Laowa, maker of very highly respected manual focus macro lenses, launched today a very small 85mm f/5.6 2x Macro APO. The APO means that as you change the focus, the image won’t “breathe,” goofing up your focus stacking. This is a lens apparently designed for narrow-aperture, super sharp shots of tiny things.
While carrying around an f/2.8 100mm macro lens can make for some flexible options, bug photographers very seldom shoot at those wider apertures. More important to them is the level of magnification and how compatible the lens is with taking multiple pictures at different focus settings to later combine them into a “stacked” picture of perfect focus.
The lens is internally focusing and sports an MTF chart that shows its sharpness to be slightly better than that of the new Canon RF 100mm L Macro lens toward the center of the frame, and slightly less sharp than the Canon on the outer rim.
The lens is only three inches long, and weighs about half a pound. People with access to early copies of the lens, like Keith Cooper, report that the sharpness bears out, and that it has very low color aberration.