hello fellow photographers! ling’s here. as you may know, a few months ago nikon has announced a new portrait lens that made the world crazy. yes we are talking about this big heavy baby
Lantau Island, the nikon 105mm f1.4 ed you can definitely feel how big it is when it's pointing at you with its 82mm front diameter and you can probably tell it is heavy
surprisingly this high end heavy telephoto lens does not have vr built-in it might be a bit challenging when hand holding in low light but in general you don’t really need to worry about hand shaking if you are shooting at large aperture such as f1.4 or f2
this lens is definitely a high-end product therefore it also comes with a high price $2199 to be exact! this price is not for everyone also its for nikon shooters only so… is there any alternatives? yes, guys! check this out! this is the laowa 105mm f2 stf you may not have heard about this brand before
but this lens definitely worth your attention having the same focal length at f2 the laowa is a bit lighter and significantly smaller than the nikon it is a manual lens with 2 aperture rings one with clicks and one is clickless this lens support automatic aperture which means it will stay at it largest aperture until the shutter is pressed
providing a bright image in the view finder it is solidly build with metal and the rings are smooth and well damped other than the nikon it’s also available in canon, sony and pentax mount. according to the reviews online the image quality of this lens is excellent we will check that out in a minute but one thing is for sure
it is a much affordable lens! $699 only, just one third of the nikon! so today, we are taking these two lenses to the real world for testing and see if this laowa a much lower price lens is comparable to this nikon lens there are already loads of testing and reviews on these 2 lenses
so this time instead of making a scientific comparison we are having a... so, why do you want this big lens? it's the the bokeh, of course! this nikon has a f1.4 aperture while the laowa has only f2 it seems like the nikon is already a winner in terms of bokeh
but wait laowa has a secret weapon look, it's smooth trans focus! smooth trans focus or stf in short is a kind of lens that can soften the borders of the bokeh and create a dreamy silky out of focus area a specially design apodization element
will gradually reduce the amount of light transmission towards the periphery just like a radial gnd filter so, let’s take a look of the stf effect here we can see 2 pictures taken by our 2 lenses under the same setting in the same scene yes i know the girl is cute
but let’s focus on the bokeh we can see that on the left side the border of the bokeh circles are more defined while on the right side it’s harder to tell where the boundaries are yes, this is the effect of stf one thing to mention since the apodization element will block out some lights the image is a bit dimmer
now we know how stf can “soften†the background so, could that make the laowa stf a comparable candidate to the nikon, artistically? here, we’ve made similar shots with both lenses at their largest aperture yes the laowa’s aperture is one stop smaller but with the help of stf it may still be an interesting comparison right. so let's play a guessing game
identity which shots were made by the nikon and which were made by the laowa ready? the first pair this time the nikon is at f1.4 the bokeh circles are obviously larger than the laowa’s but they are also “harder†in this case, we can see that a larger aperture only makes your bokeh circle larger
but not smoother okay, let's try another one not an easy one, right? so this is the answer let's try one more for this pair nikon has a shallower depth of field as it is one-stop faster than laowa but the bluriness of the two images are quite similar
thanks to the apodization element in laowa we buy lenses not only for how it blurs an image but also how sharp it can achieve how much detail it can reveal let’s take a closer look to the sharpness and resolution of these 2 lenses here are the lab test results by lenstip.com on the two lenses both of them has received a extremely high scores
among all the portrait lenses in the market let's focus on the red dots which show the center resolution at different apertures we can see that at f2 and f2.8 nikon is slightly better than laowa but they get really close at f4 which is also their best performace on center resolution throughout their aperture range here, the edge performance of laowa
just outperform nikon we could expect a very close game in this round we've set up a headshot shooting on the street and shoot at different aperture let's see first of all it’s the nikon at f1.4 and it did a great job the resolution is so high already that i can see myself and my video guy in her eye!
