Cheapest Macro Lens? 25mm f/1.8 Manual C-mount Lens Test & Review | Macro Photography

Estee White Created: Apr 12, 2021 Updated: Jul 10, 2021 1 comment

I was looking for large aperture lens for a photography assignment.
I have few large aperture lenses at home but I am away from home right now,
so I needed something affordable and small so it’s easy to take on the go.

I looked online, and I found this really nice and cheap lens on Amazon.
It’s the 25mm f/1.8 Manual, c-mount prime lens, which is also a mini lens.

There are few different versions of it by several brands, it comes in black or in silver
and I picked the silver version because it was cheaper.

After I had already ordered the lens, I started watching video reviews and looking up all the information I could find about it.
I came across few videos mentioning that this is a macro lens. Knowing how a lot of people can’t tell the difference between closeup, macro and micro, I was quite skeptical about this lens having macro capabilities – without the use of additional adapters, so I had to check that 🙂

Bellow is my video where I am doing a detailed review of the lens and I am showing the test shots that I did using it.
The test shots are also included in gallery that you can see at the end of this blog post.

Video Timetable:
00:22 – What I was looking for when I discovered this lens
01:51 – Video Contents
02:39 – Unboxing & First Impression
03:32 – Manual control of aperture and focus
04:23 – Unexpected viewer, checking out what’s going on 😉
05:03 – Smaller manual lenses are much easier to work with
05:44 – Mounting options
06:20 – First Mounting Option using 2 adapters – close focus
07:06 – Second Mounting Option using 1 adapter – infinity focus
08:03 – Taking Measurements
08:30 – Measuring the Minimal Working & Focusing Distance
08:44 – Measuring the Magnification
09:30 – Does it Reach Macro ?
09:42 – ‘Macro’ Rings Included ?
10:32 – Measurements When Using the ‘Macro” Rings
10:53 – Few Words on Extension Tubes
11:21 – Differences between auto-focusing macro lenses and this manual lens
14:15 – Test shots and Image Quality
16:04 – I got a second lens because I like it so much
16:25 – What I found this lens best for
17:18 – Compatibility, does it work with DSLR cameras
18:29 – Outro