Three Years with the laowa 15mm f/2 zero-d
After the 12mm f/2.8, this 15mm was the second iteration to Laowa’s ‘Zero Distortion’ line of lenses – they are currently on their seventh! (2021). Announced back in 2016, it was only available for Sony E mount, but recently has been made to fit other full-frame mirrorless mounts. I purchased mine in April 2018 and has been paired with my Sony A7r3, which I also purchased around the same time. Three years on and I’m still rocking the same combo, along with plenty of other additions along the way. Before I go into the review, I think you should know the reasons to my system change and why this lens was a huge factor when deciding what route to head down.
Here’s some backstory to it all for you. I’d shot DSLR’s for around 7 years – Pentax KR, KX, K5iis; Canon 1Ds MKii, 5Dmkiii; and Nikon D610, D800, D810, DF…..These are just some of the models I’ve owned and used extensively at university or for work purposes.
During 2016/17 I was solely shooting on my D810 setup, but towards the end of 2017, I sold it all and bought myself my first ever mirrorless setup - a Panasonic GH5 plus the Olympus Pro 7-14mm and 40-150mm. This gear was needed for a rather special videography project over in the Daintree Rainforest. As much as I loved the D810, the video just wasn’t up to the job. Fast forward a bit and I was back home in Dorset, out shooting the beautiful landscapes, but I just wasn’t liking the images coming from the GH5 – found them to look too ‘digital’. Ultra-wide lenses are some of my favourites to work with, but a decently fast ultra-wide will usually have a bulbous front element – like the Olympus 7-14mm, making filter attachments a little trickier, so this was becoming a pain for me as I didn’t want to fork out for the required filter holder when I already had one to use on normal threaded lenses. This is where the Laowa 15mm f/2 caught my eye and luckily, as an ambassador for Laowa, I was able to get my hands on one to try out whilst working with them at the Photography Show. I fell in love with the tiny dimensions, 72mm thread and that bright f/2 aperture and soon after selling my GH5 kit, the 15mm was soon ordered! My next problem was, I had no camera to use it with! After plenty of research though, I had come to the conclusion that the A7r3 suited my needs best – resolution, fast AF, 10 FPS….basically the perfect tool for me! And that’s pretty much how I ended up with Sony and with all the amazing glass now available, I’m not leaving!
Day 1 with this amazing combo
Build quality is great, featuring an all metal construction and throughout out time with it, I’ve not encountered any issues in this sector. Of course, as a landscape photographer, I really would like to see weather sealing added as it is worrying when I’m out shooting in the rain. The metallic petal hood is a nice touch and again, I’ve not had issues with it coming loose, but I know of some who have. The lens has a lovely feel to it when you turn the focus ring, smooth and direct, however, not quite as satisfying to turn in comparison to my Voigtlander 58mm f/1.4 SLiis.
Metal and glass - all Laowa lenses are built like tanks!
On the side of the lens barrel is a switch, allowing you to choose whether or not the aperture ring is smooth/clickless when in use. For video work this is a neat little addition but for stills I much prefer a clicky ring.
Unlike some their more recent offerings, this 15mm features a 7 straight bladed iris, resulting in some okay Sunstars. They are not the worst, but again, not the best. I much prefer Laowa’s recent strategy of a 5 bladed straight iris.
Most importantly, is the optical performance. I’m not going to go into super detail here because the team at philipreeve have covered this. What I will say though, is when paired with my A7r3, the sharpness is truly incredible. Wide open I have found it to be sharp enough, but stopped down it has really impressed me. Depending on the situation, most of my daylight landscapes would be shot between f/8 to f/16 and all my astro/night work are shot wide open. Chromatic aberrations are visible, but thankfully it isn’t strong and is easily removed in post. Flare is something I’ve found to be a weak spot for the Laowa lenses and can sometimes result in a fairly large red blob. The 15mm is quite prone to flaring against a very bright light, but the hood does help to minimise this. Overall the flare resistance isn’t the best but there are plenty worse performers out there too!
The rather close 0.15m minimum focus distance a real benefit and certainly a feature I need to utilise more. To be able to shoot at f/2 and focus quite close opens up more compositions, allowing you to get more creative. Take this image below for example. The light levels were low and I didn’t want to raise my ISO, but shutter speeds longer than 2 seconds would void the effect I wanted to achieve with the waves. So, by shooting at f/2 + ISO 100, I kept a shutter speed of 1.6 seconds long. I focused on the large stone, only a couple feet away, and the DOF is still pretty shallow, giving a rather unique look to this landscape shot.
Well, I hope you can see how much I adore this lens and hopefully it gets you thinking whether you need to add one to your kit. Just to recap, it was the small size, yet large aperture and the 72mm filter thread that, for me, makes this my ideal ultra-wide angle. Sure there are few things I wish they could have added – weather sealing and electronic exif data, but fingers crossed these will be added in a MKII version! Lack of AF is not an issue for me, but I know for some this will be a major disadvantage. But, it is what it is and again, I adore this lens for exactly that. Enjoy the gallery of images shot with this lens and feel free to ask any questions!
