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The new Laowa 15mm F4.5 Shift lens lets you go wide with perspective control. View our sample gallery to see how a bit of shift can change a photo or introduce creative effects.
View the Laowa 15mm F4.5 Zero-D Shift sample gallery
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
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Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
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Those looking for a lens to help with architectural photography don’t have too many choices. Canon and Nikon provide tilt-and-shift lenses for the F and EF mount systems but it’s fair to say these are quite costly – as specialist products usually are. Samyang makes a 24mm that comes in a wide range of mounts, but beyond that options are limited to the adapters various independent brands, such as Fotodiox, offer.
This new lens from Laowa is currently the widest shift lens for full frame users. Where this lens also differs from those others available is that it only shifts – there is no tilt option. All other lenses in this segment offer tilt as well as shift, but Laowa says it hasn’t offered tilt in this 15mm model as it is designed for architectural photographers and they don’t need or use tilt features.
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As expected from Laowa, the lens is well made, solid and offers smooth mechanical movements. The barrel is all-metal and the lens comes with a metal twist-lock lens cap to protect the extremely bulbous front element. The 15mm focal length delivers an angle of view of 110° and the 17 elements-in-11-groups design produces curvilinear distortion corrected well enough for Laowa to include this in its Zero-D range of wide angles.
An image circle with a diameter of 65mm allows full frame users 22mm of shift in total – 11mm either side of the neutral position. And the shifting section of the lens can be rotated about 360° with click stops every 15°. The shift is achieved by unscrewing the locking pin and then turning the shift ring that sits between the camera and the aperture ring. Rotating this ring by 45° is enough to take the lens from the neutral position to the extreme of its shift at 11mm from Normal, and 45° the other way takes the barrel in the opposite direction.
As expected from Laowa, the lens is well made, solid and offers smooth mechanical movements
The mechanism for shifting the lens is smooth and, once unlocked, very easy to turn but with enough resistance to make it comfortable to control. A scale on the side of the barrel where the two sections meet makes it simple to measure the movement and then to repeat the same degree of movement in future shots. Conveniently, the lens clicks into place at the neutral position so you’ll know it has come home without looking at the scale.
The aperture ring clicks only at the full stop positions but allows users settings anywhere in between them, and the iris has only five blades – the same as the Laowa 9mm. At F4.5 the iris is round as the blades are fully retracted, but looks very pentagonal as the aperture is closed down. Considering this lens’ traditionally large and distant subjects, maybe the out-of-focus rendering isn’t as important as it might be in longer focal lengths.
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| Tilting the camera upwards while using ‘rising front’ or ‘drop front’ makes it possible to exaggerate or minimize converging verticals. Here from left to right we have extreme drop front, the lens in the normal position and then raised to its highest position. When the front is dropped down we have to tilt the camera back more to get the top of the building in, which exaggerates the ‘looking up’ perspective |
Obviously the main target for this lens is photographers wanting to avoid converging verticals in their architectural work, but it is also very good for exaggerating convergence as shifting the front of the lens down allows for angling the camera up more – a range of effects can be achieved.
Twisting the lens to the 90° position and using the shift to move the lens from side to side is an easy way to create a panoramic image that will stitch easily, and using the shift diagonally allows four images to be taken that can be stitched to make a high resolution super-wide view. With the camera upright side-to-side shifts again allow high resolution stitches to be made with a squarer format.
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| This image is made from two pictures stitched together, and demonstrates the full horizontal movement of the lens. The lens was mounted on the tripod and I used the full shift to the left and took a picture. I then shifted it to the full extent to the right and took the second shot. They align very easily in software and have a large overlap in the middle. The combined angle of view is somewhere between 160 and 170 degrees. |
I found the full 22mm side-to-side shift allowed me to create an image 13314 x 5499 with the Panasonic Lumix DC-S1R – that would allow a 44″ print at 300ppi. Single pictures from this camera are 8368 pixels on the longest dimension so the shift allowed me to add approximately 1.6x to the width of the frame. You don’t get double the width as there is a lot of overlap with such a wide lens. But overlap is good as it makes it easy to remove the aberrations at the edges of the frame – though vignetting is the only real issue.
