Introduction
The Laowa 8-15mm f/2.8 FF Zoom Fisheye is a full-frame lens that combines the characteristics of two distinct fisheye types in one: circular and rectangular. Fisheye lenses are already uncommon in the mirrorless world, and fisheye zooms are even rarer—this is, in fact, the only fisheye zoom ever made for any mirrorless system, and the fastest fisheye zoom ever made. Let’s see how it performs!
I tested this lens on a 46 Mp Nikon Z7ii (Sample images were taken with a Nikon Zf )
You can see this review as a YouTube video here!
Sample images in high resolution here.
Sample Images
Most of the sample images in this review and many more can be found in higher resolution here.
Specifications
| Focal Length | 8-15mm |
| Angle of View | 175°-180° |
| # of Aperture Blades | 9 |
| Max Aperture | F/2.8 |
| Min Aperture | F/22 |
| Min Focus Distance | 0.16 m |
| Filter Size | – |
| Lens Mount | E , Z , L , RF |
| Weight | 650 g |
| Size (D x L) | Ø76.4mm x 94. 5mm |
| Elements/Group | 13 / 9 |
| Buy new: LAOWA Store, B&H, Amazon (anywhere) for $699 (Affiliate links) |
Disclosure
Laowa kindly lent me this lens for a couple of weeks to test and review. That said, this review is completely independent.
Handling
The Laowa 8–15mm f/2.8 fisheye zoom is a fully manual lens—manual focus, manual aperture, and no electronic contacts. There’s no built-in image stabilization, and while it lacks weather sealing, the construction feels solid, with no noticeable wobble.
The lens feels dense and durable, made entirely of metal and glass.
Starting from the front, the focus ring is generously wide and marked with distance scales in both feet and meters, distinguished by two colors. It offers a smooth resistance with a 70° throw.
Next is the zoom ring, located in the middle, marked from 8mm to 15mm in 1mm increments. The front element extends a little when zooming to 8mm focal length.
Closest to the mount is the aperture ring, which features gentle clicks at each full stop.
There is no front filter thread and no option for rear-mounted filters.
The lens comes with a standard rear cap and a friction-fit metal front cap.
When set to 8mm on a full-frame camera, the lens delivers a fully circular fisheye image with a 180° field of view in every direction. It maintains a 180° horizontal field of view up to around 12–12.5mm; at 14mm, the field of view is 180° diagonally; and by 15mm, it’s reduced to about 175° diagonally.
Below are image samples at different focal lengths: the first five taken on a full-frame camera, and the last five on an APS-C camera.
Optical Features
Sharpness (Infinity)
For the infinity sharpness test, we look at three areas of the image, centre, mid-frame, and corner, see highlighted areas in the image below!
At 8mm, the lens delivers excellent center sharpness wide open, with very good performance in the corners. Stopping down one stop improves corner sharpness to an excellent level as well. Diffraction begins to affect image quality from f/16 onward.
At 15mm, the performance is little weaker. Center sharpness is very good at f/2.8 and becomes excellent by f/4. Corner sharpness starts out as good at f/2.8, improves to very good at f/5.6, and reaches excellent levels at f/8. Sharpness remains excellent at f/11, but diffraction begins to soften the image at f/16 and becomes more noticeable at f/22.
Overall, the lens delivers peak sharpness across the frame at f/8.
Sharpness (Close-up)
Close-up sharpness is very good wide open at f/2.8 and becomes excellent by closing the aperture one stop to f/4. Sharpness remains excellent until f/22 where diffraction makes it less sharp.
Lens Distortion
Being a fisheye lens, it’s no surprise that we see exaggerated barrel distorion.
Vignetting
Measuring the light fall-off, or vignetting, of fisheye lenses is very difficult and imprecise. My rough measurements showed moderate vignetting, which improves when stopping down.
- F/2.8: 2.1 EV
- F/4.0: 1.7 EV
- F/5.6: 1.1 EV
- F/8.0: 0.8 EV
Focus Shift & Aberrations
There is, unsurprisingly, neither any focus shift nor longitudinal chromatic aberration present.
