The king is dead, long live the king! After the Voigtlander 10mm 5.6’s field of view has been matched by the Samyang 10mm 3.5 XP and the Laowa 10-18mm 4.5-5.6 it has now been surpassed by this Laowa 9mm 5.6 FF-RL. Can a lens be wider and at the same time better? Let us try to find out!
Lens is being tested on 42mp Sony A7rII and 24mp Leica M10
Last Update: January 2023
According to my statistics this is the 25th 35mm lens I am reviewing here. After so many you may think you have seen it all, but this one has a stand out feature: at $129 new it is definitely the cheapest fast 35mm and not only that: it is also very compact.
Now if you think you can get the quality of a Sony FE 35mm 1.4 GM for a fraction of the price here you can already stop reading, but for everyone else: let’s find out how much lens we can get for 130 bucks.
Continue reading Review: Pergear 35mm 1.4 – The cheapest 35mm fullframe lens
When announced in at Photokina in 2016 the Laowa 15mm 2.0 Zero-D was one of the first lenses making actual use of the narrow flange distance of mirrorless cameras, opening up new lens design possibilities needed to create a compact yet fast ultra wideangle lens.
I have been using this lens for years, so let’s have a look together how it fared in this long term review.
Jan 2023: Alternatives Section updated, new samples added, general update
This AstrHori 18mm 8.0 Shift is already the third AstrHori lens I am reviewing here. Their lenses often feature a “little extra” over the competition to make them more interesting. In this case this isn’t just a compact 18mm lens, a ±6mm shift function has been added on top. Judging by the size of this lens, especially the diameter of the lens elements, I am wondering how useful that shift function will be though. But let’s have a look together in this review.
Fisheye lenses have a somewhat limited range of possible applications and I would definitely consider them niche products. Probably this is also the reason most of the big manufacturers seem to have given up on having any of these in their portfolios. So if you are looking to add a fisheye lens to your kit your only real option are lenses like this AstrHori 12mm 2.8 Fisheye from smaller manufacturers. As can be seen from the picture above this is a huge lens, but can its performance keep up with its dimensions? Let us find out in this review!
