Hi ... new guy here. Would like to say two things. First, I love your reviews and your voice is amazing, keep up the good work. Second, I really like all the small religious references in the videos. Bibles, churches, old cathedrals and theological books. As a biblical theology mayor in college I appreciated all thous small hints.
Thanks for the nice review. No need to exchange the Irix 11/4 against this admittedly tiny lens. I really prefer having EXIF available even on manual focus lenses. I see that Laowa can save a lot of effort and cost by not offering EXIF, but if I can get another lens with EXIF I'll always prefer the alternative.
Think I will stick with their wonderful 12mm zero D lens. Bigger and heavier it may be, but the image quality is so much better, judging by what I see here.
Whats up with the blacks on fullframe? Different body/rawformat or does the lense actually wash out the example photos around the middle? Is that expected? Probably not a huge deal at all, im just curious. Switching from FF to APC example seems just so different. However unless you shoot jpeg or non-log video, no meaningful data could be lost from such differense.
I have bought the full frame Laowa 10-18 f/4.5-5.6 FE lens designed for mirrorless lenses. It is not a cheap lens. It doesn't have a front filter thread and can't take directly any protective filter. With the 100mm external filter the advantage of small size is lost. The very bulbous front element can be easily scratched and that makes me very nervous and cautious. The lens isn't really sharp at corners even at f/8 but I am generally satisfied with it. I love ultra wide lenses and I was thinking of the full frame Voightlander 10 mm/1:5,6 Hyper Wide Heliar aspherical designed for mirrorless cameras but neither this lens can accept any front filter. The full frame Laowa 9mm f/5.6 seems great but is designed for Leica m-mount cameras and it is well known that wide m-mount lenses have issues when adapted to any mirrorless camera except the Leica ones. The new full frame Laowa 11mm f/5.6 is designed for mirrorless lenses too and can take a 62mm front filter and that is fantastic. The difference between 11mm and 10mm looks negligible but with ultra wide lenses it isn't. However the use of filter and its sharpness make this lens very attractive to me and it will be in my future shopping list.
I’m guessing the lens is not very planar in it’s design, explaining the weak corner performance. The vignette result especially shows what looks like out of focus corners. Didn’t know the center performance was that strong though, impressive.
I wonder though: if one screws a slim filter in there... how are you gonna get it out with no grip surface to speak of :) and even on fullframe 16mm (canon f4 16-35mm) i can see my ND filter - but manual lenses strangely appeal to me as a hobby to see what i can get out of them (due to my poor eyesight i need to rely on live view focussing, getting a sharp focus trough the ovf is impossible :( )
plsss do a budget lens video, maybe even doing a set of videos each for a different mount would be amazing. Like the one for canon apsc, please do sony apsc.
Creative photographers will know how to extract great images from it! A lens that will test the photographers' skills! Would be more useful seeing the sharpness test in an actual landscape image.
I think this type of lens cannot be measured with this pattern wall. Because you have to go so close to it that the center of the picture will be much closer than the edges. You could test it with your former method with that building/castle...
What you're referring to is field curvature, and it should be corrected by designers. The image quality results are the same as at longer distances - I checked my landscape pictures.
Interesting lens. Shame about no Canon RF option. Waiting on a TTArtisans Fisheye11mm F2.8 for RF right now. I know the only thing the same is the focal length. In every way the lens is vastly different but available in RF. Is this a lens you plan to test at some point?
Just got my TTartisan 11mm RF, It is considerably wider than the 14mm Samyang RF. Not sure where the 13mm comes from, Unless the Samyang is no where near 14mm.
I want you to review some m43 lens, like panasonic 12-60mm kit lens, 45-150mm, panasonic 25mm F1.7, I really wanna invest in m43 systems, but none of them can properly review lenses.....
I can't see any reason to get this lens over the Laowa 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6. The corners and distortions aren't really improved. Price is only a little bit cheaper.
