26 Feb Laowa Probe Lens
The Laowa 24mm f/14 probe lens is the weirdest and most genius lens we have ever owned. It’s billed as being able to get “impossible” macro shots. The most unique attribute of this lens is it’s long and thin design that allows the camera op to do push and pull shots with it and thread the lens through very small things. It can also focus on objects less than 1 inch away from the front of the lens. The downside to a lens that’s shaped like this is the minimum f/14 aperture which is crazy dark. This lens needs tons of light to be useful. If Colin is using the lens indoors he will need multiple lights to claw back the ISO setting on his GH5. If it’s used in direct sunlight the lens will perform well. It does have LED lights on the front of the lens but it is an odd colour balance and makes most things look weird so we don’t use it often. Did we mention that the lens is waterproof so it can have liquids and dusty stuff all up in it’s face and it will just laugh back. Awesome tech.
Colin built a few camera accessories based on this lens as well. He made a camera attachment that holds the camera a few inches off the ground when using the slider and a couple of table top LED light “stands”. It takes a long time to set up a sweet looking macro set up and the lighting with this lens but it delivers very unique visuals.
We ran a short small business promo to offer a free shoot with this lens to a local Durham Region business. It’s much easier to film small stuff that is already staged and plentiful and we want practice with the lens (and to mutually support another small business). Hopefully we get to share this lens with as many Durham Region small businesses as possible. So if you know of a small business selling small things in the Durham Region you should share this video with them so we can make them look huge.
