Introduction

Tele lenses with a huge entrance pupil are being called “Air Cutter” in China, which I think is quite a fitting description when looking at portrait pictures taken with them featuring that super thin depth of field. So far we have only seen 200mm 2.0 lenses from the Japanese manufacturers, but now Laowa decided to also offer a lens like this and even managed to make it the smallest and lightest lens in its class – making this Laowa AF 200mm 2.0 C-Dreamer the original Chinese Air Cutter. Let’s have a closer look!

Sample Images

You can find most of the shots in this review in full resolution here.

Specifications

I received an early pre production sample for Nikon Z-mount which has the following specifications:

• • Diameter: 118 mm
  • Field of view: 12° (diagonally)
  • Length: 177 mm
  • Weight: 1778g (without hood[91g], without tripod foot[105g] without caps)
  • Filter Diameter: 105mm (front) + 43 mm (rear slot-in)
  • Number of Aperture Blades: 9 (rounded)
  • Elements/Groups: 11/9 + rear filter
    
  • Close Focusing Distance: 1.5 m
  • Maximum Magnification: 1:6.5
  • Mount: Nikon Z, Sony E, Canon EF, Fuji GFX

buy from manufacturer’s homepage | ebay.com | ebay. de | B&H (affiliate links) for $1999

Disclosure

The Laowa 200mm 2.0 AF C-Dreamer was kindly provided free of charge by Venus Optics / Laowa for reviewing purpose for a few weeks.

Handling / Build Quality

This Laowa 200mm 2.0 AF C-Dreamer follows the design language of Laowa’s other AF lenses like the Laowa 10mm 2.8 AF or the Laowa 180mm 4.5 Apo Macro.

The huge focus ring rotates ~220° from the minimum focus distance (1.5 m) to infinity which allows for setting precise focus in MF mode.

The lens also features an aperture ring with rather soft a-third-of-a-stop click-stops. The aperture ring can also easily be de-clicked.

On the left side of the lens we have a focus limiter as well as an AF/MF switch and the first lens button. At the front there are four more radially orientated lens buttons.

On all the lenses I am aware of the top switch is the AF/MF switch and the limiter situated below it so I always set the limiter when I actually wanted to switch the focus mode.

The lens also has a rear filter slot. It comes with a filter drawer that features a standard 43mm screw-on clear filter that can be replaced with an ND filter or polarizer. Laowa did something extremely customer friendly here: the filter drawer already features a small wheel to rotate the filter, making it possible to use a polarizer without having to buy an expensive additional accessory. For Nikon’s and Canon’s 200mm lenses you have to buy another filter drawer for that purpose.

The lens features an additional 105mm front filter thread.

The hoods of Canon’s and Nikon’s 200mm 2.0 lenses were made of aluminium, this one seems to be made from polycarbonate instead. It does feel less sturdy but it is also lighter.

The lens also ships with a removable tripod foot which features an arca swiss profile out of the box which is a very nice touch. The collar is non removable and features click-stops every 90°.

Compared to the 200mm 2.0 lenses for (D)SLRs this Laowa 200mm 2.0 AF is noticeably smaller and lighter, as can be seen from the comparison above. It is actually closer in terms of size and weight to the Sigma 105mm 1.4 Art.

AF Performance

Generally the AF is very fast and with the limiter switch you an speed up things even more.

Sadly, in the time I had with this lens I did not get the chance to shoot something that would be very demanding for the AF. 

For portraiture and humans moving at normal speed it was definitely fine, if you are looking at this lens for sports applications it might be worthwhile to check for another review with a stronger emphasize on the AF performance first though.

Vignetting

light falloff

Wide open the vignetting amounts to almost 2 EV in the corners but things improve fast on stopping down. Latest by f/4.0 it is hardly noticeable anymore. All the super fast 200mm lenses I tried show a very similar performance here and the differences are negligible. The Laowa’s smaller size didn’t not lead to a worse performance in this category, as one might have expected.

