Review on Laowa 100Mm 2 8 Ultra Macro by Julie Valenzuela

I am a professional wedding photographer with many years of experience and published macro photography. I bought this lens and was so happy with it that I now have to return it. Let me tell you why: lubrication. With this lens, the entire front element is moved back and forth in the lens barrel so that at one end of focus the front element is directly opposite the supplied UV filter and at the other end is a few inches behind the barrel. It's a lot of mechanical movement, and Laowa uses gray grease for the rails on which the elements move. Unfortunately, Laowa made a crucial mistake by not using a heat resistant lubricant and it will ruin your lens! I had mine about two weeks. No grease was visible on the front element on day one and only a small portion was visible on the inner rails where it should be. Fast forward a few days of testing and storing the lens face down in my bag and we're in deep trouble. During travel, the higher temperatures diluted the lubricant, allowing it to run down the inside of the barrel and infiltrate the front element. A few more days and the entire front glass would be dirty and the lens would be completely lost. This is a big fatal flaw for this lens. Don't use it over 70F, don't store it face down and it might last a long time. Otherwise, one day your beautifully sharp macro lens will be ruined by Laowa's poor design decision. For macro photography I immediately returned mine and bought a 25mm 2-5x which does not have this problem. Now for the good. This lens is incredibly sharp as others have mentioned. It's an all-metal construction and since I bought the Canon version I've been able to control the aperture electronically with the EOS R and use the control ring on my EOS R's EF-RF adapter. Nice to be able to use the lens for subjects other than macro photography, but understand that the lack of autofocus combined with a very short focal length makes it very difficult to get sharp images unless you're shooting stills or portraits . Otherwise the 1-2x zoom range is very good, although I often shoot at 2x and still crop a bit in post. This lens shoots great but doesn't last long. Save your money, skip this lens and buy the 25mm 2-5x.