As you’ll see from the samples the lens is pretty good, and retains decent resolution and sharpness through all but the most extreme movements. At the edges of the imaging circle you should expect a loss of clarity and some slight smearing in the corners, but if you keep away from the +/-11mm settings and don’t push it beyond 8 or 9mm you’ll have good performance right across the frame.
I was a little surprised and disappointed at first to find this lens doesn’t offer tilt, but in use I have come to appreciate why that movement hasn’t been included
All the pictures in this gallery were shot at F8 and F11, but F5.6 also gives good performance. There’s a slight drop of sharpness at F16 and a more noticeable decline at F22, as diffraction takes over. Vignetting is well-controlled and only comes into play at the more extreme settings and, as the Zero-D marking indicates, there is little curvilinear distortion.
I have to say that I was a little surprised and disappointed at first to find this lens doesn’t offer tilt, but in use I have come to appreciate why that movement hasn’t been included. While it would be fun to be able to tilt the lens there isn’t the same depth-of-field advantage in such a wide angle lens as you’d get in a regular focal length – depth-of-field is extensive at all apertures – and it likely won’t be used for product photography.
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| The lens was ideal for shooting the interior of this summer house in my neighbor’s garden. The wide view allowed me to fit it all in, and a bit of drop front allowed me to position the camera high up to could show the tops of the furniture while maintaining upright verticals. Rising front when shooting the outside let me position the camera low down so it could ‘look up’ and include more of the lit ceiling. |
Tilt would offer a few fun tricks, but its absence isn’t likely to put off the target market of those shooting the interiors and exteriors of buildings. In use I found the 15mm focal length too wide for many of the applications I was expecting to use this lens for, but was able to make the most of its charms shooting interiors rather than exteriors – though it did allow me to shoot tall buildings when there wasn’t much room to move backwards.
This is a very interesting, if somewhat specialist, lens that should find a place in the kit bags of those looking for its width, its lack of distortion and its ability to take an altered perspective while maintaining a parallel relationship between the imaging sensor and the subject.
The lens will ship from late November in mounts for Nikon F and Canon EF, and costs $ 1199. Other mounts will follow next year. For more information see the Venus Optics website.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
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Venus Optics has announced the release of the Laowa 15mm F4.5 Zero-D Shift, a new lens that takes the crown as the widest shift lens for full-frame camera systems.
The lens is constructed of 17 elements in 11 groups, including two aspherical elements and a new lens coating. It has a 110-degree angle of view, offers a 65mm image circle and can shift +/-11mm on full-frame camera systems (+/-8mm when adapted for medium format cameras, such as Fujifilm GFX and Hasselblad X1D cameras).
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Other specifications include a five-blade aperture diaphragm, a 20cm (7.8”) minimum focusing distance and a 360-degree rotation function with clicks every 15-degrees to offer more flexibility when adjusting the shift of the lens. Venus Optics has also developed a specialized lens support that holds the lens towards the front of the barrel so you can keep the lens’ optical axis stable when making your shift adjustments.
Below are a collection of sample shots, provided by Venus Optics:
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The Laowa 15mm F4.5 Zero-D Shift is available to pre-order today for Canon EF, RF, Nikon F, Nikon Z and full-frame Sony E-mount camera systems for $ 1,199 on Venus Optics’ website. The Canon EF and Nikon F mount versions will be available in late November 2020, while the Canon RF, Nikon Z and full-frame Sony E-mount versions won’t be available until February 2021.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
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Venus Optics has announced it’s now adding a Canon RF lens mount option for three of its ultra-wide cinema primes: the 9mm T2.9 ‘Zero-D’ lens, 12mm T2.9 ‘Zero-D’ lens and 15mm T2.1 ‘Zero-D.’
The 12mm T2.9 ‘Zero-D’ lens was released back in January of this year, while the 9mm T2.9 and 15mm T2.1 ‘Zero-D’ lenses were announced back in June of this year. At the time, the lenses were only available for Sony E, Canon EF and PL mount, but owners of Canon’s EOS R series mirrorless cameras can now get native versions of the lenses, negating the need to use the EF version with the EF-RF adapter.
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| Photo Credit: Photo by Phil Holland, provided by Venus Optics |
As part of the Loawa Zero-D’ line, all three lenses offer ‘close-to-zero’ distortion. All three lenses also feature industry standard 0.8 mod pitch gears for controlling both the aperture and focus.
