A truly wide-angle prime featuring a rectilinear optical design, the Leica L-mount Laowa 12mm f/2.8 Zero-D from Venus Optics is specifically meant to limit distortion for clear and accurate portrayals of landscapes and architectural subjects. The optical construction also incorporates a pair of aspherical elements and three extra-low dispersion elements to control both spherical and chromatic aberrations for improved sharpness and reduced color fringing. A Frog Eye Coating has been applied, too, to repel dust and moisture from the front element of the lens to benefit working in trying environmental conditions. Benefitting the optical attributes, this lens also features a precise manual focus design along with a floating optical system to maintain accurate rendering throughout the focus range, from 7.09" to infinity. Additionally, a petal-shaped lens hood is also incorporated into the lens' design to reduce flare and ghosting when working in strong lighting conditions.
- L-Mount Lens/Full-Frame Format
- Aperture Range: f/2.8 to f/22
- Three Extra-Low Dispersion Elements
- Two Aspherical Elements
Venus Optics Laowa 12mm f/2.8 Zero-D Overview
Venus Optics Laowa 12mm f/2.8 Zero-D Specs
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Venus Optics Laowa 12mm f/2.8 Zero-D Reviews
Fantastic
Works as advertised. Wide, no barrel distortion (there is *some* distortion but all the lines are straight), wide aperture, solid build. I find this works well on M43 and S35 sensors really well without so much stretching at the edges. Awesome lens and I'm excited to use it more!
Amazing lens!
This lens is a beast. I bought the rf mount lens for my eos r and it gives me that super wide perspective. I do wish the lens flares were slightly cleaner and auto focus would be nice in some situations but it still definitely gets 5 stars from me especially at this price point. If you do any real estate filming this thing will make small rooms look huge with no distortion of door frames and other straight lines.
Compatible with 1.4x Teleconverter & DJI Ronin 3D Focus System!
Headline says it all. It's a fantastic lens mounted on your DJI RS2 gimbal, making it perfect for real estate work! It has a hard stop focus ring, so you can use it with the magical DJI 3D Auto Focus system. The lens is plenty sharp and if you have the 1.4 teleconverter, it doubles as a nice 17mm. The lens cap needs some gaffer tape on the tab to keep it from coming loose. with the exception of the lens cover, the performance, build quality, and engineering of this product is very good. Since it's a specialty lens, it's not going to work with your filters, so that could be a problem for some, given the price point.
Great lens, but heavy for mirrorless
I've loved the 12mm f/2.8 zero-d on DSLRs (Nikon F-mount cameras) and this lens does the same job on the Nikon Z-mount. Problem though is that these are manufactured with an extension to fit the Z-mount, making the lens longer and heavier than the ones for the DSLRs/F-mount. So if you're looking for the benefits of a lighter/smaller lens by going the mirrorless route, then this lens may be somewhat disappointing. With that said, like the other 12mm lenses for DSLR mounts, it does a great job with almost no barrel distortion, keeping verticals pretty much vertical. It does have a lot of vignetting, typical of these super wide lenses, and corners are fairly soft. For real estate video work though this does a great job. Additionally, this produces much better starburst flairs than the 15mm f/2 version of the lens, since it has two more blades than the 15mm. It also has more elements than the 15mm. Build quality is outstanding, and very durable.
Awesome lens, not so awesome vignetting
I typically use a Nikon 14-24mm for real estate but was noticing some photos online with much wider angles so I found this lens and decided to try it out. First off the lens is a piece of engineering genius! Absolutely ZERO barrel distortion at 12mm with such a small lens is crazy compared to the amount of warping on my Nikon lens. If you plan on using this lens for real estate I would recommend only using it for exteriors and only interiors when the home is very large or spacious. Obviously the Zero-D is not referring to perspective warp which is very exaggerated on a lens this wide, but you can get some really cool shots with that. Another thing I noticed is the lens does not communicate aperture properly with my Nikon D750. At f2.8 on the lens my camera reads f0, f4 reads f1, f5.6 reads f2 and so on. This isn't really a problem unless you want to shoot in aperture priority since the camera will be adjusting your shutter speed to shoot at f3 when the lens is really set to f8 so you will need to leave your cameras exposure comp set a stop or two higher to compensate for the short shutter speeds. For me the biggest issue that keeps me from using this lens is the horrible vignetting on photos. I understand a lens this wide is going to have some unavoidable vignetting but even after the lens correction there is a green color cast that is hard to fix and on interior photos that is not something you want.
straight yes but soft corners with CA
It is indeed excellent in terms of being rectilinear. but when you look at the corners, wide open it's highly vignetted and there's mean chromatic aberration. Both sharpness and CA get better as you stop down, but even at f11 it's not great. it's sharp in the middle even wide open. I think it's better for video than for photography, if you plan to make large prints. Positive things are the build and size/weight, amazing for something this wide and fast. I don't think the markings for stops and distance are accurate, but didn't do serious testing of those.
Good lens for astrophotography
really haven't tried this for landscape but it's sharp in the majority of the frame, avoid the corners of the frame. For the money it's a fun lens.
So far so good...
Been using this item for both photography and video. I can say for a wide angle lens, it does keep a straight line (zero d), but do keep in mind that you still have to frame your shot in accordance to angles.
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