when it’s stepped down to f2 the sharpness increased the eyebrows and hair get more solid the reflection in her eye become clearer, too and at f4 the sharpness seems to be increased further a bit even it is already very good at f2 now let’s take a look of the laowa at f2, its largest aperture
the resolution is impressive too the eyebrows and eyelashes are clear so do the reflection in her eye at f4, the sharpness improved quite a lot the hair and eyebrows are so sharp and clear the performance is outstanding lets put them side by side as you can see the resolution power of both lenses
are very close to each other and they both did an excellent job the nikon is winning a bit in marks but it's hard to tell the difference in practice sometimes back lighting can change an ordinary shot into a killer shot but the lens flare may works against you therefore we did a little back lighting scenario test with our own “sunâ€
here, we are not trying to eliminate the lens flare but to use it as an artistic element in a portrait our sun, which is a flash with a cto gel on it is firing directly toward the lens in various positions some are inside and some are outside the frame the results are quite different in style the nikon has more rings in the images and they are very define and clear in shape on the other hand
the laowa’s leaned to the other end of style it doesn’t produce many rings but a uniform illuminating effect technically speaking the flare control of both lenses are not perfect as they both produce significant flares under backlighting situation however the flares could also be a unique element
that add values to your work from this point of view it’s more about one’s taste to judge which lens is better what do you think? manual focusing maybe a concern to you yes, it does need a bit of practice but don’t worry people have developed different technologies to make manual focusing easier
and if, you are using a sony not only you can benefit from its focus peaking function but also enjoying auto focusing and the beep sound by the techart pro auto-focusing adapter this is an adaptor that can auto focus manual lenses back to the nikon the auto focusing is of course nice and precise it does take some time for the lens to run through its whole range of focus
but in most cases it’s not a big deal as your subject probably won’t move toward you so fast unless you are photographing usain bolt so, does the laowa 105 a competitive candidate to the nikon 105? for me, my answer is, yes. it is definitely subjective but the stf effect is more pleasing to my eyes the nikon did a great job too
but the unique smoothy background by laowa just won my heart yes the manual focusing is a bit challenging and it takes sometimes to get used to it to enjoy this lens you’ll have to slow down a bit but it still does an excellent job it produces high quality images that is comparable to the nikon
at this price point the lack of af is an acceptable compromise i would say and most importantly i am a pentax shooter! thank you laowa for not forgetting pentax! so, shall we invest in a stf lens? or a large aperture lens? for budget shooters
the laowa 105 stf is definitely a no brainer for professional portraits photographers who require fast shooting pace the nikon 105 should be what you go for and for luxury shooters why not both?
hello fellow photographers! ling’s here. as you may know, a few months ago nikon has announced a new portrait lens that made the world crazy. yes we are talking about this big heavy baby
Lantau Island, the nikon 105mm f1.4 ed you can definitely feel how big it is when it's pointing at you with its 82mm front diameter and you can probably tell it is heavy
surprisingly this high end heavy telephoto lens does not have vr built-in it might be a bit challenging when hand holding in low light but in general you don’t really need to worry about hand shaking if you are shooting at large aperture such as f1.4 or f2
this lens is definitely a high-end product therefore it also comes with a high price $2199 to be exact! this price is not for everyone also its for nikon shooters only so… is there any alternatives? yes, guys! check this out! this is the laowa 105mm f2 stf you may not have heard about this brand before
but this lens definitely worth your attention having the same focal length at f2 the laowa is a bit lighter and significantly smaller than the nikon it is a manual lens with 2 aperture rings one with clicks and one is clickless this lens support automatic aperture which means it will stay at it largest aperture until the shutter is pressed
providing a bright image in the view finder it is solidly build with metal and the rings are smooth and well damped other than the nikon it’s also available in canon, sony and pentax mount. according to the reviews online the image quality of this lens is excellent we will check that out in a minute but one thing is for sure
it is a much affordable lens! $699 only, just one third of the nikon! so today, we are taking these two lenses to the real world for testing and see if this laowa a much lower price lens is comparable to this nikon lens there are already loads of testing and reviews on these 2 lenses
so this time instead of making a scientific comparison we are having a... so, why do you want this big lens? it's the the bokeh, of course! this nikon has a f1.4 aperture while the laowa has only f2 it seems like the nikon is already a winner in terms of bokeh
but wait laowa has a secret weapon look, it's smooth trans focus! smooth trans focus or stf in short is a kind of lens that can soften the borders of the bokeh and create a dreamy silky out of focus area a specially design apodization element
