This lens is hard to use. If you have not used other macro lenses before, and used them a lot, this lens should definitely not be your first one. This lens is very hard to use. The magnification, because of the rule of inverse squares, means that even in full sun you will have a hard time obtaining sharp images with lower sensitivities. What do I mean? Well, in full sun, wide open, your shutter speed will be approximately your sensitivity. With this lens I had recorded camera movement to about 1/400th of a second because increasing magnification increases camera movement blur.
And that brings me back to the best tip that I have for you: My best work with this lens was done indoors, tripod-mounted, with a single light source and, sometimes, a matte white reflector (read as: sheet of copy paper). A timer or remote control eliminated shutter-release shake. This lens does not do well handheld at all.
And the next tip I had for you was to master focus stacking before you buy this lens. I did not do any focus stacking for this video because that wouldn’t really look at this lens’ performance as it is out of the box. But even stopped down, the depth of field is so thin that you will want to use focus stacking. And for that, because of how high this lens’ magnification is and because it lacks focusing abilities, you will want to use a macro rail.
But what this lens does, it does well. If you want to document small valuables like gemstones, coins, or stamps; if you want to analyze micro circuits; or if you want to see up close how an eye’s or a muscle’s structure looks, then this lens can be a very good option. Just be aware that the handling is hard to learn and the working distances are so short that most subjects do not work with this lens. It cannot even fit an entire bee in the frame. That’s a lot of magnification.
In the world of specialists, the Zhongyi Mitakon 20mm f/2.0 4-4.5X Super Macro Lens sets the definition for specialist design. This lens barges into a room like the Kool-Aid man, Oh Yeah, and does the one thing it can do.
But here’s the real deal: Limitations increase creativity. Forcing yourself to work within a limited set of confines causes your brain to examine alternative possibilities. At the best, this leads, inexorably and unstoppably, like gravity on a skydiver, to a mind asking “what if I tried this thing?” When that happens, that’s like an acorn of creativity and, nourished, that question can grow thousands-fold over.
So when I say that this lens does the one thing it can do, I don’t mean that it magnifies stuff a lot. Of course it does that. But what this lens really does, if you let it, if you work with it, is force you to try new things, to explore new ways of creatively expressing what you want to say in your work. So if you do get this lens, embrace that element of it. See what you can put in front of it, how you can light things to make them appear more interesting or different, and how you can use super macros to better tell the stories you want to tell in your photographs.
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0:00 - Intro
0:15 - Skip the Intro
2:32 - Zhongyi Mitakon 20mm f/2.0 4X-4.5X Super Macro Lens Specifications
5:58 - Zhongyi Mitakon 20mm f/2.0 4X-4.5X Super Macro Lens Diagram
6:39 - Zhongyi Mitakon 20mm f/2.0 4X-4.5X Super Macro Lens Strengths & Weaknesses
10:55 - Zhongyi Mitakon 20mm f/2.0 4X-4.5X Super Macro Lens for Video
13:48 - How to use the Zhongyi Mitakon 20mm f/2.0 4X-4.5X Super Macro Lens Well
21:19 - Zhongyi Mitakon 20mm f/2.0 4X-4.5X Super Macro Lens Summary
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"Suffer City Blues" by Suffer City used under active license from Epidemic Sound at the time of this video's upload.
"All Parts Equal" by Airae used under active license from Epidemic Sound at the time of this video's upload.