It is recommended to have a look at this article first to get an idea how this brightness graph works.

optical vignetting

Very fast lenses usually show a significant amount of optical vignetting. Without going too much into technical details optical vignetting leads to the truncation of light circles towards the borders of the frame.
In the center of the frame almost every lens will render a perfect circle, but only lenses with very low optical vignetting will keep this shape in the corners.
So in the following comparison we move from the center (left) to the extreme corner (right) and see how the shape of the light circle changes.

Both lenses were shot side-by-side and with a test target it was insured they are actually focused at the same distance (2.2 m). 

We can see some interesting things here. Let’s start with the elephant in the room: in this comparison the Nikon lens shows noticeably bigger circles, why is that? There are two reasons for that: first is, that according to its patent the Nikon is actually a 195mm f/1.84 lens, so slightly faster than f/2.0. The second more important reason is focus breathing. At its minimum focus distance the Laowa’s focal length shrinks to 174mm, which puts it at a disadvantage here. This was a compromise needed to realize a much smaller and lighter lens.

The other thing we can see is that the Laowa also shows stronger optical vignetting (cat’s eyes) in the corners. We will have a closer look at this in the bokeh section. Of all the 200mm f/2.0 lenses this Laowa is the one with the strongest cat’s eyes. It is not a huge difference but it can be noticeable when looking for it.

Sharpness

MTF-Graphs

According to Laowa’s MTF graphs, this lens should have very high contrast across the whole image frame and still very good resolution albeit with a low amount of astigmatism.

Most MTF-Graphs show calculated values that do not take into account manufacturing tolerances and sample variation. Furthermore they are usually calculated for infinity, so in the field and shooting at different distances a noticeable variation may be visible.

Focus Shift

I think I did not come across a Laowa lens with noticeable focus shift yet and that streak does not end with this 200mm 2.0. We can see a bit of bokeh fringing here at f/2.0, we will have a closer look at that in the longitudinal CA section.

infinity (24mp Nikon Zf)

Across the whole frame this lens is a little bit softer at f/2.0 compared to stopped down a bit. Center and midframe look great from f/2.8, the corners lack slightly behind and look best around f/5.6.

In this category the older Canon EF 200mm 1.8L USM and the Nikon AF-S 200mm 2.0G IF-ED VRI were the best performers I tested, but keep in mind heat haze can always have a negative influence (it surely did here) and I did not get the chance to shoot these lenses side-by-side under the same exact conditions.

Also keep in mind I used this lens on the Nikon Zf with its stupid asymmetrical AA filter whereas I tested the other lenses on the Sony A7rII, putting this one at a disadvantage.

portrait distance 5.0 m (24mp Nikon Zf)

For portraiture it isn’t so important how flat the field is, it is more interesting to see what the sharpness is like when focused at different parts of the frame to take field curvature out of the equation.

This is what I did here, I refocused for every shot and aperture to get the best possible result at different locations in the frame (center, inner midframe and outer midframe).
Focus distance was roughly 5.0 m and the circle of the dollar bill is more or less the size of a human eye.

f/2.0 <————> f/2.8

At portrait distances we see a very good performance from f/2.0. As the outer midframe looks a bit better at f/2.0 here than the inner midframe it is possible that the focus in the inner midframe was not set perfectly. Either way, you will have no reason to complain about a lack of contrast or resolution at portrait distances with this lens.

close focus 1.5 m, 1:6.5 (24mp Nikon Zf)

The Laowa 200mm 2.0 is actually the closest focusing lens in this class and the one offering the highest magnification. It is a bit softer at f/2.0 though and stopping down to f/2.8 increases the contrast noticeably. This is actually the case for most of these 200mm 2.0 lenses. The exception being the Nikon AF-S 200mm 2.0G IF-ED VR, which features a slightly worse magnification (1:7.5) but already looks as good at f/2.0 as this Laowa when stopped down to f/4.0.

Flare resistance

All these super tele lenses I tried had some issues with veiling flare with the sun outside of the frame and this Laowa is no exception.

With this class of lenses I also recommend to always use the lens hood whenever possible.

At the maximum aperture in addition to the veiling flare we can also see some rainbow artefacts. This is actually not something I have seen from the other 200mm 2.0 lenses.

Stopped down those rainbow artefacts are gone, the veiling flare is still present.