As a quick refresher, below are specification summaries for each of the lenses:
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The 9mm T2.9 is constructed of 15 elements in 10 groups, has a minimum focusing distance of 12cm (4.72”), uses a seven-blade aperture diaphragm and weighs 247g (8.71oz).
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The 12mm T2.9 is constructed of 16 elements in 10 groups, has a minimum focusing distance of 18cm (7.09”), uses a seven-blade aperture diaphragm and weighs 675g (1.5lbs).
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The 15mm T2.1 is constructed of 12 elements in 9 groups, has a minimum focusing distance of 15cm (5.91”), uses a seven-blade aperture diaphragm and weighs 540g (1.19lbs).
All three lenses are available to purchase with the Canon RF mount starting today on Laowa’s online shop. The 9mm T2.9, 12mm T2.9 and 15mm T2.1 retail for $ 600, $ 1,500 and $ 1,200, respectively.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
The post News: Irix Offering 15mm f2.4 Lens with Edge IFH-100 Filter Holder Combo appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.
If you haven’t heard of Irix, you should check out their products; the lens company combines fresh, modern designs and stellar optics to create some amazing third-party lens options.
And until February 14th, Irix is offering an equipment combo deal:
When you purchase the Irix 15mm f/2.4 Blackstone, you can pay just one extra Euro and receive the Irix Edge IFH-100 filter holder (normally 69 Euros in value).
Irix produces the 15mm f/2.4 Blackstone lens for three camera mounts: Canon EF, Nikon F, and Pentax K. It’s a fast prime lens that has received raved reviews, which makes it a perfect choice for landscape or architecture photographers looking to add an optically-impressive prime to their bag, not to mention astrophotographers.
The Irix 15mm f/2.4 is a manual focus only lens, which means it isn’t optimal for fast-paced genres such as street photography. But street photographers rarely shoot at ultra-wide focal lengths anyway, and all the photographers that would actually appreciate a 15mm prime probably work in manual focus most of the time.
One more thing you’ll appreciate about the Irix 15mm f/2.4 is the build quality. Irix is unique among lens manufacturers in that it offers two versions of the 15mm f/2.4: A rugged “Blackstone” lens, and a less rugged “Firefly” lens.
While the optics in the two versions are identical, the Blackstone is perfect for photographers who frequently take their gear into rough situations and who don’t have time to baby their equipment.
As for the Irix Edge IFH-100:
It holds 100mm square filters, including Irix’s hard and soft graduated neutral density filter lines. And it’s billed by Irix as “the lightest filter holder in its class.”
The Irix Edge IFH-100 should mount on lenses with a diameter between 52mm and 95mm.
So if you’re interested in grabbing a high-quality wide-angle prime, as well as a square filter holder, then take a look at Irix’s offer.
But act fast, because the deal expires 14th Feb 2020!
The post News: Irix Offering 15mm f2.4 Lens with Edge IFH-100 Filter Holder Combo appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.
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| Photo: Dan Bracaglia |
I feel like I’m stretching the rules a wee bit for my 2019 gear of the year by choosing a lens that was technically launched a couple years ago. However, Venus Optics released the Laowa 15mm F2 Zero-D in Nikon Z-mount and Canon RF-mount this year, and since I’ve been using the Nikon version I’m going to call it a 2019 product.
Before you protest, let me review the rules for our gear of the year selections:
OK, with that out of the way let’s do this.
If you’ve been visiting the site for a while you may have noticed that over the past few years I’ve become a keen aurora borealis photographer. No matter how many times I see the northern lights I never get tired of them. It’s addictive, and I mean that in a good way. In the process I’ve experimented with a lot of different gear in an effort to find my ideal kit, and I’m really loving this Laowa lens.
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| Processed to taste in Adobe Lightroom. ISO 10,000 | 2 sec | F2 |
I should clarify what ‘ideal’ means in this context. What it doesn’t mean is absolute technical perfection. I know there are hardcore astrophotographers who care very much about technical perfection, and for good reason, but that’s not me. My goal isn’t to create technically perfect images. It’s to create art, to tell a story, to share a unique experience with others.
