The cookie is fun

Hi friends.

Wanted to share some first impressions of the Laowa 10mm F4 cookie lens. It's good 👍.

Arrived shockingly fast. I did regular shipping and FedEx sent from HK to my doorway in Seattle in 24h flat.

It's an interesting lens to use and reviews are accurate. It is hard to attach and detach from camera and you notice that right away but not a big deal to me.

It's super easy to accidentally get your finger in the frame while focusing. So you really need to focus and then move your left hand away and shoot. Either that or turn the focus ring from direct bottom of lens so most out of the way. Despite the focal length and DOF you do need to somewhat focus on APSC.

It's accurate that it's low or no distortion. And accurate about the vignette but I don't mind it.

Testing handholding it's easy to shoot at some slower shutters than usual. I could easily get shots with no blur at 1/30th but would prefer to shoot at least 1/60th.

It doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in sharpness because you take a photo, zoom in on a tree, and all the leaves are blurry. But then again everything is so wide it's hard to compare to other lenses like that. I would be happy with any of these shots for web at least. If you use Fuji for anything professional than maybe this lens image quality won't meet your bar.

You can focus very close to subject, and easy to do because it's about a handlength for min distance. You can use it at close with on camera flash from X-T30 fine at that distance just fine so you could do a macro-like close subject photo in a pinch.

I'll share some samples later but it's kinda "what you see is what you get" with a lens this wide (if you don't pixel peep). Point it in rough direction of your house and whole house is there in frame, not needing as much creativity for framing, at least for far away stuff.

Got mine yesterday. What a flippin awesome lens! So fun and easy to use.

Bought it as I don’t shoot ultrawide that often. But I tend to miss it sometimes while traveling. In those cases I normally end up with a shot with my phone. It's OK, but I want to have some better quality on those shots in the future. That, without having to bring something like a 10-24mm. I really enjoy travelling light.

This lens ticks all the boxes for my needs in an UWA-lens.

I also found out that I already had a 10-stop ND-filter with 37mm filter thread. It will probably bring a bit more vignetting, but IDC.

I have only used it for some street photography in Oslo by now. But that is also a fun task for such a lens. It gives a strange, unique perspective, compared to my usual 23mm (35mm in FF equivalent). 
Cheers!

Great, glad we have a thread started on this. Add me to the list of people who don’t usually care about ultra wides but are intrigued by this lens. Ordered … but economy shipping to Chile will take weeks I think.

I used to own the Laowa 9mm, the pergear 12mm, the 7artisans 12mm, and the Rokinon/Samyang 12mm. I currently only own the Rokinon and use it for Real Estate Photography and personal things, street photos and landscapes.

The 10mm Cookie is enticing. It still looks like there's some distortion in the corners, which made me ultimately sell the 9mm, but I may pick this one up second hand just for walking around fun.

Let me put it this way:

Optically, it is not as good as the Laowa 9mm f/2.8.

It vignettes more and have some barrel distortion. Easy to correct in post.

The corners are maybe slightly worse. Not so easy to solve 😀

But it is still good enough. At least for me who just occasionally dip my toes into the UWA world.

Just look at this silly lens.

I had heard that the 9mm was a Micro 4/3 lens, so I thought this one might perform better on asp-c.

Well. Laowa have a 7,5mm f/2 for m43 which is even smaller than the 9mm f/2.8.
So the talk about that the 9mm f/2.8 originally was designed for the much smaller m43-sensor is strange.
It covers the APS-C sensor just fine. If it was a Fuji lens, then all its vignetting would easily have been compensated for in the lens profile.

Andreasfe wrote:

Well. Laowa have a 7,5mm f/2 for m43 which is even smaller than the 9mm f/2.8.
So the talk about that the 9mm f/2.8 originally was designed for the much smaller m43-sensor is strange.
It covers the APS-C sensor just fine. If it was a Fuji lens, then all its vignetting would easily have been compensated for in the lens profile.

Man, don’t mess up this thread with non cookie talk…

forest dream wrote:

Are it possible Fujifilm extra 23mm F2 from X100V for release as XF 23mm F2 WR cookie lens?

Nope part of that lens is inside x100 body…

IMO Fujifilm X-E4 better bundle more cookie lens.

Note: previous X-E3 bundle with XF23 F2.

forest dream wrote:

Are it possible Fujifilm extra 23mm F2 from X100V for release as XF 23mm F2 WR cookie lens?

No, because the compact integrated design relies on the leaf shutter.

Back to the Laowa Cookie…

I’d be interested in seeing any direct comparison against the Samyang 12/2. I’d been looking at the XF 8mm as a potential future replacement for mine, but the Cookie is also a possibility…

Sorry. Hope I didn't hurt you that much with an answer to some talk about a lens that many will compare with this cookie.

John Gellings wrote:

forest dream wrote:

Are it possible Fujifilm extra 23mm F2 from X100V for release as XF 23mm F2 WR cookie lens?

Nope part of that lens is inside x100 body…

IMO Fujifilm X-E4 better bundle more cookie lens.

Note: previous X-E3 bundle with XF23 F2.

Man, don’t mess up this thread with non cookie talk…

Andreasfe wrote:

Sorry. Hope I didn't hurt you that much with an answer to some talk about a lens that many will compare with this cookie.

Awwww, I guess the fact that I was joking wasn't clear...

Laowa 9mm f/2.8 Zero-D

Specially when Laowa 9mm f/2.8 Zero-D is using the same f/4 or f/5.6 aperture?

Here are a couple of shots with both, taken for the sake of comparison only. SOOC with Provia.

Don't have any comparisons at f/4 or f/5.6. Now I have sold the 9mm, so can't make any 🙂

Laowa 10mm f/4 Cookie @ f/11

Laowa 9mm f/2.8 @ f/11

Laowa 10mm f/4 Cookie @ f/8

Laowa 9mm f/2.8 @ f/8