I actually wasnt able to generate lens flares with the sun inside the frame so far. That lens had remarkable sharpness for the foreground landscape, almost no visible coma even at f/2.4, and among the lowest vignetting in this test. But this is splitting hairs; choose between these two lenses based upon factors like price, zoom vs prime, and manual vs autofocus instead, since it takes an extreme side-by-side comparison to make the image quality differences visible. So it easily fits into any camera kit as an extra lens for those times you need that extra wide-angle or aperture, especially when hiking or bushwalking with your kit for landscape photography. (I see your test is almost a year later). This Laowa 12mm f/2.8 lens is a fixed focal length and is what I would call a dedicated lens. This lens is great for uses such as astrophotography or architecture photography. We are also a participant in the B&H Affiliate Program which also allows us to earn fees by linking to bhphotovideo.com.
The 10mm 5.6 and the 12mm 5.6 M39 look very similar in the corners at f/8.0, the Laowa looks a bit better. The optical construction also incorporates a pair of aspherical elements and three extra-low dispersion elements to control both spherical and chromatic . On the other hand you can turn the 12mm Laowa (Canon or Nikon version) into a 17mm 4.0 shift lens, You can see the distortion of the Samyang 14mm 2.8 in comparison here (I did not apply any corrections to the Laowa file): Because of the great minimum focus distance and the fast aperture of f/2.8 you can even throw the background a bit out of focus. But I will of course compare it to the other lenses I have used so far. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. It is the fastest rectilinear lens wider than 14mm and the widest rectilinear lens as fast as f/2.8 and I am very curious to find out about the optical qualities! There are different mounts available, depending on which camera brand you use, such as Canon, Nikon, and Sony. For people doing some astrophotography from time to time this should not come as a suprise The manufacturer told me they will be looking into this. At f/2.8, the aberrations tighten up and become less apparent. Even ignoring the vignetting, the Laowa 12mm f/2.8 has moderate levels of coma and poor corner sharpness wide open. The choice of Venus Optics to design an ultra wide 12mm lens almost without distortion was quite a suprise to me, as most manufacturers are doing exactly the opposite today and totally rely on post processing here (just have a look at the Sony FE 28mm 2.0s uncorrected distortion). Here I share a variety of images Ive captured withtheultra wide angleLaowa 15/2, from some of my favorite spots in Minnesota,to show the Lonely Speck readers what to expect with regards to its astrophotography performance. There is, however, a downloadable lens profile on the Venus Optics website. As an Amazon Associate, this site earns from qualifying purchases. Like a big bowl of Texas chili! Next month Voigtlander will launch 12mm hope too see your review too. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. There is also a version with fixed adapter. I am in the process of buying a lens for astrophotography and this information helps immensely. Assuming that Rokinon and Samyang do no QC screening, then any purchase, regardless of branding, is a random sample of 1 from the same population. Yes, you are right. Stopping down evens everything out, providing nearly perfect sharpness across the frame besides, again, the extreme far corners. Looking to get more into landscape photography and wanting a wide angle lens to use on Sony A7rII. exposure but you will have to deal with the coma and its bad. For architecture it might be a good idea to get the 12mm with Nikon or Canon bayonet and the Magic Shift Converter. There are some lateral CA present which can easily be corrected in post. If thats the case, then I was lucky, my friend not so much. Laowa 12mm or 15 mm? That is similar in some ways. I have recently changed from Nikon D800 to Sony A7R3 and realise when I use the laowa 12mm on nikon lens, its sharp from center to corner. That can lead to some really funky effects (for better or worse), like in the image below: It takes a certain type of photographer to want a 12mm lens and all the special considerations surrounding one. Used this combo while filming the Aurora. Thank you for this post/comparison. Peak sharpness in the center is reached at f/4.0 here. Rated 5.00 out of 5 based on 1 customer rating. Lets dive right in. Next up, lets talk distortion. , Some of the links on my website are affiliate links. Both copies were also significantly decentered, and we had to angle the camera significantly to get all four corners to be equal in sharpness for our test chart measurements.
Laowa shows three wide primes for MFT mirrorless cameras The main alternative is the Voigtlander 15mm f4.5. Nice Aurora video, better than mine I took with A7s and 20mm 1.8 . specially, VM 12mm m39 looks terribly tiny. I try to update this as frequently as possible. I however mainly use this lens for Astro shots as it is super wide, allowing for a great deal of flexibility when you want to fit in some foreground as well as much of the night skies, including the Milky Way as possible. Stopping down to f/2.8 helps to clear it up a bit. The only other thing to note is that theres a weird keystone effect when shooting upwards. With the minimum focus distance of just 0.18 m you can get really close to your subject as can be seen above .This lens incorporates a floating elements design which leads to very good results at the minimum focus distance even wide open. Nevertheless: the build quality of the prototype is very nice as the lens is an all metal construction and feels very solid.
