1x TEST LINEUP
Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens (MPE)
Laowa 100mm f2.8 APO Ultra Macro APO Macro lens (LA100)
Nikon Printing-NIKKOR 105mm f2.8A (PN105A)
Sigma Art 105mm F2.8 DG DN Macro lens (Art105)
The goal of this test is to compare the highest performing lenses from previous tests against two new new high performance lenses from Laowa and Sigma. There has been a noticeable improvement in image quality since our first sharpness test in 2017. Thanks to the independent manufacturers, a level higher image quality is now available to more people with less expensive lenses covering a wider range of camera mounts. The Sigma Art 70mm f/2.8 DG Macro (Art70) is a perfect example. This was the biggest surprise in the 2020 test, beating every lens (except for the Printing-NIKKOR 105mm F2.8A and Scanner-Nikkor ED 100mm), and the Art70 is not Sigma’s best macro lens. The Art 105mm F2.8 DG DN Macro broke the resolution record at Lenstip.com where the Art105 MTF corners were better than the center out of the Sony FE 90mm f/2.8 Macro G OSS lens!
Thanks to the generosity of a friend, I’m able to include the Laowa 100mm F2.8 Ultra Macro 2X lens in this test. Customer service at Laowa USA and China never bothered to respond to any of my emails inquiring about a lens loan. Standard practice for large lens manufactures is to keep a pool of lenses available for media/professional use.
The new Canon RF 100mm f/2.8 L Macro IS USM and Nikon NIKKOR Z MC 105mm f/2.8 VR S lens would have been nice additions to this test, but both the Canon and Nikon were not available when I ran this test (the Nikon is still not in stock as I write this in November) and these two lenses cannot be adapted to E-mount so I will not be able to test these new lenses on my A7RIV when I do manage to get copies to test.
All of the lenses tested here were purchased by or loaned to closeuphotography.com, without any discount or commission from any person unless noted otherwise. The 105Art and LA100 lenses are on loan from a friend for this test. Closeuphotography.com does not use affiliate links that generate a commission when the visitor clicks on a link to buy something. This is not a fan page either, this product was not given to me, I was not paid to write this, nor did the manufacturer or distributor loan me this lens for this review.
1X LENS TEST SETUP
Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x test aperture: f/4, effective f/8 at 1x
Laowa 100mm f2.8 APO Ultra Macro APO test aperture: f/4, effective f/8 at 1x
Nikon Printing-NIKKOR 105mm f2.8A test aperture: f/2.8, effective f/5.6 at 1x
Sigma Art 105mm F2.8 DG DN test aperture: f/4, effective f/8 at 1x
Camera: Sony α7R IV, Sony Alpha ILCE-A7R IV (A7R4)
Sensor size: Full Frame. 35.7mm x 23.8mm. 42.91 mm diagonal. 3.76 micron sensor pitch
Flash: Godox TT350s wireless flash x 2 with one Godox X1s 2.4G wireless flash transmitter
Notes: All of the images shown here are single files. The sharpest frame was then selected out of a stack of images made in 6 micron steps. Separate images were selected for center, edge, and corner if needed. Each image was processed in PS CC with identical settings with all noise reduction and lens correction turned off, all settings were zeroed out to true zero and the same settings were used for all of the images. None of the images have kind of lens correction applied. You should be aware that this is not possible with some lens brands and Adobe software (google: lens correction opcodes).
1x TEST TARGET
Silicon wafers are used for the ultimate in fine details like micro-lettering and fine scratches, not normally available with other kinds of targets. A silicon disk will always stay perfectly flat and won’t warp or bend during the test when they become warm. The downside is of course fragility, they shatter if they are dropped so they need to handled carefully. Keeping the surface of the wafer clean requires the disk must be cleaned carefully with a professional plastic cleaner.
Center, 28mm image circle (APS-C corner) and full frame corner crop areas outlined in blue.
1x Test 100% Center Crop
Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens 1x Center Crop at f/4
Sharpness out of the MPE is good but there are small amounts of red fringing that I can see at high contrast edges but it’s not very noticeable here unless you compare side-by-side with another test image.
Nikon Printing-NIKKOR 105mm f2.8A at f/2.8
The PN105A produces the highest level of sharpness and is 100% free of chromatic aberrations (CAs). The best aperture of the PN105A is wide open at f/2.8 and that gives this lens an advantage over the others due to less sharpness loss due to diffraction.
Laowa 100mm f2.8 APO Ultra Macro APO Macro lens at f/4
The image quality out of the Laowa is nice to see, very high sharpness without any CAs.
Sigma 105mm F2.8 DG DN Macro Art lens at f/4
Excellent image quality from the Sigma also, sharp and free from CAs.
