Venus Optics, a new Chinese manufacturer of camera lenses, just recently launched the world’s first 60mm f/2.8 2X Ultra-Macro lens.

The specs:

• Magnification range from 0.1x to 2x. Easily alter the magnification ratio without installing any extension tube or teleconverter. Ideally suited for rapidly changing macro photography scenarios.
• Wide magnification range also makes it extremely useful for shooting macro objects (e.g. insects) with different sizes.
• Designed also for normal shooting purposes with a 60mm focal length. An all-in-one solution for normal portrait shooting as well as ultra-macro photography.
• Houses with 9 elements in 7 groups patented optical structure to provide great deal of image clarity and color renderness.
• The optical system consists of 2 major moving lenses groups in order to minimize the barrel distortion.
• 14 pieces of aperture blades form a close-to-circular aperture, capable of creating creamy shallow depth of view.
• The enclosure of the lens is made of metal to strengthen its durability.
• A complimentary lens pouch and filter are included in the package.
• Canon EF, Nikon F, Sony Alpha and Pentax K mount are available

PetaPixel posted a short video review of this lens, made by Thomas Shahan (video above). He says:

 [he is] amazed by the amount of detail [he] can pull out of this lens. [he] can focus on anything from a landscape to a portrait, down to a detail, down to a portrait of a jumping spider.

The Venus 60mm f/2.8 2X Ultra-Macro lens is on sale at eBay for $379. You can check sample pics at Venus’ homepage.