Yes, I want good technical quality, but I also care about factors like weight, cost and my enjoyment when using the equipment. Why? Because like everyone else I have a budget. Also, when I photograph aurora I often carry three cameras (‘carry’ being the operative word), but that means I have to carry three lenses, three tripods, yada yada yada… It starts to add up pretty quickly, so keeping things on the small side is really helpful. My back appreciates it more every year.
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| Processed to taste in Adobe Lightroom. ISO 5,000 | 6 sec | F2 |
One of the advantage of mirrorless cameras with short flange distances is the ability to create smaller lenses at wide focal lengths, and the Laowa leverages this fact. My other favorite lens for this type of work, the Sigma 14mm F1.8, is both larger and heavier.
In terms of absolute image quality, I think the Sigma 14mm F1.8 – which I picked as my gear of the year a couple years ago – is a bit better. It’s also slightly brighter. The downside? It’s pretty freakin’ big. Three of them in my pack would be noticeably heavier and more crowded than three Laowas; enough so that it matters to me.
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| The Laowa 15mm F2 (left) is significantly less bulky than the Sigma 14mm F1.8 (right). |
Another thing I love about this lens is its build quality. I would describe it as feeling dense; despite its all metal construction and small size it’s still a bit heavier than it looks. It reminds me a lot of my old manual focus Nikkors, including the very nicely damped focus ring.
Speaking of which, it’s entirely manual focus, but I’m shooting the night sky and it’s not like the stars are running an AF test on a bike. (I’m not suggesting Richard Butler isn’t a star in his own right, but you know what I mean.)
Is it perfect? No. There’s definitely vignetting wide open, and even for a couple stops beyond, but the lens profile in Lightroom does an admirable job of correcting it. If I really needed perfection corner-to-corner that would bother me, but I don’t.
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| Processed to taste in Adobe Lightroom. ISO 5,000 | 2 sec | F2 |
Similarly, there are some minor ‘angel wings’ on stars in the corners due to coma, but all things considered it’s not bad. Fortunately, most people aren’t focused on the stars in my photos, but rather the lights.
I’ll admit there’s one thing that drives me bat**** crazy. The metal lens hood doesn’t lock into position securely enough, and the slightest bump knocks it out of alignment, which is easy to miss in the dark. This results in some occlusion of the image in a couple corners. I did it by accident a couple times at first, but I’ve trained myself to be ever vigilant.
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| Processed to taste in Adobe Lightroom. ISO 5,000 | 4 sec | F2 |
Some will argue that the wide angle Rokinons are better and even more affordable. Maybe they are, but in my experience it depends a lot on the particular copy you get. For what it’s worth I own two of them, and neither is as good in the corners as the two Laowas I’ve used.
Is it the best wide angle lens I’ve ever used? No. Do I love using it? Yes. It’s not the right lens for everyone, but it’s certainly a great lens for me, and that’s why it’s my gear of the year.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
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The Laowa 15mm F2 Zero-D from Venus Optics is a fast, wide prime lens for full frame mirrorless cameras, available in RF-mount, E-mount, and Z-mount. Like Lawoa’s other ‘Zero-D’ lenses it’s designed to have extremely limited distortion despite the short focal length.
We’ve included a number of images representing two common use cases for this type of lens: astrophotography and architectural photography. Overall, it provides excellent results and delivers on its promise of minimal distortion. Not surprisingly, there’s some vignetting wide open, but it clears up pretty quickly when stopped down and – if desired – is corrected quite well using the lens profile in Adobe Camera Raw.
To illustrate the point, here’s an uncorrected sequence of dark sky photos shot at F2, F2.8, F4 and F5.6. The original Raw files for these images can be downloaded from the sample gallery if you want to make your own comparisons. Click through to the gallery to see all the images.
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F2.0 |
F2.8 |
F4 |
F5.6 |
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
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Following its successful campaign for the Neptune Convertible Art Lens System, Lomography has added the new ultra-wide 15mm F3.8 front lens to the lineup. The so-called Naiad 15mm Art Lens has a 135° FOV and is designed to capture sharp images up to 1cm away from the subject. It also features a lens hood that doubles as a filter mount.
