Laowa 15mm f4.5 Zero-D Shift lens

Ultra wide shift lens announced

Venus lens have announced the widest full frame shift lens available, The Laowa 15mm f4.5 Zero-D Shift lens is part of their Zero Distortion range – particularly welcome for the kind of work Keith does.

Mount options: Canon EF, Nikon F , Canon RF, Nikon Z and Sony FE
Canon EF and Nikon F available by late Nov, 2020
Canon RF, Nikon Z, Sony FE are due Feb, 2021

We’ve full launch details here and Keith has these two reviews {Dec 2020}

• Keith’s detailed review
• Video: using the laowa 15mm

For more information, see the lens info at Venus Lens.

The list price for the 15/4.5 is $1199

Laowa 15mm F4.5 shift lens

Venus lens have announced the widest shift lens available for full frame (and small medium format such as the Fuji GFX50R). It’s a shift only lens, but as a regular user of Canon’s TS-E17mm F4L I have to say that’s of minimal concern to me. I use tilt very rarely in my wildest shots.

If you’re unsure just how useful shift is, have a look at my article

• How to use lens shift

There are many (60+) articles, reviews and videos looking at all aspects of tilt/shift lenses – see the Tilt/shift Index page for links to all.

The lens is manual focus and manual aperture.  There are no electronics, so lens info will not appear in EXIF data.

Mount options include Canon EF/RF, Nikon F/Z, Sony FE, Pentax K

Here’s some of the launch info supplied by Venus Lens. Some comparison shots are suggesting it is both sharper and handles CA better than the TS-E17 towards the edges – hopefully I’ll get to test this before long…

Product highlights

• world’s widest shift lens
• ±11mm shift amount
• large image circle (can be used on medium format cameras e.g. fujifilm gfx)
• zero distortion
• outstanding image quality
• extremely close focusing distance (~20cm)
• 360 degrees rotation
• 10 pins sunstars

The image circle is 65mm giving ±8mm shift on small medium format sensors

The 15mm f/4.5 Zero-D Shift is composed of 17 elements in 11 groups with 2pcs of aspherical glasses.
A new lens coating has also been implemented and a significant improvement on the chromatic aberration, flaring and ghosting control are observed.

The lens rotates by a full 360º on the mount with click stops at 15º intervals

A lens support bracket will be available for parallax free stitching

This works similarly to the Rogeti TSE Frame I use with some of my TSE lenses [TSE Frame info]

–ooOoo–

I have a copy of the lens on the way for a full review.

For more information visit the Laowa website

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Two sample images – the second is a left/right stitch

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