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Canon EF-Mount, Canon FD-Mount, lenses, Minolta SR mount, Sony E-mount

Guide to 20-28mm wide-angle lenses for Sony A7/A9/A1 series

May 1, 2026 The Team 111 Comments

Sony A7rII | Zeiss Loxia 21mm 2.8 | f/8.0

We summarize our experience with all the native E-mount and a few manual legacy lenses in the 20-28mm bracket to give you a compact and independent resource for choosing the right wide-angle lens for your Sony A7/A9/A1 camera. In this summary we also included some adapted lenses we think are worth mentioning. We didn’t include any zoom lenses, you can find those in our general guide to FE lenses as well as the guide to 9-18mm ultra wide angle lenses.

You may also want to check out our guides to 35mm lenses, 50mm lenses and 85-200mm portrait lenses.

Some of these lenses are manual focus only (MF) whereas others feature auto focus (AF). There is also a noticeable amount of lenses listed here that do not feature electronic contacts to communicate with the camera (no Exif).

We have no association with any manufacturer apart from occasionally loaning a lens for a review. Before any short introduction we tell you how long we have used a lens and if we have borrowed it from a manufacturer. But in most cases we have bought the lenses on the market. If you want to support our independent reviews please consider using one of the affiliate links. It doesn’t cost you anything and helps us a lot.

If we have left any question unanswered please leave a comment or contact us on social media and we will do our best to answer it.

Last update: May 2026, Meike 24mm 1.4 MIX added, 7Artisans 24mm 1.8 AF added, Sigma 24mm 2.0 DG DN C updated, Sony FE 24mm 1.4 GM updated, layout updated

Continue reading Guide to 20-28mm wide-angle lenses for Sony A7/A9/A1 series →

Laowa, lenses, Review

REVIEW: LAOWA FF TS 17mm f/4 C-Dreamer

March 12, 2026 The Team 27 Comments

laowa venus optics 61mp 42mp 46mp nikon z7ii high res resolution canon tilt shift ts-e pc-e perspective control TS T/S 17mm 4.0 review resolution contrast bokeh makro

Introduction

Laowa has already produced a couple of good tilt-shift lenses, such as the T/S 55mm f/2.8 and the impressive T/S 100mm f/2.8. Now they’ve introduced an ultra-wide-angle option — the T/S 17mm f/4 — designed primarily for architectural work. It offers the same handling flexibility as the previous two, including a tripod foot. Let’s see how the optics perform on this one!

camera-icon2 We tested this lens on a 46 Mp Nikon Z7ii (Sample images were taken with Nikon Zf , and Sony A7III )
Sample images in high resolution here.

Sample Images

Nikon Zf | Laowa TS 17mm f4 | f8 | Panorama by shifting left/right and stitch (Martin)

laowa venus optics 61mp 42mp high res resolution canon tilt shift ts-e pc-e perspective control TS T/S 17mm 4.0 review resolution contrast bokeh makro — Sony A7III | Laowa T/S 17mm 4.0 | f/4.0 | shifted up (Bastian)

Nikon Zf | Laowa T/S 17mm 4.0 | f/4.0 | shifted up (Martin)

Continue reading REVIEW: LAOWA FF TS 17mm f/4 C-Dreamer →

Meta, Thypoch

November / Black Friday Deals 2025

November 19, 2025 The Team 5 Comments

Introduction

Christmas is around the corner so everyone wants to sell their goods in November. The industry came up with a bunch of stuff like Single’s Day and Black Friday and many camera and lens manufacturers are also using this opportunity. In this article I will collect the deals I think are actually worthwhile.
Thypoch was the first to start their campaign this year, as soon as others follow this article will be updated.
Update: Amazon/Samyang+Adobe Lightroom added

Adobe Photo Prepaid Abo 1 Year

This year a bit more expensive but with 1 TB instead of 20 GB and still much better than the monthly rate. Probably available on all the European Amazon shops. Here the Link to Amazon.de (affiliate link).

Watch out though: this will not extend your existing 20 GB subscription. Wait until your 20 GB subscription ran out or pause it before redeeming the code for the 1 TB subscription.

Samyang Lenses (US/EU Amazon)

Samyang Remaster Slim lens kit for 169€ on Amazon.de (affiliate link) Review

All the Samyang V-AF lenses are also heavily discounted on Amazon.de (affiliate link) and can be bought for 210 to 300€ each. I bought the 100mm T2.3 myself to review it. The 24mm T1.9, 35mm T1.9, 45mm T1.9 and 75mm T1.9 seem to be the rehoused non-Cine lenses but they feature nicer casings while often being cheaper, especially true for the nice Samyang AF 24mm 1.8 FE.

The US Amazon offers the Samyang AF 85mm 1.4 II (affiliate link) for $407, which is also a fair price.

Viltrox

Many of the Viltrox lenses are also discounted on Amazon.de (affiliate link). The 35mm 1.2 LAB for 800€, the new 85mm 2.0 Evo for 250€, the 85mm 1.4 Pro for 535€ are the best deals I noticed, some of the APS-C lenses may also be worth a closer look.

If you are shopping from the US you can also find most Viltrox lenses discounted on Amazon.com (affiliate links) and on B&H (affliliate link), where it seems all lenses are discounted by 20%, so you can for example get the new Viltrox 14mm 4.0 Air for only $159 (affiliate link).