We Compare Four Ultra-wide Angle Fast Aperture APS-C Prime Lenses Thank you! [button font_size=16 color=#136e9f text_color=#ffffff url=https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_donations&business=lonelyspeckblog%40gmail.com&item_name=These+tips+help+keep+lonelyspeck.com+running.cy_code=USD&source=url target=_blank]Donate[/button]. Optics are the same.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. It is made by Venus Optics and is the Laowa 12mm f/2.8 Zero-D lens. This might give us one finding. Can the full frame version live up to the zero distortion claim as well? This reduces the movement of stars in the photo due to the earths rotation. Here, Ive tested five popular wide-angle lenses for astrophotography: the Laowa 12mm f/2.8, Rokinon 14mm f/2.4, Samyang 14mm f/2.8, Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8, and Irix 15mm f/2.4. The throw is about 180 degrees, which may seem like a lot until you consider this is an ultra-wide angle lens, so almost everything is always in focus anyways. It is unsharp, has huge levels of vignetting, experiences comparatively high coma in the corners, and adds noticeable halos to the stars. The other hood is a small protective bump-out designed to keep the curved front element safe from damage. That being said, its quite the wide lens, so without cropping or zooming in, its unlikely youll notice any substantial issues. Overall, its really not a problem, but I figured it was worth mentioning as it does dispute the zero-d claim of this lens. A niche wide angle lens that offers virtually no distortion along with excellent optical quality. Thank you! I have read and agree to the Privacy Policy. For all you need a filter adapter, but different ones: for the 12mm 5.6 M39 there is a 77mm adapter. Copyright 2013-2022 Lonely Speck LLC. Thank you very much for the review! Significantly slower and smaller, way more vignetting (especially stopped down), similar performance regarding distortion and better flare resistance (not available for DSLRs, just in case some DSLR user ended up here and got curious ), Canon 11-24mm 4.0L and Zeiss 15mm 2.8 Distagon: Similar lenses that do offer autofocus include the Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 AF and the Sigma 14mm f/1.8 Art. The f/2.8 aperture of the Laowa is excellent for astrophotography as with an excellent sensor of most modern digital sensors, you can photograph the Milky Way clearly with exposures of less than 30 seconds.
Venus Optics Laowa 12mm f/2.8 Zero-D Lens Review - The-Digital-Picture.com 15mm f/2 Sony FE was [originally] 7 blades in the past, but is 5 blades now. I cant believe you didnt comment on it, Quote from the review: The lens also showed some green color cast in the corners on the Sony A7rII The combination of a 12mm lens for a camera with a full-frame sensor with a brightness of f/2.8 is unique by itself. The handling is excellent. The only other native Sony E-mount lens thats faster than f/2.8 in the 16mm and shorter range is the, The Laowa 15mm f/2 is one of three ultra wide angle options from Venus Optics for full-frame Sony mirrorless cameras. Ultra-wide angle lenses can be a bit hit-or-miss when it comes to sharpness, but the Laowa 12mm F2.8 performed quite well. as the only way I know how to summarize astigmatism is the difference between the horizontal and vertical MTF values. That lens isnt available on the camera he was shooting with so dont count on it. Thanks for the review of this wonderful lens. That high brightness makes the Laowa ideal in principle for astrophotography, because you can keep your shutter speeds relatively short. You are welcome! I havent shot the Laowa and the two Voigtlander lenses on the same day side by side. The tested sample is a prototype and according to the manufacturer a few changes are going to be made in this regard. I am a bit confused by the statement regarding flares the test picture in this review shows a big reddish blob near the left edge of the frame and two dart-like shapes on the diagonal between that blob and the sun, all of which I would classify as flares.
