[JJ_SO]

Dinosaur indeed, I bet you still point the lens away from yourself when taking a photo!

Given the number of selfies around, I would not bet much on this "truth". 

[TOMMMMMM]

Thanks for publishing your review of this. Christopher Frost also had high praise for this lens, but was a bit disappointed in the amount of throw the manual focus ring offered. In his opinion, it wasn't enough to easily get focus. Do you have any thoughts on this Klaus?

[Klaus]

Thanks for publishing your review of this. Christopher Frost also had high praise for this lens, but was a bit disappointed in the amount of throw the manual focus ring offered. In his opinion, it wasn't enough to easily get focus. Do you have any thoughts on this Klaus?

It's about 220 degrees or so. That was good enough for me at least.

[Klaus]

FWIW, added some more sample images to the Laowa review.

They show, once again, that it can be darn sharp but the background bokeh is not ideal.

[Rover]

I think the aperture tabs in the catseye section show values from some other lens... they go "f/1.8 - f/2.2 - f/2.8".

[Klaus]

Sorry, copy & paste text error there.

[JJ_SO]

Sorry, copy & paste text error there.

One more little thing:

"At f/2.8, the center is tack sharp with you a hint of softness at the image corners. "

With me?

Believe it or not, but I ordered this thing as I do have some subjects to take pictures from. Next will be a slider with an app which gives me focus-stacks. I thought of a Miops slider (https://www.rollei.com/miops-capsule-slider-50cm-70053-en). Anyone with slider experience here? A friend of mine uses this and is rather happy with it. First I thought of Edelkrone, as these can pull more weight vertically or diagonal. But they are more costly and the app doesn't seem to have settings for stacking.

[mst]

No experience with app controlled sliders... I only use a manual Novoflex macro rail, which does the job for me well enough.

[JJ_SO]

Well, the app controlled sliders can be set up and while the whole device snaps 100 frames on auto-pilot, I can import them into Helicon Focus or Zerene (currently I'm using Affinity Photo as good enough...). The slider moves and releases the camera.

If something goes wrong - or better said, AFTER something went wrong* - I just can repeat the whole procedure with different lighting or setting. Sometimes the starting point is not good, other times the interval step is too long...

*as I nearly always have to repeat the stack...

[JJ_SO]

Few comments after I've done some 1500-2000 JPGs to stack 15 pictures. And after I've done few "normal shots".

For landscapes, flare can be an issue.
For shots in distances from 10 m to infinity I had troubles to focus properly. Also handheld below 1:1, that's just random play.
Removing the lenscap with mounted lenshood is harder than it'd need to be. I will do something about that.

A very great macro lens. The results were much better than a stack I did with the Micor Nikkor 105/2.8 in terms of CA and sharpness, although that one was on a 46 MP FF body. The 2:1 is very useful, as 1:1 sometimes needed to be cropped (so the results with FF got worse again). The downside of no EXIF still sucks massively, but for this lens it's acceptable as there's no other option in this price region.