Venus Optics has a new lens on the way - the 15mm F2, for Sony's E mount. Billed as the world's fastest 15mm lens, Laowa claims zero distortion. And stabilized footage shot with the new 15mm certainly looks nice.
We got our hands on a prototype version of the 15mm last year at Photokina, and we're expecting a reviewable sample to arrive in our office very soon. Watch this space for sample images!
Sigma + adapter weights 1.3 kg. Laowa weights ~0.5 kg. The weight difference alone makes Sigma obsolete in my eyes. And as a macro shooter I also appreciate the excellent magnification of Laowa = 0.25x. Sigma is quite abysmal with only 0.1x magnification.
Sigma 14/1.8 will have AF and electronic contacts for aperture control and EXIF data, while the Laowa 15/2 is pure mechanical with no aperture and EXIF data to the camera. So depend on what your needs are. For me and a previous Canon shooter while now mostly using Sony mirrorless camera ( A9, A7rII, etc.) if I need to tilt/shift adapter for P control, then I will buy the Laowa 15/2 in Nikon mount such that I can have aperture control outside, while I have many Nikon to EOS adapter in case I need to use it for Canon camera. If I do not need to use the T/S adapter, then I would buy Sigma 14/1.8 in Canon mount such that I have use either the MC-11 or the MB adapter for the lens to have AF and full EXIF data of the lens and shooting conditions.
Side note: it is not fully "distortion free" because that is strictly not geometrically possible for a planar sensor/screen/print (ask any cartographer). The correct term is "rectilinear". But I'm sure that few really care and those who do already know.
Pretty sure they're talking about the amount of barrel distortion, most/many rectilinears still have some left over even with the software corrections of newer systems (seen anything from 1-7%), I think they aim to keep that figure very low. Despite the Zero-D branding the description (of the existing 12/2.8 at least) is still a little more realistic in saying "close-to-zero distortion"... But they they aren't explicit about the kind of distortion either.
They /don't/ want to be too explicit, I believe, hoping that potential buyer will confuse one thing with the other and buy this one hoping that it has no "distortion" of any kind, even distance-induced XD
Maybe, kind of a pessimist view but I guess that's what marketing is about... I'm either more optimistic or my brain is just wired differently, as soon as I became interested in UWA lenses I read up on them and about distortion, perspective, etc. I'm not sure there really is a gullible and uniformed mass market for UWA prime lenses, seems like a bit of a niche, but like I said... Maybe I'm just weird and or naive about how others operate and shop. :P
I see that there still is a great deal of confusion between perspective "distortion" and lens-induced distortion...
...if only our peripheral vision could be as sharp as our central one, just once and for like 5 minutes, we could clear a lot of this mess once and for all...
They clearly avoid having distinguishable shapes (faces, circles) in the corners or close to the lens. A wide angle lens without distortion in corners or for close objects is simply impossible.
DPReview, you promise another set of sample images of a new lens, but where are proper lens reviews? So far this year you have reviewed just a single lens (yep, one). By contrast, you have been supplying us with plenty of wedding gossip, plane commercials, tutorials, rumors, results of miscellaneous contests etc. Is this site called DPReview or DPTrivia? BTW, last week I noticed some errors in your Sigma 100-400 lens specifications (the values for the minimum focus distance are wrong by an order of magnitude). I used the provided form to inform you of this and you never fixed it. Disappointing.
@ kociasek - "So far this year you have reviewed just a single lens"
not unheard of, in 2015 they only reviewed one lens... so far this year, tho, they have 18 camera body reviews listed, and about 30 sample galleries for specific lenses... that's a pretty big body of work, and some of it is pretty detailed, like the a9 testing.
Love this. Truth is, reviews take a huge amount of work. The silly junk they've been posting lately is so easy. Several hundred short articles or linkout posts can be done in the time it takes to make a single review.
I suppose the philosophy is just to check the photos gallery and you take your own opinion. I was waiting for the fujifilm 23mm review for months. Now I think it will never come.
The optics look great, in video quality anyway. How it looks 1:1 on A7R/A7RII stills is another story. Video also has quite a bit of sharpening put in by Sony and by the picture profile, plus contrast and others. So uncorrected stills will show much more about the optics in terms of resolving power, contrast, distortion and flare and CA tests.
Anyhow looks very very good for a video lens. The gimal is also performing fantastically. What isn't so good is the actual content/shots, he has an early access and those quick whipped flower shots and underexposed talking face isn't really my thing. Plus the colours, God those Sony colours in video are so bad but they CAN be graded by professional colourists to give proper skin tones and good vibrance instead of this zombie. Perhaps the eoshd colour profile is to blame, it looks aweful skin wiae here.
I would have loved some properly exposed shots of infinity focus landacapes shot in S-LOG 2 and graded properly to Canon/Nikon/Fuji area.
15mm f2 I start to want AF. Their drool-worthy 12mm f2.8 is so wide and a stop slower (a stop more DOF) that I don't really care that it's missing but 15mm f2 the working depth of field is much much smaller.
Then again, typical 15mm's are not that good wide open. This is a good bit wider than a 20mm prime. Should blow away the wide end of a 10-20mm APS-C zoom that often sees work at this focal length.
EDIT: Maybe this is more of a video lens than the 12mm was, another market that doesn't care much about AF?
I get the impression that this is more aimed at videographers, yes. But it should also be pretty handy for landscapes and interiors/real estate, where lack of AF isn't much of a limitation.
Working DOF?! Though there's no lens markings for hyperfocal distance at f2, just focus on something about 4m (12.9ft) away and everything from about 2m (6.5ft) to infinity is in focus. Really, why would anyone need AF with an ultrawide? AF would just hunt and hunt on the and lock on the wrong subjects.
Working DOF?! Though there's no lens markings for hyperfocal distance at f2, just focus on something about 4m (12.9ft) away and everything from about 2m (6.5ft) to infinity is in focus. Really, why would anyone need AF with an ultrawide? AF would just hunt and hunt and lock on the wrong subjects.
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