Venus Optics Laowa 12mm f/2.8 Zero-D Review - Optical Features Wide-angle lenses are quite handy for landscape astrophotography. (Assuming the moon and any other ambient light isnt causing other issues with too much light!). This brings us to the Laowa 15mm f/2 Zero-D. Its notable as one of the fastest ultra wide angle lenses available for modern mirrorless cameras. As with many other lenses I have reviewed the point light source placed near the corner leads to the worst results. Note: a representative of Laowa has informed lonelyspeck.com that Laowa quietly changed the aperture design on the 15mm f/2 in 2019. Additionally, the zero distortion element prevents weird and abnormal stretching. Oh, my 10mm 5.6 is currenty @NiSi Filters for the development of a filter holder. All Laowa 15mm f/2 Zero-D lenses produced since 2019 have been changed to a 5-bladed aperture. The Laowa 12mm f/2.8 has fairly high levels of vignetting wide open, more than two stops at infinity focus. For the performance regarding point light sources lets take a look at the 100% crops: Before: Samyang 14mm 2.8 (Nikon) @f/2.8, After: Laowa 12mm 2.8 Zero-D @ f/2.8 | A7s | 100% crop near center. Its generally correctable in post-processing without much issue. What adapter are you using? Checked other review the flare resistant not so good. Not as wide. The lens itself just isnt good for astrophotography. to show the Lonely Speck readers what to expect with regards to its astrophotography performance. Laowa 65mm F2.8 Review | 2:1 Magnification for Sony E-Mount. The lens also comes with a large metal petal-style hood, further accentuating the premium feel of this lens. Yes, the exposure was too long and made trails, but that being said the Laowa has nasty coma in the corners, and it matters. Would you recommend the Laowa 12mm or Sony 12-24mm for Interior / Real Estate shooting & Videography ? Nikon AF-S 14-24mm 2.8G: If you dont need the zero distortion feature of this lens and are instead simply looking for a wide angle, theres a few options. On our first copy, the corners were practically unusable until f/5.6. I would love to see this approach on more lenses in the future. The primary focus of Venus Optics has been on high-quality manual focus lenses for a variety of mounts and camera options.
PL provides various digital photography news, reviews, articles, tips, tutorials and guides to photographers of all levels, By Spencer Cox 41 CommentsLast Updated On December 11, 2019. This is a 3 shot vertical panorama, taken in landscape orientation. I have also read about problems with the flare resistance but actually didnt encounter these problems yet, Next up, flare resistance is pretty solid, but not always. You can read about the different kinds of projections here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisheye_lens#Mapping_function How did you you find the light metering? 12mm? In the case below, the center of the image has been corrected to neutral gray (same color as the background field). If you want to know a little bit more about my history, check out the about page. You might want to wait for the Laowa 15mm 2.0 though (native e-mount, true mirrorless design), which is what I am doing. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. Shot at f/2, we can see that coma performance is not perfect, and some of the larger stars show some coma in the extreme corners. You can take photos where the flare is a giant, unsightly blob: But then moving slightly will practically eliminate flare: In some cases, when the sun is out of the frame, you will end up with significant levels of veiling flare: But when the sun is in the photo, contrast almost always remains high, and veiling flare is hardly visible: It almost looks like the photos above were taken with four different lenses! The focus ring has a good resistance, but the throw is a little bit too long for my taste (270 from 0.18m to infinity). The Irix is built better, but it costs $425 (Firefly version) to the Samyangs bargain price of $299. This is a special lens with some really great optical properties and qualities that just dont exist in typical lenses. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. PL provides various digital photography news, reviews, articles, tips, tutorials and guides to photographers of all levels, By Spencer Cox 19 CommentsLast Updated On April 30, 2023. They allow the photographer to fill the frame with a single exposure rather than using panorama techniques, and they allow for longer exposures without significant star trailing. Matthew Duke Photography. I already have fe 16-35, manual 12/2.8 will be an option. I can see from the comparison with the Voigtlnder that there is a significant colour cast in the corners. If I had to recommend any of these lenses to buy, I would only pick one of the top three the first two for maximum image quality, and the Samyang 14mm f/2.8 for its bargain price and still very solid photos. Let me first start with a comparison between the Laowa and the Samyang: Before: Samyang 14mm 2.8 (Nikon) @f/2.8, After: Laowa 12mm 2.8 Zero-D @ f/2.8 | A7s. I do realize that your test shot with f/16 into the sun a fair bit above the horizon is a tough test, but those large reddish blobs that appear here and on photozone, too, are a bit worrisome. It is made by Venus Optics and is the Laowa 12mm f/2.8 Zero-D lens. Thanks for the quick reply. Its very expensive, but tiny and offers unmatched quality. We have briefly checked out the 15mm 2.0 lens at Photokina and asked for a review sample. As I find it hard to believe they are that soft on the wide shots. . Your email address will not be