The Naiad 15mm front lens features 9 elements in 7 groups, 100mm filter compatibility, a multi-colored lens coating, and support for Canon EF, Nikon F, and Pentax K mounts via the Lens Base. Though Naiad was made for full-frame systems, Lomography says the lens is suitable for crop sensors as well, with a 24mm equivalent focal length on APS-C cameras and 30mm on M43 systems.
Images captured with Naiad feature bright, highly saturated colors and “punchy contrast,” according Lomography. And the integrated lens hood—which can rotate 360-degrees—supports rectangular filters with thickness up to 2mm so you can further customize your results.
Here are a few sample images captured with the Naiad 15mm:
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The Naiad 15mm can be purchased from Lomography’s website now for $ 450 USD by itself, $ 700 USD with the Lens Base, and $ 800 USD with a full filter set. Lomography is also offering the full Neptune Convertible Art Lens system, with Naiad, for $ 1,140; of you can buy the full set, plus Naiad, plus the full range of Naiad filters, for $ 1,250.
Press Release
Open Up Your World — Capture Ultra-Wide Shots Steeped in Saturated Colors and Punchy Contrasts
A Brand New, Ultra-Wide 15mm Front Lens
The Neptune Convertible Art Lens System offers unlimited stylistic possibilities to a whole new generation of photographers. Lomography is proud to present a new star in the system: Naiad. Built for ultra-wide eyed explorers, this brand new 15mm lens will jolt you on a journey of extraordinary angles. Simply attach it onto the Lens Base and you’re ready to jump into a world of sensational, sweeping vistas. Designed for full frame shots but suitable for crop sensor cameras too, Naiad works with Canon EF and Nikon F mount and is available now in the Lomography Online Shop and Gallery Stores worldwide.
With a 135° Field of View to Fill with Punchy, Saturated Colors
Exemplifying the very best of mind-bending modern optics, Naiad’s panoramic capability lets light enter and curve. Straight lines appear to bend, and the further away they are from the optical centre, the greater the barrel-like distortion—ideal for street scenes as well as pronounce portraits. Filling each and every frame with strong, saturated colors and punchy contrasts that define Lomography’s signature look, Naiad will drive your shots to ever-more epic proportions.
Shoot Super Sharp Shots from as Close as 1cm
Using its impressive closest focusing distance of 0.01m, Naiad invites you to take a step closer towards your subject, blur the background and plunge into the foreground. Play around and magnify portraits, exaggerate tiny features and puff up personalities. Watch the foreground dilate and the background contract as you amplify the world around you.
Finetune Your Shots with a Range of Fantastic Filters
Naiad’s integrated lens hood doubles as a filter holder so that you can master the shading in your shot. Compatible with rectilinear filters with a maximum thickness of 2mm, Naiad’s lens hood rotates a full 360° to give you complete creative freedom. Control the amount of light that falls onto your raw images with a Neutral Density Filter, bring out the subtleties in skies with a Neutral Density Graduated Filter, and use orange and blue Temperature Filter Set to give shots a light, sunny glow or a cool, cinematic feel.
An Expandable System to Grow With Your Creativity
The Neptune Convertible Art Lens System is comprised of three interchangeable lenses, each of which can be attached to the Lens Base to shoot at a fixed focal length of 3.5/35mm for Thalassa, 2.8/50mm for Despina, or 4/80mm for Proteus. And now, Naiad promises to be yet another portal to an even more powerful wide-angle perspective with a fixed focal length of 3.8/15mm. Now available in the Lomography Online Shop and Gallery Stores worldwide.
Naiad
Designed for full frame but suitable for crop sensors.
Equivalent focal length on APS-C: 24mm
Equivalent focal length on M43: 30mm
Neptune Convertible Art Lens System
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
The choice of camera lens always represents a crucial moment for every photographer. But it is not always easy to find the lens that fits our actual needs, as too often we get seduced by features that we don’t really need, and are therefore just useful in raising the price.
Have you chosen a stabilized lens and you always use the camera on a tripod? You exclusively take landscape photos in the daylight but have chosen to rely on a f/2.8 lens. Sound familiar?
Especially if you are at the beginning of your journey through the world of photography, your budget won’t likely be particularly high and you may want to maximize your investment by choosing something that can be really useful to you now.