1x Test 100% Center results
Nikon Printing-NIKKOR 105mm f2.8A (PN105A)
Sigma Art 105mm F2.8 DG DN Macro lens (Art105) and Laowa 100mm f2.8 APO Ultra Macro APO Macro lens (LA100)
Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens (MPE)
1x test 28mm image Circle (aPS-C corner) 100% Crop
Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens at f/4
Sharpness out of the MPE is high enough but red fringing around high contrast edges, even more than the center, is the worst of the group.
Nikon Printing-NIKKOR 105mm f2.8A at f/2.8
Excellent, the highest sharpness of all the lenses in this group without any trace of CAs, and no noticable loss compared to the center.
Laowa 100mm f2.8 APO Ultra Macro APO Macro lens at f/4
Not quite as sharp here compared to the center crop but the Laowa but CAs are very well controlled and very sharp here.
Sigma 105mm F2.8 DG DN Macro Art lens at f/4
The Sigma Art also has a slight dip in sharpness here but image quality is still very high without any CAs.
1x test 28mm image Circle (aPS-C) results
Nikon Printing-NIKKOR 105mm f2.8A (PN105A)
Sigma Art 105mm F2.8 DG DN Macro lens (Art105)
Laowa 100mm f2.8 APO Ultra Macro APO Macro lens (LA100)
Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens (MPE)
1x test 43mm image Circle (full frame) 100% Crop
Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens
Very low distortion, very good sharpness and fine details, red fringing is the only issue here. The MPE is corrected for a flat field.
Nikon Printing-NIKKOR 105mm f2.8A
Awesome sharpness, resolution, and contrast without any hint of CAs or distortion. The PN105A is the consistent lens from center to corners. The PN105A is corrected for a flat field.
Laowa 100mm f2.8 APO Ultra Macro APO Macro lens
The Laowa corners are a nice surprise. Details and sharpness are just excellent without any trace of CAs on a full frame sensor, although there is some distortion. The LA100 is not flat corrected.
Sigma 105mm F2.8 DG DN Macro Art lens
Excellent sharpness and lots of fine details from the Sigma Art. Distortion is slightly higher than the Laowa, and noticeably more than the Printing-Nikkor, and MPE. The Art105 field is not perfectly flat.
1x test 43mm IC (full frame) results
Nikon Printing-NIKKOR 105mm f2.8A (PN105A)
Sigma Art 105mm F2.8 DG DN Macro lens (Art105) and Laowa 100mm f2.8 APO Ultra Macro APO Macro lens (LA100)
Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens (MPE)
1X TEST Longitudinal Chromatic AberratioN
A photographic lens is made with glass elements that direct light rays to reproduce the image as accurately as possible onto a sensor while minimizing aberrations. Optical aberrations occur when details in the image do not translate accurately while passing through the lens. This causes image softness, misalignment of colors (chromatic aberration), corner shading, and distortion among others.
Chromatic aberrations (CAs)
Human eyes pick up CAs as color fringes along the boundaries or edges that separate dark and bright parts of the image, usually along the borders of the frame. This is a caused by the failure of a lens to focus all colors to the same point so the different wavelengths of light focus at different points.
Longitudinal CAs (LoCAs)
LoCAs are visible as halos of different colors in out-of-focus areas, usually magenta in front of the focus point and green beyond. LoCAs are extremely difficult to correct, especially wide-open, and only a handful of lenses are LoCA free. Almost all fast lenses and almost all macro lenses show LoCAs at larger apertures.
The LoCA target was held at a perfect 60 degree angle using a Thorlabs AP180 Adjustable Angle Plate. To make LoCAs easy to see, these images are shown for each lens below at 100% view.
Canon MP-E 65mm f2.8 1-5x Macro Lens LoCAs
The MPE is a good example of a lens that exhibits LoCAs. This is typical with all the Canon macro lenses I’ve ever tested.
Laowa 100mm f2.8 APO Ultra Macro APO Macro lens LoCAs
Looking at the top and bottom of the 00 in the middle, you can see faint red and blue LoCAs. The LA100 has better LoCA correction than I have seen from any Nikon, Canon or Sony consumer market macro lens ( consumer market not industrial market lens ).
Nikon Printing-NIKKOR 105mm f2.8A LoCAs
The image from the PN105A is the perfect example of being 100% corrected for LoCAs.
Sigma Art 105mm F2.8 DG DN Macro lens LoCAs
The Sigma Art lens is not 100% perfectly corrected for LoCAs but it’s extremely close and right behind the Printing-NIKKOR results. This level of LoCA suppression is about as good as gets in a consumer market mass-produced lens.