Too expensive for a "fun" lens - toy - without AF and with manual aperture. IMO. By the way, the vignetting. I could not find a lens design cross section diagram on Laowa website, but the video shows the back-end of the lens. This must be a classical Gaussian design. In a Gaussian, the back elements behind the nodal point (sort of) mirror the front elements in order to control chromatic aberration (CA). The projection to the sensor thus being a classical cone, gives an increasingly sharp angle of incidence towards the edges and corners of the sensor. And sensors cannot handle that. Leica solved this by having a glass layer across the sensor where each photosite has its own lens looking into the lens's projection cone at a sharper angle towards the edges and corners (cf. Fresnel lens and no cut the rings up into separate lenses). But the angles of the tiny lenses are a compromise for the average of Leica lenses this supports. It also means strange distortions when adapting a non-Leica lens that has retro-focus character. Other optics designers have solved inability to handle projection cones with new lens architectures that require many more elements to solve all the problems faced with today. A nice early example is the Zeiss 35mm on the compact FF fixed lens Sony R1, or recent designs in the Nikon Z/S series. These are much improved retro-focus lenses, by using more elements with a back-end that has an almost condenser effect. Many more elements than held possible in 1896 when Paul Rudolph designed the Planar 6 element in 4 groups planar design at Carl Zeiss - the Planar was a Gaussian and suffered from flare. Coated and slightly modified versions have been made by lens manufacturers for more than 100 years. But mirrorless cannot help reintroduce the Gaussian architecture - so far. Removal of the mirrorbox was not the end of retrofocus, but required improved versions of it in order to arrive at new performance levels. In short, performance of the Laowa along the lines of expectations and congratulations for not having stolen Leica's look and feel design language.
Your usual style of "I strongly recommend this lens" , "I don't really recommend this lens" is missing in the end of the video. Could be just because, it's the lens sponsored video.. Not a problem.. Always love your explanation. Cheers..
Chris does state as usual it is a independent review and a sample lens was sent for testing for 2 weeks. Guessing it was just missed off the end for some reason.
![BRASIL vs. PERÚ [4-0] | RESUMEN | ELIMINATORIAS SUDAMERICANAS | FECHA 10](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/tbyOJKXfQnI/mqdefault.jpg)
Hi ... new guy here. Would like to say two things. First, I love your reviews and your voice is amazing, keep up the good work. Second, I really like all the small religious references in the videos. Bibles, churches, old cathedrals and theological books. As a biblical theology mayor in college I appreciated all thous small hints.
my god ive missed this channel. glad you still haven't changed your presentation style.
Any chance you'll be reviewing the laowa 9mm f/5.6?
always the best reviews with all necessary info :D
Voigtlander 10mm f5.6 is a beaut!
I feel like I could enjoy the artistic quality of vignetting, sunstars, and a soft corner. If I want sharp, I have other options
Thanks for the nice review. No need to exchange the Irix 11/4 against this admittedly tiny lens. I really prefer having EXIF available even on manual focus lenses. I see that Laowa can save a lot of effort and cost by not offering EXIF, but if I can get another lens with EXIF I'll always prefer the alternative.
yeah I think I'm gonna get one of these to use on my Epson R-D1, might be a nice actual wide angle that is a bit faster than the Voigtlander 12mm f5.6
The Voightlander lens, however, has connections on the back to transfer EXIF data (such as each image's f/stop) to the camera.
Please test the 9mm FE full frame lens from LAOVA
Think I will stick with their wonderful 12mm zero D lens. Bigger and heavier it may be, but the image quality is so much better, judging by what I see here.
Me too, My 12mm is more then plenty wide for my needs and a joy to use and has 2.8 aperture. When I saw 11mm I was like 🤔
Whats up with the blacks on fullframe? Different body/rawformat or does the lense actually wash out the example photos around the middle? Is that expected?
Probably not a huge deal at all, im just curious. Switching from FF to APC example seems just so different. However unless you shoot jpeg or non-log video, no meaningful data could be lost from such differense.