This is why today I want to tell you about the Venus Laowa 15mm f/4 Lens (with macro), an entry-level lens that every landscape photographer should take into consideration.
Why? Let’s see it together.
The Venus Laowa 15mm f/4 Macro is a lens that has been on the market since 2015. Although it certainly does not stand out for its cosmetic appearance, it comes with features that really make this a unique lens in the world. So much so that it can simultaneously seduce landscape photographers, lovers of macro photography, and architectural photographers.
Here are its main features, that I’m going to examine with you:
Exactly, you’ve read it right. The Venus Laowa 15mm f/4 is a Macro 1:1 lens with an angle of view of 110° and a shift function that allows a translation equal to +/- 6mm.
The optical scheme is composed of 12 elements in 9 groups, including 3 high refractive index elements and one low dispersion element, and on paper that holds great promise for excellent performances in terms of sharpness.
And in case that wasn’t enough, add the fact that this lens is compatible with most of the mounts currently available on the market.
One last point, and it’s absolutely not a negative one, is the price. While I’m writing, the list price of the Venus Laowa 15mm f/4 Wide Angle 1:1 Macro is only $ 499.
When evaluating a lens, we’re always going to start from the analysis of its MTF charts, and then we carry out an almost infinite series of laboratory tests so as to bench-test it, from a perspective that is more theoretical than practical.
Of course, these tests are absolutely fundamental and I encourage you to look at them. But I also think that you are likely more interested in the real-world behavior of the lens. Knowing that certain optical limits of the lens will be then invisible in the real world, and what you are more concerned about is understanding whether the lens has the features that are really essential to you or not.
While there are many online reviews available regarding the use of this lens for macro and architectural photography, I haven’t found much regarding its use for landscape photography. So, my purpose here is to examine this lens from the point of view of the landscape photographer, omitting other features that are not fundamental for us hunters of sunrises and sunsets.
So let’s start to analyze the features seen in the previous chapter, now with a more critical eye.
The fact that this is a prime lens and not a zoom gives us great hope with regard to quality, as the optical scheme will be optimized for a single focal length.
We are not afraid at all of the maximum aperture available, which is f/4. As good landscape photographers, we’ll be normally working around f/11, where sharpness will also be clearly higher.
The lens does not have stabilization or autofocus. While this may make you turn your nose up at first sight, surely you will soon realize that you really don’t care about those things. As you likely use the camera on a tripod you should turn off stabilization anyway, and you may choose to adjust the focus based on hyperfocal distance, making use of the hyperfocal marks available on the lens body.
So, those are two fewer functions that you don’t need, and their absence has certainly had a positive impact on the market price of the lens.
With regard to the focal length, this clearly is not the first 15mm lens available on the market. But it is the only one with a feature that has convinced me to test this lens in action – the 77 mm filter thread.
The 77mm filter size is very handy!
Normally all wide-angle and ultra wide-angle lenses (usually 15mm is considered the boundary between those two worlds) have a front optical element that is particularly curved. They often come with a built-in lens hood that makes it impossible to mount filters, unless we resort to particular solutions. Ultra wide-angle lenses whose front lens is not so curved and without a built-in lens hood, usually come with a large diameter and it’s therefore impossible to find filter threads smaller than 95 mm.
Thanks to the absence of a built-in lens hood (it does have a bayonet one) and to the 77 mm filter thread, the Venus Laowa 15mm f/4 lens opens the door to using a tool that I deem absolutely essential for every landscape photographer – drop-in filters.
As I was saying above, with a lens that has a built-in lens hood or a 95 mm filter thread it is possible to use systems that can hold 150 mm filters. But with a 77 mm filter thread, you will be able to use the same system that you use on any other lens equipped with a filter thread up to 82 mm. In a word, it is priceless.
The last of the features coming with this multi-purpose lens is the shift function. Thanks to a lever mechanism positioned next to the lens mount, it is possible to shift the lens by +/- 6mm. Even if this function might not seem very interesting for landscape photography at first sight (after all a rock is always a rock), it turns out to be useful in case there are human artifacts, like buildings, within the frame.
Shift lever.
The lens in shifted position.
If this lens appears very promising on paper, despite a very moderate price, let’s see its actual real-world behavior.