published. Many of the lenses offered are not standard focal lengths, and often have unique specifications or designs which make Venus Optics stand out from the rest. Maybe a little over the top in the pursuit of perfection. Learn how your comment data is processed. (I do not own any of both lenses). I compared last year above mentioned Samyang and Irix. Mars was almost at opposition (nearly fully illuminated when viewed from Earth) and is visible as the orange star reflecting so brightly on the water. At the best, I may only take 3 lenses with me when traveling, covering a range of focal lengths and for specific purposes based on where I am heading and the subjects Im hoping to capture. But when I use the lens on Sony, its sharp at center and out of focus at corner, when i manual focus to let the corner sharp, the middle becomes out of focus. Absolutely no problems with that, as you have stopped down metering when attached to an A7 series camera I have no idea how anything could go sideways here. You have tried Voigtlander 12mm (m39), 10mm (new version) and this LAOWA. This helps me a lot. Theres absolutely no plastic anywhere with the exception of the lens cap. Many of you already know I prefer 10-bladed aperture diaphragms. A truly wide-angle prime featuring a rectilinear optical design, the Canon RF-mount Laowa 12mm f/2.8 Zero-D from Venus Optics is specifically meant to limit distortion for clear and accurate portrayals of landscapes and architectural subjects. Taken at f/2.8 and closest focus: However, it also turns up subtly in real-world photos from time to time. I really appreciate it! I really like this lens but the flare resist and the sun stars are hold me back. These lenses have more optical problems than just coma, which is the classic issue with astrophotography. The weight, however, is quite hefty, weighing a rather chunky 21.4oz (608g). You can see more at my personal website and my Instagram page.
Venus Laowa 12mm f/2.8 robust but suffers from edge-to - Photofocus There arent many ultra wide angle lenses as fast as this. Im fine with the trade off of more star trails for more light. Given the focal length, some photographers may consider using the Laowa 12mm F2.8 for astro shots. The second sample had better performance in this regard, with sharper corners throughout the aperture range. All in all, the Laowa 12mm F2.8 is an incredibly niche lens that only some photographers will be interested in.
From your sample images I would infer that the sharpness of the Laowa 15mm is noticeable better than the sharpness of the Laowa 12mm (used with an adapter on E-Mount, as you did here). This is probably the first one you are all thinking about. The Laowa 15mm f/2 provides excellent image quality across much of the frame wide open, and improves further the more you stop down, particularly in the corners. Giving the Rokinon 14mm f/2.4 a try from Amazon so I can return it if needed Fingers crossed! Could you post an image at 10 or 15 seconds? Ive had excellent results with the nikon 20mm f1.8 for Milky Way shots ISO 6400 15 sec. Did the lens improve since this post was written? I was unaware of the 14mm f/2.4 until reading your review. I have read and agree to the Privacy Policy. This is a perfect lens for more than just astrophotography. Even though chromatic aberration is usually removable in post-processing, excessive amounts cannot be fixed without leaving visible artifacts. I have used them both and image quality is pretty close, the Samyang is a bit better at f/4, so that shouldnt be the deciding factor. Visit Lonely Specks, Compact design takes advantage of mirrorless camera bodies, Unique close focus and depth of field capabilities, Great sharpness, even wide open, and generally low levels of coma, Some coma and chromatic aberrations wide open and stopped to f/2.8, Ultra wide angle of view can result in star trails in corners, for contributing this review. It should be noted that there is some moderate coma (stretched stars) near the edges of the frame along with some other weird abberations. Hi. Nevertheless, it is still very low for a lens this wide with a retrofocus design and it does not seem to be wavy as well (and therefore easy to correct in post if necessary). While not perfect, overall performance is rather respectable for such an extreme lens design since the aberration presents itself only in the extreme corners of the image. You can use screw in 77mm filters or 100mm holder system. That is dedicated for times when you need to go really wide. If this focal length is for you and especially if you are into architecture photography I hardly see a reason not to buy it if you are a DSLR user. Lets put it to the test for astrophotography. VIDEO: How to Photograph the Milky Way in Under 5 Minutes, How to Pick a Lens for Milky Way Photography, Astrophotography 101: Lesson Series on Photographing the Milky Way, Advanced Astrophotography Shutter Time Calculator, a lens created and designed by Venus Optics, downloadable lens profile on the Venus Optics website, Hoya Red Intensifier as a light pollution filter, Noise Reduction stacking via Starry Landscape Stacker, Best Lenses for Milky Way Photography: Fuji X, Sony RX100 Series Astrophotography Review, Astrophotography 101: A Lesson Series on Photographing the Milky Way, Not chipped for electronic communication to camera body. Heres our vignetting graph: Its not the worst performance in the world, but for a potential astrophotography lens, I would have hoped for better. It has only a moderate amount overall, not enough to worry about in most images.
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