ProfHankD
Veteran Member
I absolutely love what Laowa has been doing, so I was really looking forward to replacing most uses of my Sony E mount Laowa 10-18mm with their AF 10mm f/2.8 Zero D... until I got this bad copy. :-(
Let's start with the good.
The lens comes packaged in a classy box that protects it quite well, and the lens itself is also nicely finished and the controls feel great in operation. This is an extremely ambitious lens, a stunningly wide full-frame rectilinear with a bright f/2.8 aperture and autofocus. The Zero Distortion rectilinear projection may be a slight overstatement, but distortion is minimal (for that matter, it isn't terrible on the 10-18mm). Despite this being Laowa's first autofocus lens, the autofocus performs very well, from infinity to an impressively close distance to the front of the lens. Excellent! The f/2.8 aperture is an obvious win, and the colors are rendered brighter than using my Laowa 10-18mm. I also love the fact that this gives useful EXIF data in every capture, also setting the IBIS focal length.
The expected downsides for this lens vs. my 10-18mm were that vignetting is still pretty bad and, of course, this can't zoom. Honestly, vignetting is a little better than the 10-18mm @ 10mm. It would also be fair to say that zooming the 10-18mm Laowa to 18mm brings enough of an image quality hit that zoom by cropping the 60MP A7RV captures shot at 10mm is pretty competitive. Overall, this 10mm actually did a bit better on the things I expected to be losses.
It was a couple of unexpected things that made me return this otherwise really compelling lens less than a day after it arrived at my doorstep:
So, in summary, this wasn't enough of an upgrade over my Laowa 10-18mm.
For those who want sample images, I'll give just one. The following is a 640x480 image in which the left side is from the 10mm at f/5.6 and the right from the 10-18mm @ 10mm wide open at f/4.5. Both were shot with an A7RV and cropped from about 2/3 of the way to the left edge of the frame and were cropped to 320x480. Although lighting had changed a bit between the shots, the 10mm lens color rendering really is better. Unfortunately, the sharpness difference is rather traumatic:
Left 10mm @ f/5.6, Right 10-18mm @ 10mm f/4.5
That difference wouldn't so starkly favor the 10-18mm if shot on a 24MP FF sensor, or if I kept to an APS-C center crop, but I got this to use on 60MP FF bodies.
BTW, I purchased this from B&H, and within minutes of my request, they authorized return based on this lens simply not meeting expectations. I've bought lots of stuff from B&H over the years, and I plan on continuing to do so. I'll probably also still buy more Laowa lenses, but sadly now I'm going to plan on testing each one rather than just assuming they are all winners...
Let's start with the good.
The lens comes packaged in a classy box that protects it quite well, and the lens itself is also nicely finished and the controls feel great in operation. This is an extremely ambitious lens, a stunningly wide full-frame rectilinear with a bright f/2.8 aperture and autofocus. The Zero Distortion rectilinear projection may be a slight overstatement, but distortion is minimal (for that matter, it isn't terrible on the 10-18mm). Despite this being Laowa's first autofocus lens, the autofocus performs very well, from infinity to an impressively close distance to the front of the lens. Excellent! The f/2.8 aperture is an obvious win, and the colors are rendered brighter than using my Laowa 10-18mm. I also love the fact that this gives useful EXIF data in every capture, also setting the IBIS focal length.
The expected downsides for this lens vs. my 10-18mm were that vignetting is still pretty bad and, of course, this can't zoom. Honestly, vignetting is a little better than the 10-18mm @ 10mm. It would also be fair to say that zooming the 10-18mm Laowa to 18mm brings enough of an image quality hit that zoom by cropping the 60MP A7RV captures shot at 10mm is pretty competitive. Overall, this 10mm actually did a bit better on the things I expected to be losses.
It was a couple of unexpected things that made me return this otherwise really compelling lens less than a day after it arrived at my doorstep:
- Although Laowa's MTF charts and various reviews say this 10mm is sharper than the 10-18mm, the opposite is true for mine. In fact, even stopped down, this 10mm was notably less sharp than my 10-18mm @ 10mm -- on the left side. In fact, the left edge of the frame was as smeary as my ancient Spiratone 18mm, while the right side was slightly better than my 10-18mm @ 10mm. Yup, this 10mm is badly decentered and my 10-18mm isn't. I'm sympathetic in that I know how little misalignment it takes to mess up IQ for a lens this wide, but this is an uncharacteristic lapse of quality control for Laowa.
- This is a fat little lens. I can understand why it needs to be a bit plump at the front of the lens, but it takes that width back far enough that it is tough to fit my fingers between this lens and the body grip. Interfering with the body grip is not a problem for the 10-18mm or, honestly, any other lens I own. Alone, this isn't a killer problem, but it is more than a little annoying.
So, in summary, this wasn't enough of an upgrade over my Laowa 10-18mm.
For those who want sample images, I'll give just one. The following is a 640x480 image in which the left side is from the 10mm at f/5.6 and the right from the 10-18mm @ 10mm wide open at f/4.5. Both were shot with an A7RV and cropped from about 2/3 of the way to the left edge of the frame and were cropped to 320x480. Although lighting had changed a bit between the shots, the 10mm lens color rendering really is better. Unfortunately, the sharpness difference is rather traumatic:
Left 10mm @ f/5.6, Right 10-18mm @ 10mm f/4.5
That difference wouldn't so starkly favor the 10-18mm if shot on a 24MP FF sensor, or if I kept to an APS-C center crop, but I got this to use on 60MP FF bodies.
BTW, I purchased this from B&H, and within minutes of my request, they authorized return based on this lens simply not meeting expectations. I've bought lots of stuff from B&H over the years, and I plan on continuing to do so. I'll probably also still buy more Laowa lenses, but sadly now I'm going to plan on testing each one rather than just assuming they are all winners...
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