will gradually reduce the amount of light transmission towards the periphery just like a radial gnd filter so, let’s take a look of the stf effect here we can see 2 pictures taken by our 2 lenses under the same setting in the same scene yes i know the girl is cute
but let’s focus on the bokeh we can see that on the left side the border of the bokeh circles are more defined while on the right side it’s harder to tell where the boundaries are yes, this is the effect of stf one thing to mention since the apodization element will block out some lights the image is a bit dimmer
now we know how stf can “soften†the background so, could that make the laowa stf a comparable candidate to the nikon, artistically? here, we’ve made similar shots with both lenses at their largest aperture yes the laowa’s aperture is one stop smaller but with the help of stf it may still be an interesting comparison right. so let's play a guessing game
identity which shots were made by the nikon and which were made by the laowa ready? the first pair this time the nikon is at f1.4 the bokeh circles are obviously larger than the laowa’s but they are also “harder†in this case, we can see that a larger aperture only makes your bokeh circle larger
but not smoother okay, let's try another one not an easy one, right? so this is the answer let's try one more for this pair nikon has a shallower depth of field as it is one-stop faster than laowa but the bluriness of the two images are quite similar
thanks to the apodization element in laowa we buy lenses not only for how it blurs an image but also how sharp it can achieve how much detail it can reveal let’s take a closer look to the sharpness and resolution of these 2 lenses here are the lab test results by lenstip.com on the two lenses both of them has received a extremely high scores
among all the portrait lenses in the market let's focus on the red dots which show the center resolution at different apertures we can see that at f2 and f2.8 nikon is slightly better than laowa but they get really close at f4 which is also their best performace on center resolution throughout their aperture range here, the edge performance of laowa
just outperform nikon we could expect a very close game in this round we've set up a headshot shooting on the street and shoot at different aperture let's see first of all it’s the nikon at f1.4 and it did a great job the resolution is so high already that i can see myself and my video guy in her eye!
when it’s stepped down to f2 the sharpness increased the eyebrows and hair get more solid the reflection in her eye become clearer, too and at f4 the sharpness seems to be increased further a bit even it is already very good at f2 now let’s take a look of the laowa at f2, its largest aperture
the resolution is impressive too the eyebrows and eyelashes are clear so do the reflection in her eye at f4, the sharpness improved quite a lot the hair and eyebrows are so sharp and clear the performance is outstanding lets put them side by side as you can see the resolution power of both lenses
are very close to each other and they both did an excellent job the nikon is winning a bit in marks but it's hard to tell the difference in practice sometimes back lighting can change an ordinary shot into a killer shot but the lens flare may works against you therefore we did a little back lighting scenario test with our own “sunâ€
here, we are not trying to eliminate the lens flare but to use it as an artistic element in a portrait our sun, which is a flash with a cto gel on it is firing directly toward the lens in various positions some are inside and some are outside the frame the results are quite different in style the nikon has more rings in the images and they are very define and clear in shape on the other hand
the laowa’s leaned to the other end of style it doesn’t produce many rings but a uniform illuminating effect technically speaking the flare control of both lenses are not perfect as they both produce significant flares under backlighting situation however the flares could also be a unique element
that add values to your work from this point of view it’s more about one’s taste to judge which lens is better what do you think? manual focusing maybe a concern to you yes, it does need a bit of practice but don’t worry people have developed different technologies to make manual focusing easier
and if, you are using a sony not only you can benefit from its focus peaking function but also enjoying auto focusing and the beep sound by the techart pro auto-focusing adapter this is an adaptor that can auto focus manual lenses back to the nikon the auto focusing is of course nice and precise it does take some time for the lens to run through its whole range of focus
but in most cases it’s not a big deal as your subject probably won’t move toward you so fast unless you are photographing usain bolt so, does the laowa 105 a competitive candidate to the nikon 105? for me, my answer is, yes. it is definitely subjective but the stf effect is more pleasing to my eyes the nikon did a great job too
but the unique smoothy background by laowa just won my heart yes the manual focusing is a bit challenging and it takes sometimes to get used to it to enjoy this lens you’ll have to slow down a bit but it still does an excellent job it produces high quality images that is comparable to the nikon
at this price point the lack of af is an acceptable compromise i would say and most importantly i am a pentax shooter! thank you laowa for not forgetting pentax! so, shall we invest in a stf lens? or a large aperture lens? for budget shooters
the laowa 105 stf is definitely a no brainer for professional portraits photographers who require fast shooting pace the nikon 105 should be what you go for and for luxury shooters why not both?