I have bought the full frame Laowa 10-18 f/4.5-5.6 FE lens designed for mirrorless lenses. It is not a cheap lens. It doesn't have a front filter thread and can't take directly any protective filter. With the 100mm external filter the advantage of small size is lost. The very bulbous front element can be easily scratched and that makes me very nervous and cautious. The lens isn't really sharp at corners even at f/8 but I am generally satisfied with it. I love ultra wide lenses and I was thinking of the full frame Voightlander 10 mm/1:5,6
Hyper Wide Heliar
aspherical designed for mirrorless cameras but neither this lens can accept any front filter.
The full frame Laowa 9mm f/5.6 seems great but is designed for Leica m-mount cameras and it is well known that wide m-mount lenses have issues when adapted to any mirrorless camera except the Leica ones.
The new full frame Laowa 11mm f/5.6 is designed for mirrorless lenses too and can take a 62mm front filter and that is fantastic. The difference between 11mm and 10mm looks negligible but with ultra wide lenses it isn't. However the use of filter and its sharpness make this lens very attractive to me and it will be in my future shopping list.
As usual a very nice review. There’s also a lens with an incredible 9mm, which covers approximately 135 degrees!
I’m guessing the lens is not very planar in it’s design, explaining the weak corner performance. The vignette result especially shows what looks like out of focus corners. Didn’t know the center performance was that strong though, impressive.
I wonder though: if one screws a slim filter in there... how are you gonna get it out with no grip surface to speak of :) and even on fullframe 16mm (canon f4 16-35mm) i can see my ND filter - but manual lenses strangely appeal to me as a hobby to see what i can get out of them (due to my poor eyesight i need to rely on live view focussing, getting a sharp focus trough the ovf is impossible :( )
Great reviews as always. Thanks!
Hi, curious if you plan to review the ttartisan 11mm f2.8 for Sony?
I have their 15mm ultra wide macro lens, and it’s fun.
plsss do a budget lens video, maybe even doing a set of videos each for a different mount would be amazing. Like the one for canon apsc, please do sony apsc.
Now of Venus Optics would release lens correction profiles for all their lenses, that'd be great
Creative photographers will know how to extract great images from it! A lens that will test the photographers' skills! Would be more useful seeing the sharpness test in an actual landscape image.
Hi Chris, just wondering if you would be reviewing the Laowa 9mm F5.6 lens?
I think this type of lens cannot be measured with this pattern wall. Because you have to go so close to it that the center of the picture will be much closer than the edges. You could test it with your former method with that building/castle...
What you're referring to is field curvature, and it should be corrected by designers. The image quality results are the same as at longer distances - I checked my landscape pictures.
Chris, any plans to review the Tamron 28-200mm?
Interesting lens. Shame about no Canon RF option.
Waiting on a TTArtisans Fisheye11mm F2.8 for RF right now. I know the only thing the same is the focal length. In every way the lens is vastly different but available in RF. Is this a lens you plan to test at some point?
TTartisan fisheye is actually closer to 13mm from tests I've seen, Rokinon fisheyes are wider with less distortion.
@@Wabajak13 interesting. I have the Samyang 14mm RF already xD if it's not much wider might of been a mistake to get it.
Just got my TTartisan 11mm RF, It is considerably wider than the 14mm Samyang RF. Not sure where the 13mm comes from, Unless the Samyang is no where near 14mm.
Thanks for posting!
No focus breathing test? ;)
Hehe
can you make a comparison with the laowa 9mm f2.8?
Please Review the 28-200mm 2.8 Tamron
Curious to know, do you check focal plain in corners ?
Is it even possible on a lens this wide to have a straight focal plain ?
Yes, I usually check, and if there is serious field curvature and report it in the review
i wonder how the lens would perform on a Sony A7 with 24MP , lower MP then the A7R2 , but still fullframe ?
I wonder why the corners of the distortion test charts are so fuzzy. They seem much fuzzier than in the sharpness test.
As I explained in the video, I was changing between focusing closely and focussing to infinity, to show you the differences
Not sad this lens is not on X mount after seeing those corners :)
Actually, as you will see in this review, it actually performed well on an APS-C camera
the question is: is it better than the Voigtlander 15mm?????????
Do you think that the Laowa 10-18 performs better @11mm then the Laowa 11mm F4.5 ?
