Review » Irix 150mm f/2.8 Macro Dragonfly

For the second time this year, I added a new lens to my stable — after eight years of not buying new lenses.

The Irix 150mm f/2.8 Macro Dragonfly, with lens hood and tripod collar, in the included soft-yet-firm carrying case.

I could tell within minutes of unboxing that this lens was exactly as advertised and I’m confident I’ll be entirely happy with it.

How/Why Did I Choose This Lens?

The thing about well-made photographic lenses — especially those that are well-cared-for (as mine are) — is that they last a long time. If you don’t drop them, roll them around in dirt, leave them out in the rain, or otherwise try to harm them, they’ll keep performing well for many years, if not decades. And most DSLR lenses are well made. In years past, when I was first forming my lens collection, each new acquisition served a specific purpose — allowed me to do specific things, filled a previously empty niche in my tool bag.

Here, the new lens stands upright, without the hood or tripod collar.

This lens did not fill a previously empty niche. I already have a well-made macro lens (the Sigma 50mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro) which serves equally well as a portrait and product lens. I already have a couple of fast primes, though this is my first long one. I already have a telephoto lens that performs reasonably well in good light.

No, this was a gratuitous gift to myself, both for my birthday and as a celebration over ending our mortgage. I don’t remember where I first heard of it, but when I began looking into it, all the reviews were positive. All of them. Which is rare, especially for a relatively new third-party lens maker. It’s also a beautiful lens, which isn’t something I typically consider. The only “downside” mentioned by any reviewer is the lack of autofocus — but macro photography typically requires manual focus anyway.

I think what I’m trying to say is that this was an impulse buy, and I’m intensely grateful to be in a financial situation where that’s occasionally okay.

Even so, I patiently did what I always do: read a ton of reviews, checked images of normal subjects recorded by normal people (not marketing teams), and then waited for months. “Wait for a few months” is a good guideline for me on purchases like this; it’s saved me from quite a few unnecessary expenditures. In this case, when the few months were up, and my birthday was a week away, and the budget had exactly the right amount of extra money left over, well... I bought the lens.

Focusing

In dim indoor lighting, I manually focused on my wife’s face from a distance of several (six?) feet.

This is the first lens I’ve bought that doesn’t include an autofocus motor. Several years ago, I wouldn’t even have considered it. But: (1) the viewfinder in the Canon EOS 60D is larger than my old Rebel viewfinders; (2) most modern DSLRs, including mine, allow for using Live View on the rear LCD to zoom in digitally while manually focusing; and (3) as I noted above, macro photography often requires manual focusing anyway.

The only real question for me was: Am I good enough at using manual focus to use this lens for things other than macro photography. A well-known (but often incorrect) photography guru said on his website, which I read before purchasing, that the only real downside of the Irix 150mm is “the focus is geared too fast for precise focus at normal distances” and “it’s very finicky if you’re trying to set an exact focus” and again “its manual focus is too twitchy (fast) for use at normal portrait and landscape distances.” Since the same guy also claims he makes photographs with cameras that are “broken”, I didn’t put much stock in it.

So, some of the first photos I made with the new lens were meant to test exactly that, as seen in the photo here, of my wife. I was handholding the camera in dim interior lighting, manually focusing on my wife’s face from several feet away, looking through the optical viewfinder. (The image itself was lit with a speedlight, bounced off the white ceiling.) The “guru” was correct that focusing at normal distances is tricky with this lens, but incorrect that it’s “too twitchy”. It worked just fine as long as your subject is relatively still. (Go ahead: click on the image to see it larger, and note the clarity around her eyebrows and on the skin of her lips.)

One huge help is how wide the focusing ring is. I’m accustomed to autofocus lenses where the manual focus ring is an afterthought, sometimes too narrow to find easily with hurried fingers. On this lens (see photo above), the focus ring is 1.375 inches wide, and the only part of the lens casing that’s rubberized. The bright blue stripe is a raised ridge, so the fingers easily find it.

Another bonus is how far around the ring goes — a full 270 degrees. Most of that turning distance is for closeup/macro focusing; only the final 45 degrees or so are relevant to “normal” focus distances. Still, that means there is a lot of leeway for getting focus correct.

Image Quality

As previously noted, I don’t shoot charts and I rarely “pixel peep” — I make images under expected conditions and compare them to similar images taken with other lenses. The following examples were made while handholding the camera, the first outdoors at macro distance and the second indoors (lit with bounce flash).

Settings: f/8.0, 1/3200 sec., ISO1600. This is a macro image of the thatched plastic fibers on a lawn chair. The area shown is, in real life, about an inch wide. Click to see the larger version; you can easily see dirt particles and even cracks in the plastic.

I regret that I didn’t make the above image with a smaller aperture; at f/8.0, the depth of field is so narrow that parts of the same plastic fibers are out of focus while other parts are sharply in focus. This isn’t a function of this lens, but rather of photographic physics.

This is my son’s face, from a few (four?) feet away. Click through to the larger size and note the clarity of the in-focus regions.

In other words, the image quality of this lens is simply stunning. What will take some getting used to (for me) is the distances involved. I’m accustomed to a 50mm macro lens, so it’s going to be a while before I fully absorb just how far away I can be and get the same photo. (Also note: most true macro lenses have amazing image quality.)

This is a medallion my son recently earned for playing soccer. It’s 2.75 inches in diameter. See the six cut-out stars, three at upper left and three at lower right? In the image below, I moved the camera closer and photographed just a couple of those stars. The most difficult part was stilling my own body movement, which kept changing the location of the point of focus. For both images, click the photo to see a larger version.

Size / Weight

Since I no longer own the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L, this Irix lens is now the largest, heaviest lens I own. Without the hood or tripod collar, the lens still weighs 1.88 pounds (853g) — which is weird because Irix lists the weight as 1.81 pounds (840g). (And B&H lists my figure for pounds, but Irix’s figure for grams, confusing the issue even more.) Either way, it’s a bit on the heavy side. It’s even heavier when the metal tripod collar is attached.

It’s almost exactly the same length as my Sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6 APO DG lens (the Irix is about 1mm longer), but is wider. Fortunately, both can share carrying cases/pounches when I’m out of the house.

Build Quality

As photographers are fond of saying, this one is “built like a tank”. It’s solid and won’t come apart any time soon. However, even my more plastic, cheaper lenses have stood the test of time due to careful handling on my part; this one will be no different.

The front hood mount and the locking ring are the only plastic parts. And they feel like very sturdy, thick plastic.

Conclusion

While this lens probably won’t travel with me often (the Sigma 50mm f/2.8 macro is much smaller and lighter), it will certainly become my go-to macro lens at home or for short trips. And because of its extraordinary clarity, I am certain to use it for other types of photos as well.