One of the widest lenses on the market today is the Laowa 12mm f/2.8 Zero-D, made by Venus Optics. Not only is this lens rectilinear (not a fisheye), but Venus Optics claims it has almost no distortion whatsoever. With so few 12mm lenses available today, anyone who needs an ultra-ultra…

It is rare to be genuinely surprised when testing lenses, as we were with the Laowa 12mm F2.8 Zero-D from Venus Optics. This lens, manufactured by a newcomer on the market, goes above and beyond all the expectations we could have had.

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  Superb build quality and small form factor for a 12mm, Excellent resolution at all apertures, even across the frame, Class-leading control over distortion, Beautiful, crisp colors, Fast maximum aperture, Manual focus easy to achieve thanks to long throw and useful gradations, Low vignetting on...

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  Strong vignetting on full frame, Flare and ghosting poorly controlled, No weather sealing, Flimsy, difficult to use lens cap, Pricey

It is small. It is light. It is extremely wide. It has a high quality construction and an overall impressive image quality. It has a reasonable price. And, who doesn't love a few world records?

A few weeks back we reviewed an exciting product from a newcomer company - the Laowa 105mm f/2 STF. The characteristics of this lens are truly exciting and, even better, the performance is also top notch.

The coronavirus crisis has been adversely affecting many businesses and, sad but true, ours is not an exception. Despite that difficult situation we would like to preserve continuity and high quality of publications available on all our websites.

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  solid, metal casing with sensible physical dimensions,, very good image quality in the frame centre,, negligible longitudinal chromatic aberration,, sensible correction of lateral chromatic aberration,, lack of problems with spherical aberration,, sensible distortion correction,, moderate...

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  weak image quality on the edge of the frame near the maximum relative aperture,, enormous vignetting,, too weak performance against bright light.

What can we say about the Laowa 12mm f/2.8 Zero-D lens? Well, we have to start with the image quality, because it is so good.Detail is pin sharp in virtually all of the frame and even at f/2.8 the fall off is controlled admirably.

Im architectural photographer so UW-lens is my main weapon ) Im absolutely in love with this combo on my Sony A7II. Alone lens i use in interior shooting and with MSC on the streets. There are little blue colour vignetting on the corners but with LR-profile you can fix it in few seconds.

I shoot interiors and usually shoot with a 24mm nikon. I bought this lens hoping it would be a great product and it is. The lens works and feels just like any nikon. It is only manual but I am a manual kind of guy and setting up my interior shots is not difficult without auto exposure and I actually...

I have never trusted any ZERO distortion claim until I used this beauty. The lines are so straight. No more post processing needed. Be reminded that optical (barrel/moustache) distortion is discussed here. Perspective distortion is unavoidable for any wide angle lenses. This is Physics.

I do Cityscape Photography and I must say its a great lens to have. The 12mm was a great addition to my Canon16-35mm.I have tested the lens for sharpness and distortions, I can say its a sharp lens and has no distortions at all.

Really cool lens. I chose this because I wanted 1. extremely wide and 2. the option to use it with the Laowa Magic Shift Converter for perspective correction and as a 17mm lens. The low distortion is definitely amazing, center is very sharp, and corners are reasonable.

I use this lens as an ultra wide in conjunction with the Laowa medium format converter for Fuji GFX. This turns it into a 17mm f/4 on the GFX 44x33mm sensor . The resultant field of view is approximately equal to 13mm on a 35mm camera.