About
Computer Engineering Professor doing research in high-performance computing and computational photography, also a maker with experience using CNCs and 3D printers.
All feedback (291)
dragonslair0 (81)- Feedback left by buyer.
Past 6 months
Verified purchase
Thank you for an easy, pleasant transaction. Excellent buyer. A++++++.
doamonds (2349)- Feedback left by buyer.
More than a year ago
Verified purchase
Great buyer! Great communication.Super fast payment and a pleasure to work with!
doamonds (2349)- Feedback left by buyer.
More than a year ago
Verified purchase
Great buyer! Great communication.Super fast payment and a pleasure to work with!
mobile_spirit (104877)- Feedback left by buyer.
More than a year ago
Verified purchase
Good buyer, prompt payment, valued customer, highly recommended.
ellison-60- Feedback left by buyer.
More than a year ago
Verified purchase
Good buyer, prompt payment, valued customer, highly recommended.
n.n3288 (179718)- Feedback left by buyer.
More than a year ago
Verified purchase
Good buyer, prompt payment, valued customer, highly recommended.
Reviews (5)
Feb 06, 2019
Very cheap copy of Laowa 15mm f/4 macro
2 of 2 found this helpful This is an outstanding fully manual lens -- basically, it's an unauthorized copy of the wildly innovative Venus Optics / Laowa 15mm f/4 macro, but without the clever built-in perspective shift mount mechanism of the Laowa. It sells for about 1/3 the cost of the Laowa.
This Opteka lens does perform optically just like the Laowa, which is excellent. Images are fairly sharp from 1:1 macro to infinity, color is good, and flare is virtually non-existent (except for nice sunstars). Of course, 15mm full-frame 1:1 macros put the subject close enough to the front of the lens so that lighting the subject is near impossible, but the point is you can focus as close as you'd ever want to. Close-up, you get a surprising amount of bokeh for the distant background, and the bokeh is pleasantly smooth. Be warned that compositions are extremely touchy at 15mm, but with care and practice the unusual perspectives this enables can really add impact to your photos.
The biggest optical issue is several % of moustache distortion (just like the Laowa), which bends lines enough to be a big problem for architectural shots; you'd need to straighten them in postprocessing. However, unless there are long straight lines in the scene, the distortion often goes unnoticed because the strong ultrawide perspectives draw your view -- especially when shooting macros.
Build is solid metal and the focus and aperture (which has no click stops) rings are smooth, but the mount is a very different matter: surprisingly sloppy. Mine is Canon EF mount, and is a slightly loose fit on the camera. Worse still, infinity focus comes at what the lens focus scale says should be 0.5m. The mount should probably be shimmed to correct this, because the focus distance compensation in the lens is overcorrecting causing distant scenes to be less sharp than they should be around f/4. I very much doubt the Laowa has this kind of trouble.
Apr 08, 2016
Like black anodizing marks without disassembling
3 of 3 found this helpful It's NOT black anodizing, but it sure looks like it and can be done without disassembling parts.
This is apparently usually used for gun parts, but I bought it to use to make scratches and wear on aluminum parts of old camera lenses look less disturbing. It works great. Clean the surface well with alcohol, then dab this stuff on with a Q-tip. They say wait 1 minute... more like wait a minute and then rub it in with the Q-tip some more if it hasn't blackened yet. Basically, the aluminum really needs to be raw; normal, not really visible, oxidation from a scratch having been there a while is enough to keep it from turning black for 2-3 passes of rub-and-wait with a Q-tip... but they do eventually turn, and the result is excellent. It appears to have no effect on the still-anodized portions of the metal.
BTW, this does not make scratches go away -- it just makes them less visually distracting by making them black, whereas otherwise cleaning the external metal parts of a lens can actually make it look worse by making the once dirt-filled scratches look shiny new. I don't think this treatment would fool anyone into thinking the scratches were not there. In other words, it would be dishonest to use this in an attempt to fool people about condition and you'd probably get caught in the lie, so don't do that.
Jun 05, 2015
A cheaper branding of the excellent 8mm Samyang CSII
1 of 1 found this helpful Despite the markings, this lens is really the 8mm Samyang CSII. I don't know why Opteka doesn't label it as such.
Bought to use on Sony E-mount APS-C & FF bodies -- in Nikon mount so with a Nikon-F-to-Canon-FD adapter I can use it on my existing Canon-FD-to-Sony-E adapters and focal reducer. Be warned that the Nikon F mount on this lens is slightly loose on adapters, although I'm told it is fine on Nikon bodies.
Image quality is very nice on APS-C as a rectangular fisheye. Using it on my FF bodies with the hood off, it gives a clipped circle; however, using it on a focal reducer on FF it gives an unclipped full circle covering more than 180 degrees.