There is a negligible lateral chromatic aberration in the corner but it is so tiny that it can be ignored.
LaCA | LAOWA 8-15mm f/2.8 Fisheye Zoom
Flare Resistance
Generally the flare resistance is better than average, and in most cases even quite good. You can get contrasty images even with the sun in the image, in most cases. But you can get ghosts in certain situations which can be disturbing. There is also an extreme case, in which a ring flare can manifest itself. While it can occur at all focal lengths, it becomes overly obvious and destructive in the shortest focal lengths, especially when the sun is in the centre of the image.
Coma
The lawoa 8-15mm suffers from some mild coma at 8mm, which becomes better and reaches acceptable level by stopping down one step to f/4. At the 15mm focal length the coma is more noticeable and to get rid of it the lens has to be stopped down to at least f/8.
Sunstars
The Laowa 8–15mm can produce sprawling sunstars starting at f/11, which become more pronounced when stopped down to f/22—especially at the widest focal length of 8mm. However, the sunstars are somewhat irregular, with uneven ray lengths and a lack of clear definition, particularly at longer focal lengths.
Focus Breathing
There is some focus breathing, but it’s minimal in typical use—such as when shifting focus from around one meter to infinity. The animation below shows the maximum focus breathing, which occurs when changing focus from the minimum focus distance to infinity.
Bokeh
Bokeh is the absolute last thing that should be considered when someone looks at fisheye lenses, but in this case the extreme minimum close focus distance allows for some background blur if you go really close.
Conclusion
| I LIKE | AVERAGE | I DON’T LIKE |
| Sharpness Chromatic aberration control Minimum focus distance Price |
Sunstars Coma Vignetting Size and weight Bokeh Lack of weather sealing Focus breathing |
Flare resistance (downrated due to the ring flare) Lack of communication with the camera |
This Laowa lens is impressively sharp, even wide open—especially at the wider end of its zoom range—with minimal chromatic aberration. It also offers an extremely close minimum focusing distance and comes at an attractive price for what it delivers. Sunstars, coma, vignetting, and size/weight are all acceptably well-controlled. The main drawback is its flare resistance in certain situations, and of course, I do wish it had some electronic communication with the camera. Remember thought that for best corner sharpness at 15mm, you’d want to stop down to f8 or f11.
Being a fisheye zoom designed for mirrorless cameras, it’s a unique offering. It combines two fisheye perspectives in one lens, with a relatively fast f/2.8 aperture, and it even works on APS-C bodies. If you’re in the market for a fisheye, this lens—with its zoom range, bright aperture, and reasonable price—is definitely worth a serious look.
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| Buy new: LAOWA Store, B&H, Amazon (anywhere) for $699 (Affiliate links) |
Alternatives
Nikon AF-S Fishey Nikkor 8-15mm f/3.5-4.5E ED
A variable aperture, about 0.7 EV to 1.3 EV slower than the reviewed Laowa. It is smaller and 200 g lighter than the Laowa. It offers both autofocus and an weather sealing. A DSLR lens that is easily adaptable to Nikon mirrorless cameras.
Buy new: amazon (anywhere) for $1150 (Affiliate links)
Buy used: ebay.com, ebay.de, ebay.co.uk from $999 (Affiliate links)
Canon Fisheye Zoom EF 8-15mm f/4 L USM
One stop slower that the Laowa, but boasts autofocus and electronic aperture control from the camera. It is smaller and 100 g lighter than the Laowa. It offers both autofocus and an weather sealing. As an L lens it also offers weather sealing. A DSLR lens that is easily adaptable to mirrorless cameras.
Buy new: amazon (anywhere) , B&H for $1150 (Affiliate links)
Buy used: ebay.com, ebay.de, ebay.co.uk from $730 (Affiliate links)
More Sample Images
Nikon Zf | LAOWA 8-15mm f/2.8 Fisheye Zoom | @15m
Nikon Zf | LAOWA 8-15mm f/2.8 Fisheye Zoom | @15mm
Most of the sample images in this review and many more can be found in higher resolution here.
Further Reading
What camera gear and accessories do I use most frequently?
