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Laowa 9mm F2.8 - sample

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MiWo

MiWo

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Hi All,

I just got the lens in my mail today. Only had time to take a few shots. Here's one at full resolution, straight export from LR 6, no edits:

d8619330372a48988207d992f6829332.jpg

In general, the lens is very small, smaller than my Fuji 23/2, but feels very dense. It's not heavy, just dense. The aperture ring is a little to loose for my liking and the clicks are not really pronounced. The focus ring on the other hand is a little stiff, but might be good for setting hyperfocal and keeping it.

As to IQ, from what I could gather from the 10 or so shots I've taken, it's nicely sharp, apart from the extreme corners. Vignetting is visible, distortions barely so - if you can keep everything aligned which is no small feat. I haven't noticed CAs, but didn't really test for it. Flare can be an issue as I've noticed some red ghosting in a couple of shots. Sun stars are nothing to write home about so far, but again need to do more testing. Colours are a little less saturated than with the Fujicrons.

In two weeks I'll be going to the German coast for a weekend. I hope, I'll have more to share then.

Happy shooting,

Mike

P.S. I just noticed the high ISO - my camera was still set up for the Walimex 300mm F6.3 lens...

--
______________
Good Light, and Good Luck
 
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MiWo said:
Hi All,

I just got the lens in my mail today. Only had time to take a few shots. Here's one at full resolution, straight export from LR 6, no edits:

d8619330372a48988207d992f6829332.jpg

In general, the lens is very small, smaller than my Fuji 23/2, but feels very dense. It's not heavy, just dense. The aperture ring is a little to loose for my liking and the clicks are not really pronounced. The focus ring on the other hand is a little stiff, but might be good for setting hyperfocal and keeping it.

As to IQ, from what I could gather from the 10 or so shots I've taken, it's nicely sharp, apart from the extreme corners. Vignetting is visible, distortions barely so - if you can keep everything aligned which is no small feat. I haven't noticed CAs, but didn't really test for it. Flare can be an issue as I've noticed some red ghosting in a couple of shots. Sun stars are nothing to write home about so far, but again need to do more testing. Colours are a little less saturated than with the Fujicrons.

In two weeks I'll be going to the German coast for a weekend. I hope, I'll have more to share then.

Happy shooting,

Mike

P.S. I just noticed the high ISO - my camera was still set up for the Walimex 300mm F6.3 lens...

--
______________
Good Light, and Good Luck
Click to expand...
They shipped the lens today to Germany. Hope to have it soon

Stefan



--
Stefan
 
Mine's due to arrive tomorrow (thursday) CONUS. I'm curious with the image you posted what aperture you shot at. I'm guessing it's at or around f2.8 (?)

Do you have any images with more dof you'd be able to share? I've been curious how a "sharp" image looks at the corners.
 
I am on the fence between getting this one, the samsung fisheye or a irix 11 for my nikon (to adapt to fuji)


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500px

500px.com 500px.com
 
I haven't shot with the Irix, but seen it: it's a whole different beast.

I don't think the Laowa is up to the standard, but it's way smaller and weights including X-E3 almost 1/3 less than the Irix alone ;-)

Best,

Mike
 
I wonder when they ship to the US. Anyway thanks for the post, looking forward to getting mine.
 
Thanks!
 
I wish technical reviews measure corner sharpness when focussing on the corner. Here, we cannot know how sharp the lenses is, provided corner sharpness is also due to field curvature.
 
tokumeino said:
I wish technical reviews measure corner sharpness when focussing on the corner. Here, we cannot know how sharp the lenses is, provided corner sharpness is also due to field curvature.
Click to expand...

Loading…

www.lenstip.com
 
adrian1988 said:
tokumeino said:
I wish technical reviews measure corner sharpness when focussing on the corner. Here, we cannot know how sharp the lenses is, provided corner sharpness is also due to field curvature.
Click to expand...
https://www.lenstip.com/index.php?test=obiektywu&test_ob=529
Click to expand...
Thanks. I beleived that this kind of reviews typically focus on the center, take a picture then measure sharpness across the frame with the same sample shot. Are you sure that they don't do that way ?
 
tokumeino said:
Thanks. I beleived that this kind of reviews typically focus on the center, take a picture then measure sharpness across the frame with the same sample shot. Are you sure that they don't do that way ?
Click to expand...
Did you read the link on how they test lenses discussed on the opening page?
 
rsn48 said:
rsn48 said:
Thanks. I beleived that this kind of reviews typically focus on the center, take a picture then measure sharpness across the frame with the same sample shot. Are you sure that they don't do that way ?
Click to expand...
Did you read the link on how they test lenses discussed on the opening page?
Click to expand...
 
The lens is probably good but after realizing that it would probably not been shipped from EU and thus would be subject to additional VAT, I backtracked and wanted to cancel my order.

It was 2 weeks ago. After several emails to [email protected] and [email protected], I still don't have an answer.

Canceling should not be a problem since the lens page indicates "Orders with order# earlier than below mentioned have been shipped. Fuji X: #17388" and my order number is more than 400 above this number. It it really should be a non-issue.

But they just don't answer to emails. What if there was a problem with the lens ? Is there support of any kind ? How can you contact them ?

EDIT : 5 minutes after posting here, I wrote yet another email to Venusoptics, pointing to this post. I got an answer and a refund within 5 additional minutes. So they read email ; you only need to be a bit pushy. Problem solved.
 
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