I have tested the Venus Laowa 15mm f/4 lens with my trusty Nikon D810, a full-frame camera body.
Since this is fundamentally the reason why I decided to try this lens, again thanks to the existing 77 mm filter thread, I quickly mounted my loyal Nisi V5 Filter Holder, which holds 100mm filters. Even if it is possible to mount the holder, the fear of vignetting is too high, considering that we’re talking about a 15mm lens after all.
Although the Nisi filter holder is guaranteed to be vignette-free up to a 16mm focal length, once mounted on the Venus Laowa 15mm the result was doubtlessly amazing. Vignetting was practically invisible, as you’re going to see below, and it’s possible to quickly remove it in post-production by activating the lens correction profile.
A little dream of mine was substantially coming true. The dream of using an ultra wide-angle lens, and adding up to three 100mm filters and a polarizer without vignetting!
On the lens body (which is sturdy metal, not plastic) you find the focus and aperture rings, whose operations are smooth and precise.
On the aperture ring, I would have preferred a locking system or a snap selection so as to make sure that I never lose the desired aperture. But actually, I haven’t encountered any problems during real-world use of the lens.
The focusing ring is really precise, as well as the existing focusing marks, which allow you to focus using the hyperfocal distance in no time. Just for the sake of being fussy, I would have placed the metric indications of distance upside down, or a vertical line next to each distance, just to be really precise. But you simply have to check the photo you’ve just taken, so as to make sure you have got the desired focus.
Although the manufacturer does not formally advertise this lens as weather sealed, most of my tests have been carried out in the rain (just for a change!). I protected the lens using only an umbrella or makeshift means, and no problems were detected.
When I examine the images, the results were really comforting.
Shooting at both f/8 and f/11, the image definition is really excellent in the center of the frame. Obviously, the image becomes softer the closer you get to the edges, but doubtlessly the result is much more than acceptable. If you try to use higher apertures, you can naturally start to see that optical phenomenon called diffraction. But, as good landscape photographers, we know that we can go past f/16 only for situations of extreme necessity.
Centre image sharpness.
Lower center of the image sharpness.
Corner of the image sharpness.
There are no particular problems with regards to chromatic aberration with this lens. I mean, some chromatic aberration is there, but nothing that can’t easily be solved using the automatic chromatic aberration removal included in any post-production software.
Chromatic aberration showing before correction.
After the chromatic aberration has been corrected in post-production.
As for vignetting, as I said above, the problem is almost non-existent when using the 100mm Nisi filter holder. For me personally, this fact alone is worth the purchase price of this lens.
It is worthwhile to talk a little about distortion. It is predictable that a 15 mm lens will have barrel distortion. To landscape photographers, this is not a great concern. As I said before, a little distortion on a rock will not invalidate your image, as an irregular rock will always remain an irregular rock. Unfortunately, though, barrel distortion will invalidate the only real line included in your landscape – the horizon.
The distortion caused by this lens to the horizon is of the “mustache” type, which doubtlessly is the most annoying kind. If when we take a first look at the live view this problem may give us some concern,
If this problem gives you some concern when you first notice it in Live View, as soon as you import the image into any post-production software the correction becomes really easy and immediate.
Unfortunately, at the present time, there is no automatic correction profile for this lens included in Adobe software (Lightroom and Photoshop). But the Venus Laowa technical support is very efficient and within a few hours, they emailed the correction profile that I needed. Once installed, one click was enough to do the job and the image automatically recovered from both distortion (completely removing the mustache horizon) and peripheral shading.
Original
Corrected
The Venus Laowa 15mm f/4 lens has really turned out to be a surprise, exceeding my expectations. Although it comes with a very moderate price, this lens really provides remarkable results in terms of image quality.
Once the lens distortion is corrected, the only thing that still needs attention is edge softness which is absolutely within acceptable values for an entry-level lens.
Construction quality is really remarkable and you can notice that as soon as you take the lens into your hands. Lastly, the possibility of using a 100mm filter holder makes this lens really priceless.
If you are a landscape photographer who is looking for an ultra wide-angle lens with a very advantageous quality to price ratio, then the Venus Laowa 15mm f/4 lens is undoubtedly what you are seeking.
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