A man came to my house with a box. In the box, there was the new Laowa 7.5mm f2 lens, which I ordered from UK Optics when it was announced. I'm currently on the hunt for lenses for the Appalachian Trail which I am hoping to attempt next year - a compact, fast ultrawide seemed like just the ticket. I sold my 20mm f1.7 and one of my old manual Pentax lenses and placed the order.
The first thing that struck me is just how small this lens is. It is tiny, especially for an ultrawide - about the same size and shape as the Olympus 25mm f1.8.
It is also solidly built. It's metal throughout with a reassuring feel. The focus ring is fairly stiff but smooth, with all the focusing going on internally. The aperture ring has fairly shallow but distinct clicks. There is a small metal lens hood which seems rugged and reliable. It feels great in the hand, although to refocus from one end to the other takes a second (the focus throw is relatively short - I reckon about 90 degrees).
There haven't been many reviews of this lens although some are beginning to filter through. I've never personally owned or used an ultrawide - I've had fisheye lenses but never a rectilinear lens. I apologise if the photos below look like they are taken by someone who has no idea what they are doing with the UWA - if that is the case, it's because I have no idea what I am doing with a UWA.
The main concern with the reviews that do exist is corner sharpness. This isn't a problem for landscapes on the whole, as you aren't going to be using the lens wide-open for them anyway (one hopes). However, it might be a problem for indoor architectural shots or astrophotography (although I've never done any astrophotography - something I hope to remedy in a future post). The centre appears to be plenty sharp from wide open onwards. I also did a brief check to look for coma in specular highlights by taking a photo of this out-of-focus tree.
The specular highlights are actually not bad to my eye, although the trunk sharpness looks a little odd - I was shooting this handheld at arms length so there may be some camera shake in the mix. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of coma.
The corners are pretty soft wide open - I'd go so far as to say very soft. Here are a series of 100% crops, all at ISO 200. The slowest shutter speed was 1/320 at f8, so camera shake on a 15mm equivalent lens shouldn't be an issue. They are from camera RAW, converted in lightroom with no edits whatsoever. Blow it up for the full picture - the aperture for each is noted on the frame. These were all handheld so apologies for the slight differences in framing. People will compare this to the Panasonic/Olympus ultrawides (which I don't own, so can't really compare with) - the key piece of information for me is that from f4 (which is where the Panasonic zoom starts) the Laowa appears to be sharp across the frame, and is a good deal a) smaller b) cheaper c) lighter. In the principle of this blog, this lens is the easier of the two to have with you. I've not looked into the Olympus one really so I haven't any extra comments on that one - please discuss below!
Probably enough technical gubbins to be getting along with there - what about the real world? I only had time for a brief 30-minute wander from my house today in the blazing midday sunshine, so I didn't get the best oppotunity to try out the lens anywhere particularly interesting. I am planning on going out with it a bit more this weekend and should hopefully have something to show for it then, along with some more answers on whether the manual settings are bothersome in any way. Until then, I'll get this published so anyone on the fence about this lens can get a bit more information.
The first thing that struck me is just how small this lens is. It is tiny, especially for an ultrawide - about the same size and shape as the Olympus 25mm f1.8.
The Laowa 7.5mm f2 on my GM5. Truly diminuitive (forgive the crap quality - phone camera)
It is also solidly built. It's metal throughout with a reassuring feel. The focus ring is fairly stiff but smooth, with all the focusing going on internally. The aperture ring has fairly shallow but distinct clicks. There is a small metal lens hood which seems rugged and reliable. It feels great in the hand, although to refocus from one end to the other takes a second (the focus throw is relatively short - I reckon about 90 degrees).
There haven't been many reviews of this lens although some are beginning to filter through. I've never personally owned or used an ultrawide - I've had fisheye lenses but never a rectilinear lens. I apologise if the photos below look like they are taken by someone who has no idea what they are doing with the UWA - if that is the case, it's because I have no idea what I am doing with a UWA.
GM5 + Laowa 7.5mm @f4. Focused on the centre - the bottom right corner is not in focus. Full-size picture on flickr here.
The main concern with the reviews that do exist is corner sharpness. This isn't a problem for landscapes on the whole, as you aren't going to be using the lens wide-open for them anyway (one hopes). However, it might be a problem for indoor architectural shots or astrophotography (although I've never done any astrophotography - something I hope to remedy in a future post). The centre appears to be plenty sharp from wide open onwards. I also did a brief check to look for coma in specular highlights by taking a photo of this out-of-focus tree.
GM5 + Laowa 7.5mm @ f2.
The specular highlights are actually not bad to my eye, although the trunk sharpness looks a little odd - I was shooting this handheld at arms length so there may be some camera shake in the mix. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of coma.
The corners are pretty soft wide open - I'd go so far as to say very soft. Here are a series of 100% crops, all at ISO 200. The slowest shutter speed was 1/320 at f8, so camera shake on a 15mm equivalent lens shouldn't be an issue. They are from camera RAW, converted in lightroom with no edits whatsoever. Blow it up for the full picture - the aperture for each is noted on the frame. These were all handheld so apologies for the slight differences in framing. People will compare this to the Panasonic/Olympus ultrawides (which I don't own, so can't really compare with) - the key piece of information for me is that from f4 (which is where the Panasonic zoom starts) the Laowa appears to be sharp across the frame, and is a good deal a) smaller b) cheaper c) lighter. In the principle of this blog, this lens is the easier of the two to have with you. I've not looked into the Olympus one really so I haven't any extra comments on that one - please discuss below!
Probably enough technical gubbins to be getting along with there - what about the real world? I only had time for a brief 30-minute wander from my house today in the blazing midday sunshine, so I didn't get the best oppotunity to try out the lens anywhere particularly interesting. I am planning on going out with it a bit more this weekend and should hopefully have something to show for it then, along with some more answers on whether the manual settings are bothersome in any way. Until then, I'll get this published so anyone on the fence about this lens can get a bit more information.
A quick stop on the way home - GM5 + Laowa 7.5mm. No idea what aperture this is at - somewhere between f2 and f5.6. One of the disadvantages of a manual lens is the loss of all EXIF data!
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