1x test Longitudinal CA results
Nikon Printing-NIKKOR 105mm f2.8A (PN105A)
Sigma Art 105mm F2.8 DG DN Macro lens (Art105)
Laowa 100mm f2.8 APO Ultra Macro APO Macro lens (LA100)
Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens (MPE)
1x TEST FINAL RESULTS
Best Image Quality at 1X
Nikon Printing-NIKKOR 105mm f2.8A
The Printing-NIKKOR had the highest level of sharpness, no aberrations, zero corner shading, flat image field, consistent from corner to corner, over the entire 43mm image circle. The PN105A was the only lens in this test that was optimized for use wide open at f/2.8 without any aberrations (all of the other lenses suffered from excessive CAs at f/2.8). This lens was optimized for 1x magnification where almost all consumer market lenses, even macro lenses, are optimized for magnification ratio of maybe 1:10 to 1:8 at best. Macro lenses are normally not optimized for 1x magnification.
Best Image Quality with Auto Focus at 1x
Sigma 105mm F2.8 DG DN Macro Art lens
Excellent high-end image quality with autofocus and an incredible value for the price of $799 USD. This price makes this lens a sensational bargain compared to the newest lenses from Canon and Nikon now if Sigma can only manage to make this lens available in more mounts.
Price vs Performance at 1X
Laowa 100mm f2.8 APO Ultra Macro APO Macro lens
This lens is highly recommended if you don’t need AF. The fantastic image quality alone is worth the $499 USD retail price. Being a strictly manual lens with a more basic type of fit and finish, the Laowa is not at the same level to compete directly with a Sigma Art lens, but as a bonus this lens goes to 2x without any additional hardware (you can find a test at 2x here: https://www.closeuphotography.com/2x-lens-test-2022 ). Tripod mount is available for this lens as an option.
1x Test SETUP
The A7RIV camera was used vertically mounted on a Nikon MM-11 stand for this test. For each lens and each aperture setting focus was bracketed and the sharpest image was chosen at 100% view in photoshop. Manual mode was used at ISO 100. To avoid any sharpness loss due to vibration, two Godox TT350S units were used at 1/128th to 1/32nd power. To avoid any change in light angle, the flash units remained in place and never moved over the entire test, mounted on a flash bracket that is bolted to an optical breadboard.
Sony Raw image files were processed in Ps CC ACR with all noise reduction turned to zero, and lens correction profiles disabled. Files were checked with the Capture 1 app for lens correction pre-conditioning just to make sure there was no correction going on behind the scenes with opcodes. All settings were zeroed out and the same white balance setting used for all the images. Sony lenses and Leica, Fuji, Olympus and Panasonic use automatic chromatic aberration correction that cannot be disabled in Lightroom or Photoshop ACR, this means that the lens correction is not controllable by the user so even with lens correction profiles disabled in the camera.
All of the test images are single frames, none of the images were stacked. To avoid focus shifts with aperture changes, a series of images were made at 10 micron steps at each aperture. Each lens was shot from wide open to f/5.6 to find sharpest image. The sharpest images were chosen at 100% actual pixel magnification, cropped and saved in Photoshop CC.
Canon MP-E 65mm f/2.8 1-5x Macro Photo lens
Focus type: MF
Focal length at infinity: 65mm
Effective focal length at 1x: 61.9mm
(1x: 61.9 EFL, 2x: 55.3 EFL, 3x: 42.6 EFL, 4x: 37.1, 5x: 29.7 EFL)
Optimized magnification range: 1-5x
Aperture range: f/2.8-16
Best aperture at 1x: f/4
Optical design: 10 elements in 8 groups
Lens mount: Canon EF
Filter thread: M58 P= 0.75mm
Object-to-image distance: 313mm (12.3 in)
Street price new: $1049 USD
Note: Sigma MC-11 EF to E-mount adapter was used for this test
Nikon Printing-NIKKOR 105mm F2.8A
https://www.closeuphotography.com/printing-nikkor-105 (under construction and coming soon)
Focus type: MF
Focal length: 105mm
Effective focal length at 1x: 105mm
Optimized magnification range: optimized for 1:1
Best aperture at 1x: f/2.8
Optical design: 14 elements in 6 groups + 2 protective elements
Front lens mount: M45 P= 0.75mm
Rear lens mount: M45 P= 0.75mm
Filter thread: M43 P= 0.5mm
Object-to-image distance: 388.1mm (15.3 in)
Street price used: $1000-1300 USD
Note: industrial film duplication lens and no longer in production
Laowa 100/2.8 2x Ultra Macro APO
https://www.closeuphotography.com/laowa-100mm-2x (under construction and coming soon)
Focus type: MF
Focal length at infinity: 100mm
Effective focal length at 1x: : 57mm
(0.5x: 74mm EFL, 1x: 68mm EFL, 2x: 57mm EFL)
Optical design: 12 elements in 10 groups
Iris: 9 blade (Canon), 7 (Nikon), 13 (Sony E, Canon R, Nikon Z)
Optimized magnification range:: infinity to 2x (measured at 1.96x maximum)
Best aperture at 1x: f/4
Object-to-image distance: 264mm (10.4 in)
Lens mount: Sony E-mount
Filter thread: M67 P= 0.75mm
Street price new: $499 USD
Sigma Art 105mm F2.8 DG DN
https://www.closeuphotography.com/sigma-art-105-lens-test (under construction and coming soon)
Focus type: autofocus with support for DMF (Direct Manual Focus) and focus by wire MF
Focal length at infinity: 105mm
Effective focal length at 1x: 68.4 mm
Maximum aperture: f/2.8
Best aperture at 1x: f/4
Aperture Range: f/2.8 - f/22
Iris: 9-blade rounded aperture
Maximum magnification: 1x
Optical design: 17 elements in 12 groups with one ultra low-dispersion glass (SLD)
Accessory threads: M62 x 0.75mm
Object-to-image distance: 295mm (10.6 in)
Lens mount tested: Sony E-mount
Street price new: $799 USD
Note: DG refers to full-frame format, DN indicates lens was designed for mirrorless cameras
Using These Lenses as a Tube Lens
Recently this question came up and I did happen to test all of the lenses in this test at infinity as a tube lens. Except for the MPE due to short FL.