Would like to know this too please
I want you to review some m43 lens, like panasonic 12-60mm kit lens, 45-150mm, panasonic 25mm F1.7, I really wanna invest in m43 systems, but none of them can properly review lenses.....
Get over it.
Any chance you compare the 11mm + 14mm? (and 9mm) or did I miss that?
Look at the review :-)
Ehmm... Did again but did not hear anything :D can you point me at the time of it?
Canon RF 600mm & 800mm please😎
soo irix 11mm F4 better? (if dont care weight)
Hi is the Leica version a M Mount or an L mount ?
Shame the price of this doesn't match the size. Love every other aspect of it though.
I can't see any reason to get this lens over the Laowa 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6. The corners and distortions aren't really improved. Price is only a little bit cheaper.
The 9mm for aps-c cameras is f/2.8 and wonderful on my a6400. Equals 13.5 on FF.
@@keystonebrotherb I really like that lens. Anyone with apsc mirrorless should get it!
why so expensive if it had a greater aperture then it would maybe worth the money.
That means this glass is not recommended:)
Is that a manual focus lens Christ?
It has no electronic connections, so it is a completely manual lens.
100% manual lens
16 seconds into the video he says manual focus only.
0:15
Too expensive for a "fun" lens - toy - without AF and with manual aperture. IMO.
By the way, the vignetting. I could not find a lens design cross section diagram on Laowa website, but the video shows the back-end of the lens. This must be a classical Gaussian design. In a Gaussian, the back elements behind the nodal point (sort of) mirror the front elements in order to control chromatic aberration (CA). The projection to the sensor thus being a classical cone, gives an increasingly sharp angle of incidence towards the edges and corners of the sensor. And sensors cannot handle that. Leica solved this by having a glass layer across the sensor where each photosite has its own lens looking into the lens's projection cone at a sharper angle towards the edges and corners (cf. Fresnel lens and no cut the rings up into separate lenses). But the angles of the tiny lenses are a compromise for the average of Leica lenses this supports. It also means strange distortions when adapting a non-Leica lens that has retro-focus character.
Other optics designers have solved inability to handle projection cones with new lens architectures that require many more elements to solve all the problems faced with today. A nice early example is the Zeiss 35mm on the compact FF fixed lens Sony R1, or recent designs in the Nikon Z/S series. These are much improved retro-focus lenses, by using more elements with a back-end that has an almost condenser effect. Many more elements than held possible in 1896 when Paul Rudolph designed the Planar 6 element in 4 groups planar design at Carl Zeiss - the Planar was a Gaussian and suffered from flare. Coated and slightly modified versions have been made by lens manufacturers for more than 100 years. But mirrorless cannot help reintroduce the Gaussian architecture - so far. Removal of the mirrorbox was not the end of retrofocus, but required improved versions of it in order to arrive at new performance levels.
In short, performance of the Laowa along the lines of expectations and congratulations for not having stolen Leica's look and feel design language.
Interesting. Gains nothing stopping down. I swear f/5.6 was worse.
700 $, cool. 1079 € in Germany: not cool. (Nikon Z Version)
I have the Samyang 12mm fisheye, I think I will continue using that.
Not really comparable ever after post
Your usual style of "I strongly recommend this lens" , "I don't really recommend this lens" is missing in the end of the video.
Could be just because, it's the lens sponsored video..
Not a problem.. Always love your explanation. Cheers..
Chris does state as usual it is a independent review and a sample lens was sent for testing for 2 weeks. Guessing it was just missed off the end for some reason.
@@AnthonyTeasdale Yep!!
I only photograph lens charts so I shan't be buying this lens 😉 Cheers all 🙂
Thanks for the review. Way overpriced Laowa 👎
£700. no.
Second comment :-)
1:28 You got that backwards. Darker scenes require lower ISO levels, not higher.
Nope. A higher ISO level means you can increase your shutter speed and shoot in darker situations.
You got that backwards. Darker scenes require higher ISO
Poor performance for a prime with a slow aperture that's fairly expensive.