The new Laowa 9mm f/2.8 ZERO-D APS-C mirrorless rectilinear lens has already been available for pre-order at the official venuslens.net website and is now listed also at B&H. Shipping is expected to start in April. With the upcoming Passover holidays, the fastest way to get the lens is by ordering it directly from venuslens.net (the first 100 orders from venuslens.net will get set of 49mm filters (ND 1000, CPL and UV) for free.
The Venus Optics Laowa 9mm f/2.8 ZERO-D APS-C mirrorless lens is available for Fuji X, Sony E and Canon EOS-M APS-C mirrorless mounts.
Comparisons with similar lenses (click for larger view):
Sample photos from the lens can be found at optyczne.pl and on flickr.
Here are the first reviews of the Venus Optics Laowa 9mm f/2.8 ZERO-D APS-C mirrorless lens:
Extreme ultra-wide lenses are never perfect. Keeping this in mind the Laowa is pretty good indeed. It’s super-sharp in the image center and if you avoid f/2.8, the borders/corners are decent. Lateral CAs are generally not an issue. Image distortions are extremely low for a lens of this focal length – and that’s without image auto-correction. The primary weakness is vignetting which is rather extreme at max aperture. However, at medium aperture settings, it’s a lesser issue outside of lab conditions. Flare in strong contra-light can produce quite a bit of glare – a generally weaker aspect in Laowa lenses it seems.
The Laowa 9mm f/2.8 Zero-D may have some shortcomings but that being said we really enjoyed using the lens out there. In real life, the fully manual character wasn’t really an issue. Given the depth-of-field of a 9mm lens you can pretty much guess the focus distance and if needed for close-ups, you can just use magnified focus view in your camera. For most of us, a 9mm lens is quite exotic already thus it shouldn’t be a burden when carrying it. The form and size factor is pretty perfect if these are your constraints as well. We heard that the Laowa 7.5mm f/2 MFT is pretty popular among the drone folks. The 9mm f/2.8 Zero-D has the potential to do the job (and more) on APS-C mirrorless cameras.
I LOVE THIS LENS! – It’s as simple as that. It’s such and amazing performer, especially when you take the small size into account. It has great built quality and it just ticks all the right boxes for me. And at a suggested retail price of USD $499 I wouldn’t hesitate a second to recommend everyone who like wideangle photography on the Fujifilm X-series system to buy one! Easily one of the most usable lenses I’ve ever mounted on my X-series system (And I have mounted A LOT over the years!)
Of course, this lens is manual focus only, so you’ll need to be comfortable with using on of Fujifilm’s focus assist modes to get sharp images. However, as we know, wide angle lenses have an inherently deep depth of field, so it is quite easy to get things in perfect focus. But, during my experiments, I didn’t notice any other aberrations like colour fringing. The lens is extremely sharp once you lock in focus and it resolves plenty of detail in the centre of the frame. The corners are a little soft wide open, but very sharp once stopped down.
Overall, the size, weight, and optical quality of this lens make it an excellent choice for your ultra-wide-angle needs. The major downsides of this lens are its vignette and softer corners wide open. Otherwise, it is an excellent performer and one worth looking at. You can pick up your lens from B&H here. The lens is also available for Canon EF-M and Sony E mounts.
The Laowa 9mm f/2.8 Zero-D lens is an excellent lens with an impressive build quality at an incredible price. The lack of distortion is quite remarkable for such an extreme field of view and this lens would be a great addition to any camera bag for photographers who shoot with Fuji X, Canon M or Sony E mount cameras.
Laowa 9mm f/2.8 ZERO-D video reviews and video samples:
Via FujiAddict
