go 1:1 looked at other imports but clicked on TT on impulse and price as if I really wanted top notch macro I have adapted Nikkors. Yep I am sounding kind of dumb. The lens is very well built the focus ring moves like it should with no play left or right as you dial in no slack, unlike its 35 f1.4 sister which has a tiny bit of slack. Was very impressed with its imaging qualtiy. In test I went from 2.8 up and must say the lens is sharp wide open but gets better. No definitve tests just shooting a couple of nik knacks on a bookshelf. So I feel its a good buy. My adapted Nikkors are limited by their cheap adaptors, my fault inherent cheapness so yes there is some guilt about throwing over Fuji and Nikon for this lens and I'll have to figure how to deal with it. Calling it a Whim discredits the engineering and science that went into its production as well as the people that built it. Physical workers never get any credit but without them you would have nothing.

You Get What You Pay For

First the positives. Tor $100, this is a really great deal. Machining seems superb, the metal lens cap is a nice touch, and it is easy to operate. Image is sharp when properly focussed. I bought to obtain a magnification analogous to the naked eye, and it works well in this role and is possibly the only lens for 4:3 micro cameras that achieves this.Now for the negatives. Being fully manual, it doesn't interface with any of my Olympus OM-D's automatic functions. Focussing in the field without a tripod is difficult as it is necessary to focus while stopped-down, rather than with the lens wide open, meaning that placing the critical focus is impossible apart from counting on the distance scale on the barrel. Consequently, out of focus photos occasionally result. ... MoreFirst the positives. Tor $100, this is a really great deal. Machining seems superb, the metal lens cap is a nice touch, and it is easy to operate. Image is sharp when properly focussed. I bought to obtain a magnification analogous to the naked eye, and it works well in this role and is possibly the only lens for 4:3 micro cameras that achieves this.Now for the negatives. Being fully manual, it doesn't interface with any of my Olympus OM-D's automatic functions. Focussing in the field without a tripod is difficult as it is necessary to focus while stopped-down, rather than with the lens wide open, meaning that placing the critical focus is impossible apart from counting on the distance scale on the barrel. Consequently, out of focus photos occasionally result. Another problem has to do with the color balance. With the Olympus OM-D, it is necessary to remove the auto-WB setting and set the camera to what the lighting condition is (sunny daylight, cloudy, incandescent, florescent, etc.). This brings things close, but the end results are off a little, meaning that they need to be tweaked in Photoshop as to saturation and color balance.But again, for $100 out of the box, it's pretty okay for what you pay for.

[Rewarded Review] ASPC slide copying

I bought this lens and screwed the Nikon ES-1 Slide Copying Adapter to the front. It barely covered the full negative but adding just one thin ring (a UV filter) gave just enough breathing room to include the edges of the image with ASPC. Results are sharp enough for my current 26mp project but I have not compared it to Nikon Cool Scan results yet. Of course the Cool Scan is very time-consuming and tedious- a non starter. Good focus is critical, and the flat field performance of this lens is fine. Not sure if I can get it to work with my vintage 36 x 36 super slide transparencies. Recommended.

[Rewarded Review] Awesome for the price!!!

I bought this lens because I love macro photography but don't have the money for an expensive lens. I just bought a new Nikon Zfc and saw this came in a Z mount, so I decided to take a chance on it.The pictures are so amazing! Very clear and showing details and colors not visible to the naked eye. I was so surprised! It is completely manual but it isn't a problem.The lens is heavy - weight is almost equal to that of my Zfc body, but it's not a lens I would take out on a long day of sight-seeing so I really don't care.I highly recommend this lens to anyone who is interested in macro photography and has $100 to spare. What a great deal!!!

[Rewarded Review] Super versatile lens!

Being a nature photographer, it is a pain having to switch back and forth between different lenses, but this has become the only lens I bring when I'm heading out the door! The ability to get all the way to 1:1 magnification but still be sharp and crisp with larger subjects at 20mm is absolutely fantastic! I've been using for both video and photo with few issues! Metal screw on lens cap is different for sure, but I've found myself liking it a lot, as I don't worry about it falling off.Only downside: some light reflections inside the body when external lights are reflected from certain angles, which causes some almost light leak looking issues, and looses sharpness past f/8 but otherwise, it is phenomenal.

[Rewarded Review] Tack Sharp

I am starting a project of copying thousands of negatives and slides to digital. I tried nearly all the lenses for my Sony system with extension tubes, but the edge quality was poor no mater what I did. I took a chance on this inexpensive lens and it produced results far superior. The edge detail is possibly the best of any lens I've owned. You do have to manually focus, but if you can do that, then this is a phenomenal lens for macro or just close up photography.

[Rewarded Review] Totally Satisfied

It's really hard to believe that a lens of this price can perform so well. It's well built, the focus ring is smooth and the clicked aperture ring enables easy selection. I used this lens to achieve 1:1 macro shots and as a normal 40mm lens on my Fuji cameras. I've owned Nikon and Tokina macro lenses at 5 times the price and honestly it performs just as good if not better. It handles chromatic aberrations very well. It's a totally manual lens so everything has to be set manually, which is not a problem for me. Using a mirrorless camera with focus peaking, it's very easy to nail focus. If you are thinking about buying the lens, just do it. You won't be disappointed.