Laowa 100mm f2.8 APO Ultra Macro APO Macro lens: the front group moves backwards into the barrel 55mm when focused at infinity so there is hard vignetting unfortunately. See the mobile phone pic below.
Nikon Printing-NIKKOR 105mm f2.8A: probably one of the very best tube lenses I’ve ever tested in terms of lack of CAs and sharpness, but this was the case only in the center area. There was hard vignetting that was impossible to correct but I might try again at another time.
[Sigma Art 105mm F2.8 DG DN Macro lens: hard vignetting, very disappointing!
COMING SOON
Below is a list of Individual pages that we are working on now.
Nikon Printing-NIKKOR 105mm F2.8A
https://www.closeuphotography.com/printing-nikkor-105
Laowa 100/2.8 2x Ultra Macro APO
https://www.closeuphotography.com/laowa-100mm-2x
Sigma Art 105mm F2.8 DG DN
https://www.closeuphotography.com/sigma-art-105-lens-test
If you have any interesting info on any of these lenses that you would like to share, please email me, see the contact link on the side bar of each page. Thanks in advance.
LENSES THAT DID NOT MAKE IT INTO THIS TEST
The lenses below were not included in this test for various reasons, see the notes with each lens. Some like the Voigtlander Macro APO-Lanthar 125mm f/2.5 SL are still a superb lenses but just not as well corrected as the Sigma Art or the Laowa 100mm. Some, like the IRIX 150mm f/2.8 are really poor at minimum distance, this lens is really not corrected for 1x no matter what Irix claims (see the test results link below).
Cosina Voigtlander APO-Lanthar 110mm f/2.5 Macro Lens: poor results in the 2020 1x test, link below
Cosina Voigtlander APO-Lanthar 125mm f/2.5 SL Macro Lens: See the 2017 and 2020 1x tests, links bellow
Sony FE 90mm f/2.8 Macro G Oss Macro Lens: poor performance in 2020 1x test, link below
Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 L Macro IS USM Lens: high levels of red fringing in previous tests, link below
Nikon AF-S VR Micro-NIKKOR 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED: high levels of red fringing in previous tests, link below
Nikon 105/2.8 VR micro-Nikkor: Excessive CAs. See the 2017 1x test link below
Nikon AF Micro-NIKKOR 200mm f/4D IF-ED macro Lens: Excessive CAs. See the 2017 1x test link below
Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX OS Macro Lens: See the 2017 1x test link below
Sigma 150mm f/2.8 EX OS Macro Lens: See the 2017 1x test link below
Sigma 180mm f/3.5 EX OS Macro Lens: See the 2017 1x test link below
Rodenstock 75mm f/4 APO-Rodagon-D M 1:1 Lens: Excessive CAs. See the 2017 1x test link below
Schneider Kreuznach 45mm f/4 APO: poor at 1x, excessive CAs, soft corners. Tested 5 copies
Schneider Kreuznach Componon-S 50mm f/2.8: excessive CAs, soft corners at 1x
IRIX 150mm f/2.8 Macro Lens: poor performance at 1x see: https://www.closeuphotography.com/irix-150mm-macro-lens
Sigma 70mm F2.8 EX DG Macro Lens: tested in 2020, link below
Sigma Art 70mm f/2.8 DG Macro Lens: tested in 2020, link below
Tamron AF 90mm f/2.8 SP Di macro lens: tested in 2020, link below
1x test (2017) on Closeuphotography.com: https://www.closeuphotography.com/sharpness-test-1x
1x tes (2020) test: https://www.closeuphotography.com/1x-test-2020