Venus Laowa 100mm f/2.8 2X Ultra Macro APO Lens for Nikon Z

There is NO auto focus on this lens whatsoever. If you've never used a manual lens, buckle up. This'll be quite the learning curve. Once you get the hang of it, it's a ton of fun. I find it pretty tricky to get good shots without a tripod, but this is probably because I pretty much only shoot in f/22 so I can get as much in focus as I can. Since I'm always shooting in either f/11 or f/22 (and because the lens itself is pretty heavy), a lot of the time when I'm shooting handheld I get a lot of camera shake.I wouldn't recommend this lens for beginners, but if you're up for a strictly manual lens I really don't think you can go wrong here. This lens is very well-built. It feels great to use, albeit a bit heavy. I've had a ton of fun using this lens and I intend to have a lot more fun with it in the future.The pictures I've uploaded alongside this review are all shots I've taken with this lens on my Nikon Z5.

Bought this to double as a traveling lens with a little reach and a macro. Took it all over Europe, can't believe how great it did as a walk around lens to get a little detail or reach. Paired with the z9 for the focus peaking, it was sharp and distortion free. A little vignetting at the corners if I push dehaze in LR too much, but easily remedied. It does actually focus as close as advertised. I shoot mostly sports and won't carry it all the time, but it's earned a spot in my core line up of lenses. I haven't tried a recent macro from Nikon, Canon, etc, so I don't have anything to compare to, but am thrilled at the quality of what I got for that price.

!. Really good optics2. Easy to get great macro shots3. Works best on a macro rail due to fiddly focus (to be expected).4. Solid build

I love it but except because is manual focus only and some kind of vignette appears with the lense hood, when zoom in (better work without the lense hood)

I bought this and ended up having to return it but it had nothing to do with the quality of the product itself. It is a fully manual macro lens and it works beautifully. Easy to focus and set your aperture, you just need to hold still and take a quick shot while you’ve got your focus set because any movement can set you outside of the focus real fast but that’s just the nature of a manual macro lens. The build quality is excellent and feels very durable. It also comes in very appealing and sturdy packaging. All around a good buy for your Nikon Z system.

Great manual focus lens. Took a second to get used to it. After that it's pretty fun.

Out of the box, the lens has specks of dust on the inside. These showed up as very noticeable spots in the images and viewfinder. For a brand new lens, I expected it to be cleaner and free of such defects. Seems like a good value for this price point. But the specks are not acceptable. Returning it now.

it's clean, nice build. I'm new but i attach this to a novaflex bellows to get even extra close with this lens.