Laowa 180mm f/4.5 1.5X Ultra Macro APO review

Pros

+ Excellent optical quality
+ Beautiful finish and handling
+ Ultra-simple MF-AF switching (on supporting mounts)
+ Really good value

Cons

– f/4.5 is a bit limiting for a 180mm telephoto
– It’s not heavy, but it is a physically long lens
– It’s a shame the AF doesn’t cover the whole macro range

Laowa is best known for its two key specialities – wide-angle lenses and macro lenses. This latest addition is a macro lens aimed at full frame mirrorless shooters (and also Canon EF-mount DSLRs) and has a number of very interesting features. Perhaps the most significant is that this is an autofocus lens, but only on some mounts. You get AF with the Sony E and Nikon Z mount versions, but the Canon RF and L-mount versions are manual focus only.

Laowa is keen to pitch the 180mm f/4.5 1.5X Ultra Macro APO as both a macro lens and an everday telephoto, but the lack of AF on the Canon RF and L-mount versions dampens its appeal as a telephoto lens on these cameras.

However, I tested this lens on a Sony A7 III, where the AF is available for regular telephoto use, and it makes a huge difference. The MF-AF switchover is also handled in an incredibly slick and intuitive way – more on this shortly.

• More Laowa articles

Features

This lens does have a number of interesting features. Let’s start with the focal length. 180mm is quite long for a macro lens but not unheard of. A long focal length has both advantages and disadvantages for macro work. One advantage is that it allows larger shooting distances, which is ideal for timid insects or awkward lighting where the camera and lens might cast a shadow on your subject. Another advantage is that it flattens the perspective and makes backgrounds proportionally larger. It’s much easier to be selective with your backdrops and to cut out unwanted clutter.

One disadvantage, though, is depth of field – or lack of it. When you’re photographing at very close distances there’s almost no depth of field at any aperture, and a longer focal length lens is going to make this worse. One solution might be focus stacking, but this isn’t so easy with a manual focus lens – you will need to use a manual focus rail, for example, rather than handy in-camera focus bracketing.

This is another point. The Laowa 180mm f/4.5 1.5X Ultra Macro APO does offer autofocus with the Sony E and Nikon Z versions, but only for distances of 1.5m and beyond. For close-up work, it’s manual focus only – and you’ll need a camera with a good magnified focus mode to nail the precision this lens needs as you approach its 1.5x maximum magnification. That’s very good, by the way, when most macro lenses stop at 1x magnification and some ‘cheat’ by only offering 0.5x and still calling it ‘macro’. Grr.

This is a pretty inexpensive lens by macro standards, but Laowa has not held back with the optical construction, using 12 elements in 9 groups with an apochromatic design aimed at eliminating both lateral chromatic aberration and longitudinal aberration, or bokeh fringing. Bokeh fringing is extremely hard to fix in software.

As a macro lens, the Laowa 180mm f/4.5 1.5X Ultra Macro APO is very well specified. It’s a little less convincing as a telephoto, but still does the job well. Here, the f/4.5 maximum aperture is a bit limiting, and while this lens is perfect for landscapes, travel and longer-range nature shots, you’d probably want something faster like a 70-200mm f/2.8 for any kind of sports or action photography

Specifications

Focal length	180mm
Maximum aperture	f/4.5
Format	Full frame
Mounts	AF: Canon EF, Sony E, Nikon Z, MF: Canon RF, L mount
Maximum magnification	1.5x
Min working distance	147.6mm
Construction	12 elements in 9 groups
Diaphragm blades	9
Filter size	62mm
Dimensions	67.6mm x 134.4mm, 521g (Sony)

Design and operation

This is an exceptionally nice lens to use, thanks to the finish, solid feel and smooth operation. The focus ring has a very long travel – it looks like about 270 degrees – and has no slop or focus-by-wire vagueness. It has all the smoothness and precision you need for ultra-close focusing. And while at first this does seem a rather long lens, it has an internal focus mechanism which means the length stays constant whatever the focus distance.

So what about the autofocus mode? There’s no switch for this. Instead, as you turn the focus ring to the infinity position, with the softest of detents it swaps to AF mode. This feels strange if you’re used to a switch or a solid ‘click’, but it works beautifully and it’s intuitive too. Want AF for outdoor shots? Just turn the focus ring to its end stop. Need to focus closer? Turn the ring the other way to swap seamlessly to manual focus. Beautiful.

Performance

Let’s start with the optical performance. Spectacular is just about the only word I can use to describe it. The definition is very crisp and sharp and extends right to the edges of the frame. I looked hard for any sign of lateral chromatic aberration and couldn’t find any, and there’s no bokeh fringing either.

I did notice a little vignetting wide open with outdoor shots, but it could be corrected very easily in software or left untouched as part of this lens’s character. By f/8 the vignetting is gone and you’re left with super-sharp, aberration-free undistorted images of great clarity and contrast.

Even the AF performance is good. It’s not completely silent but it is smooth and fast and easily good enough for landscapes and natural history shots. I didn’t expect the AF to be this slick and I’d have no hesitation packing this lens for landscape projects. Without the AF, though, it would lose a lot of its appeal as a telephoto and would be slower and more painstaking to use, because critical focus accuracy is essential to really get the best from this lens. It would be harder to recommend the Canon RF and L-mount versions for outdoor use for this reason, at least for handheld photography. If you like to work more slowly with a tripod, it won’t be a problem. 

Value

The Laowa 180mm f/4.5 1.5X Ultra Macro APO is on sale at $499 / £499 and I think that’s excellent value for a long-focus macro lens of this quality. It’s at the lower end of the price range for premium quality third party macro lenses and way cheaper than own-brand lenses of a comparable focal length.

Shorter focal length lenses in the 60-90mm focal range tend to be a little cheaper and faster – often f/2.8 – but don’t have this Laowa’s telephoto capability. If all you want is the macro capability and don’t mind shorter working distances, then a number of competing lenses from Sigma, Tamron and Laowa itself may fit the bill better. But for longer-range macro work and outdoor telephoto photography, the Laowa 180mm f/4.5 1.5X Ultra Macro APO really is like two lenses in one.

Verdict

I’ve reviewed a number of Laowa lenses now and I’m always struck by their physical build quality, their operational finesse and their optical performance. This one ticks all three boxes. The definition is exceptional, aberrations are almost non-existent and it’s a joy to use. I’d be a little hesitant about the Canon RF and L-mount versions because the lack of AF makes this lens less useful as a telephoto, but if you have a Sony E or Nikon Z camera, then I think this is one of the best-value (and best quality) macro lenses around. 

• Get the Laowa 180mm f/4.5 1.5X Ultra Macro APO price at B&H (US)
• Get the Laowa 180mm f/4.5 1.5X Ultra Macro APO at Wex (UK)