Also the official Viltrox store offers a sitewide 20% discount (affiliate link). Remeber to try using the code “PRnet” for an additional 5%.

Thypoch

The campaign runs from October 22nd until December 3rd.

Pretty much all the Thypoch lenses are discounted in their official Thypoch Webshop (affiliate link) and you can get an additional 5% discount using the code “PRNET”.

I reviewed all of these lenses and there is no stinker among them. The 28mm 1.4, the 50mm 1.4 and the 75mm 1.4 are my favorites and they also made it my list of the Best Fullframe Lenses from China. Sadly the 75mm 1.4 and the 50mm 1.4 only received small discounts, but they were already easy recommendations at full retail.

Laowa

The campaign runs from November 14th until January 2nd.

There are no huge discounts to be found here, but many lenses (not the latest releases though) received a 10% discount in their official Laowa Webshop (affiliate link). If you were already eyeing one of those, now is a good time.

Lenses worth looking at are the 85mm as well as 90mm 2:1 macro lenses and all the shift lenses. A discount for the 15mm 2.0 is also always welcome.

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Uncategorized

November Deals

November 28, 2024 The Team 7 Comments

Introduction

Christmas is around the corner so everyone wants to sell their goods in November. The industry came up with a bunch of stuff like Single’s Day and Black Friday and many camera and lens manufacturers are also using this opportunity. In this article I will collect the deals I think are actually worthwhile.
Update: Adobe Photoshop/Lightroom Bundle Deal is still available and its price has been further reduced from 74 to 70€.

Adobe Lightroom/Photoshop

1 year subscription for 70€ instead of the usual 142€ on Amazon.de (affiliate link)

Make sure to tick the “One-Time-Purchase” (“Einmalkauf” in German) box!

Deal still available!

Most websites push all kinds of software “deals”, but here you rarely find those. Why is that? Because most of them are not good deals, especially the software related ones. Margins on Preset packages, Tonal mask Addons, Luminar, Topaz and whatnot are huge and this is the sole reason people push those, not because they are actually good products. But I will never recommend you something that I wouldn’t want to use myself.

What I actually am using myself (and constantly so) is Adobe Lightroom + Photoshop.

As was already the case the last years there is a Prime Day offer for all the Amazon Prime members that are using the Lightroom+Photoshop subscription. You can get a one year subscription for 70€ here (affiliate link) instead of the usual 142€.

Now probably you are like me and you already have the plan anyway and now comes the highlight: it even works if you already have the subscription. Order, get the discount code, click on “redeem” in the Amazon Email and the next billing month will be December 2025 instead of December 2024. Offer should be valid for everyone in the EU as well as the UK. This is the link where you can redeem your code after you bought it.

If you haven’t done so, this is also a good opportunity to try out the latest AI-based generative fill I already talked about here.

Laowa

Laowa’s “Mega Sale” started on November 11th and I am guessing it runs until November 30th. Many lenses are discounted, the following are the most attractive ones in my opinion:

9mm 5.6: M-mount for $629 and other mounts for $539
15mm 2.0: All mounts for $579
90mm 2.8 Macro 2x: All mounts for $449

Thypoch

The campaign runs from November 11th until December 3rd.

When ordering from the Thypoch Webshop you can use the codes “phillipreeve Simera” and “Phillipreeve Eureka” to get 15% off of the 28mm 1.4 and 35mm 1.4 Simera and 17% off of the 50mm 2.0 Eureka and get additional free shipping.

TTArtisan

The Double Eleven Sale runs from November 10th to November 18th.

50mm 2.0 Pancake: now $61 only
6-BIt Adapters: M to E and M to Z for $70 each
75mm 2.0 AF for $158
100mm 2.8 Bubble Bokeh $138
27mm 2.8 (APS-C) $149
10mm 2.0 (APS-C) for $142
56mm 1.8 AF (APS-C) for $129

Viltrox

Viltrox’ Black Friday Bonanza is running from November 21st to December 2nd.

There are also a lot of discounts on accesories, Monitors are 20% off, COB Series Lights are 30% off, Light Sticks are 25% off and lens mount adapters are 25% off as well.

Support Us

Did you find this article useful or just liked reading it? Treat us to a coffee!
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Laowa, Review, Sony E-mount

Review: Laowa 15mm 5.0 Cookie – Tiny and Useful

November 12, 2024 The Team 33 Comments

Introduction

laowa 15mm 5.0 II fe venus optics review architecture 42mp 61mp sony a7riv a7rv sharpness contrast vignetting cookie pancake compact — Laowa 15mm 5.0 Cookie on Sony A7rII

In the SLR era some people came up with the term “pancake lens” for very thin 40 to 50mm lenses. Because of the short back focus distance of mirrorless cameras it is very hard to make actually useful lenses for them that are as thin as a pancake though, hence Laowa came up with the term “cookie lens”. This does not only sound more realistic but also pretty cute and the latest addition to this cookie line-up is this Laowa 15mm 5.0. Usually new features are reserved for expensive top-of-the-line products, but this lens already marks a very important point in Laowa’s history. Let’s have a closer look!

camera-icon2 The lens was tested on a 42 Mp Sony A7 RII (Sample images with Sony A7 III, Leical M10, and Nikon Zf)

You can see this review as a YouTube video here