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Martin
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That is quite a strange lens… especially since it doesn’t project onto much of the sensor
The image covers the whole sensor area at 15mm.
When going to 8mm, it becomes a circular fisheye and covers as much as any other circular fisheye, whish is not strange.
That’s a familiar concept (for example Pentax fisheye zooms). Of course, it’s mostly meant to be used at extreme ends, since everything in-between gives hard vignetting (except maybe if the intention is to crop to different aspect ratios).
But I would never pay 700 bucks for a fisheye lens, but satisfy with a prime that can be had for less than a third of the price (or I’d adapt some DSLR option).
Of course, it may be perfect for some with very specific needs; which will probably be a very small, niche market.
It definitely performs well though, and if it was cheaper, I’d be tempted to consider it. Maybe TTArtisan will follow…
The Pentax 17-28 F3.5-4.5 is a lot of fun on my Sony A7R IV (with Novoflex adapter), not only at the short focal length end. There is some vignetting of course, but it’s the same over the entire range. The front lens diameter is just 40mm, what makes the lens comparably light an compact. So not quite the same concept…😉
Sure, but the Pentax 17-28, while a fisheye zoom, is not equivalent to this lens or even the DSLR alternatives I mentioned. The Pentax range starts where these other lenses’ zoom range ends (its widest focal length is a diagonal fisheye).
Encouraging anyone to buy or not buy is never our intention, or at least it has never been the intention of this site.
We do this out of interest and with the hope of being able to help others get full information about the lenses, beyond the marketing jargon, so that readers can decide for themselves whether they want to invest in what we review.
Oh, my intention was not to criticize you in any way. I just expressed my personal impression of the lens (not the review itself), fully aware that someone else may have a completely different opinion.
It’s just that with fisheye lenses, most people who ever try them soon realize it’s not for them (there is some learning curve though), or end up using them once in three years, so I recon that investing much less in a prime will make sense for most people.
Focal length is kind of a different consideration with fisheye lenses, given their nature, but if that number matters TTArtisan 11mm is a great and cheap option. I’d probably go for that and a separate circular option, saving some money and bulk (as long as one doesn’t need both at the same time for some reason).
Zoom here doesn’t seem as practical as with “normal” lenses, since values between extreme ends are practically useless (except if someone likes the cut-off for some reason, or is willing to crop).
Another thing, beside the price, that I don’t like about this one is the vignette that shows even at 15mm, and lens seems to lack coverage on FF, at least when focused close.
Fine.
There are at least two points that make this lens a compelling buy.
First, this lens offers two lenses in one, which might be a selling point for those who want both options in one lens, although it’s not for you, obviously.
Another point is that I bought a similar lens to use it in a focal length in between, as I wanted 180 degrees coverage horizontally while getting as much resolution as possible. On a diagonal fisheye, you don’t get 180 degrees horizontally, and on a circular fisheye, while you get that, you use only a fraction of the frame area, which reduces the resolution. Using something in the middle, 12mm in the cases of this Laowa 8-15 gives you maximum resolution while you also get 180 degrees horizontally.
Hello!
I think you ought to add the Tokina 10-17mm f/3.5-4.5 lens to the list of alternatives. It’s APS-C only (though it does cover FF at 16~17mm, but the quality is anybody’s guess) but it’s a viable, and inexpensive option. My wife has it (in Canon EF mount) and I was borrowing it quite a few times inc. for using on Z9 in the crop mode. It covers APS-C from 10mm to 17mm unlike the Canon/Nikon/Laowa zooms, and while the AF is noisy and often inaccurate, it’s better than no AF at all, I guess. 🙂
Well, I have owned several fisheye lenses thru the years, one of which has been the Tokina 10-17 that you mention, which, in fact, I still own. So, I know that lens very well. However, we almost never put an APS-C lens as an alternative to a fullframe lens, that is why I did not mention it in the alternatives list.
As an E-type lens, I wouldn’t agree that the Nikkor equivalent is easily adaptable to mirrorless systems. You need an electronic adapter that supports setting the aperture from the camera, or you need to set the aperture with a compatible camera and then detach the lens without switching the camera off.
Right, easily adaptable to “Nikon” mirrorless systems.