Venus optics Laowa 7.5mm f/2 MFT Lens for Micro Four Thirds (Black)

Priced at $499, the Venus Laowa 7.5mm f/2 lens is not a trivial purchase. But putting cost aside, it's a fun lens and I found myself liking it more and more as I used it. I was truly amazed by how well it performed under a wide variety of situations.

Laowa may not be a well-known player to most of you but recently they caused quite some stir with their Laowa 105mm f/2 STF - a manual focus lens featuring an unusual apodization element for optimized bokeh rendering.

Laowa have been steadily building an excellent reputation for unusual and high quality lenses. Now we have the brightest ultra-wide angle lens for MFT cameras, with an impressive 110 degree angle of view, equivalent to 15mm on a 35mm format camera.

The Laowa 7.5mm f/2 is a manual focus prime lens with an equivalent field of view of 15mm in 35mm format, making it the widest rectilinear prime for the Micro Four Thirds system.

The Laowa 7.5mm f/2 MFT is a fixed focal length, wide-angle lens for Micro Four Thirds cameras, with entirely manual focusing and aperture setting. It’s available in black or silver finishes for £499. For more information see https://www.laowalens.co.uk/ .

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  - Compact and lightweight, - Extremely sharp, particularly in the centre of the image, - Good for low-light shooting, - Compact and lightweight, - Extremely sharp, particularly in the centre of the image, - Good for low-light shooting

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  Corners quite soft at large apertures, Strong vignetting, No exposure data passed to camera, Corners quite soft at large apertures, Strong vignetting, No exposure data passed to camera

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  Small, solid, metal casing,, Sensational image quality in the frame centre,, Negligible longitudinal chromatic aberration,, Slight lateral chromatic aberration,, Lack of problems with spherical aberration,, Moderate astigmatism.

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  Weak image quality on the edge of the frame by f/2.0 - 4.0 apertures,, Huge vignetting, Noticeable coma,, Too weak performance against bright light.

If you shoot subjects such as landscape or architecture, like to use filters and are happy to post-process raw files, the Laowa 7.5mm f/2 MFT is a great little lens.

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  Compact and lightweight, Extremely sharp, particularly in the centre of the image, Good for low-light shooting

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  Corners quite soft at large apertures, Strong vignetting, No exposure data passed to camera

The Laowa 7.5mm f/2 lens is a compact and well built lens that delivers where it counts most, in its excellent image quality.Pictures are sharp, while the lens demonstrates impressive control over distortions that are so common in ultra-wide angle lenses, especially chromatic aberrations.

The Venus Optics Laowa 7.5mm f/2 is a tiny ultra-wide lens for Micro Four Thirds cameras that minimizes distortion, but has a few optical drawbacks.

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  Compact., Ultra-wide field of view., Wide aperture design., 4.7-inch close focus.

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  Soft edges at f/2., Heavy vignette., Manual focus isn't for everyone.

For ultrawides for my Oly EM1.2, I had an old-but-good Oly 7-14 Four Thirds lens, a modern PanaLeica 8-18, and this very small Laowa 7.5. This summer I decided to complete my comparisons and choose one keeper. I immediately rejected the Oly 7-14 as being too heavy and hard to use filters on.

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  Small Light Affordable High image quality

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  Maybe too small

I use this lens for real estate videos on my BMPCC4k. After using a Rokinon 14mm and fighting the constant barrel distortion I love this Laowa lens with no distortion. Wall lines are sharp and straight! This lens is tiny, feels like a toy but is built solid. I love how small and lightweight it is.

Wow. What a lens! Like most people, a zoom lens lives on my camera. My everyday lens is a 12-60mm MFT. I can carry this small 7.5mm lens in my pocket. (It only weighs 5 ounces.) It is great for shooting architecture and artistic shots that have a significant object in the foreground and a full...

I really, really wanted to like this lens. But there's far more distortion than I expected from a rectilinear lens. I also found the photos to be kind of flat. Sharp enough, colorful enough, but lacking some kind of life and sparkle I look for in lens.

I am a pilot and since the beginning, it has been next to impossible to take a really nice picture of the WHOLE cockpit during flight, and when it's really important, at night under the Northern Lights.

Phenomenal lens for the Inspire 2. Be sure to start your drone with an approved lens, and then swap the Laowa 7.5mm on. That will ensure you have full features of the gimbal and drone with this manual lens. Very sharp and great focus. Slight lens distortion when panning straight up or down.