None of the super fast 200mm lenses fared well in this category so far and this holds true for this Laowa lens as well.

Distortion

Distortion is very low. With a lot of straight lines in the picture, dialing in something like -1 or -2 in Lightroom/Photoshop can be used to get rid of the small residual distortion.

Bokeh

One of the main reasons to get a 200mm 2.0 lens these days is for their bokeh qualities, so let’s have a closer look how this Laowa lens performs here.

Close Distance

At closer distances this lens completely obliterates the background into a soft blur. With a lot of point light sources we can definitely see the optical vignetting leading to noticeable cat’s eyes in the corners.

Mid Distance

At these mid distances the subject really stands out thanks to high contrast and resolution in the focal plane. 

Long distance

Long focus distances are where this class of lenses really shines, as they allow to create a very shallow depth of field even in full body portrait situations or with big objects like cars. The disadvantage is, that you need enough room to work with such a long lens.

Compared to: Nikon AF-S 200mm 2.0G IF-ED VRI

The Nikon AF-S 200mm 2.0G IF-ED VR is the lens in this class I found to render the most appealing bokeh, so let’s see how this Laowa compares.

As said before the Laowa shows stronger focus breathing than the Nikon lens. For these comparisons I cropped the Laowa’s pictures to give the same framing which puts it at a slight disadvantage which is mostly visible in close focus scenarios (like Scene 1).

Scene 1: Forest Close Distance 

Scene 2: Forest Mid Distance

Scene 3: Forest Mid Distance

Scene 4: Forest Mid Distance

Scene 5: Forest Long Distance

Observations

Let’s get this out of the way first: in terms of contrast, resolution and color transmission I do not see any meaningful differences.

When it comes to these complex backgrounds the Nikon lens creates a slightly smoother background bokeh, especially towards the corners thanks to less optical vignetting.

Would you ever notice these differences without a direct side-by-side comparison as I did it here? Probably not.

Coma

Coma is corrected well, light points near the corners are not deteoriated.

Sunstars

I doubt anyone on their sane mind will buy a lens like this to shoot architecture during blue hour. The sunstars also don’t look particularly appealing.
If you want to learn more about this topic have a look at this article.

Chromatic aberrations

lateral

We see a very low amount of lateral CA. This is easily corrected in post by just one click, so nothing to worry about.

longitudinal

As we have already seen in the focus shift section we can see a low amount of bokeh fringing at close to mid focus distances. Stopping down to f/2.8 is enough to get rid of this.

The Nikon AF-S 200mm 2.0G IF-ED VR and the Canon EF 200mm 2.0L IS USM correct this aberration pretty much perfectly.

Purple fringing is correct very well though.

Conclusion

We haven’t seen a new 200mm 2.0 lens for more than 15 years and then we get two new ones within a month, who would have expected that?

Laowa chose to make this type of lens available to a broader audience by significantly reducing its weight, size and price compared to the existing options. To do that, some compromises had to be made: no optical stabilizer, more focus breathing than the first party options and a bit stronger optical vignetting (cat’s eyes). 

Those are actually well chosen compromises, that – for most of the applications for a lens like this – will be hardly field relevant. In terms of contrast and resolution it can keep up with the more expensive options and with its fully working rear filter drawer and arca swiss style tripod foot it also features the most customer friendly accessory set.

There has never been a better time to give a 200mm 2.0 lens a chance than now.

buy from manufacturer’s homepage | ebay.com | ebay. de | B&H (affiliate links) for $1999

Alternatives

I have already reviewed all of the AF options still designed for (D)SLRs: the Nikon AF-S 200mm 2.0G IF-ED VR, the Canon EF 200mm 2.0L IS USM and the Canon EF 200mm 1.8L USM.
All these lenses are noticeably heavier, bigger, only available used and even used more expensive than this Laowa lens new. Among the (D)SLR options my favorite is Nikon’s version, as I think it draws the most appealing bokeh.

The closest competitor – which I did not yet review – is the Sigma 200mm 2.0 DG OS Sports though, released a month earlier than this Laowa lens. The Sigma has actually been designed for mirrorless cameras and is only slightly bigger than and almost the same weight as this Laowa lens. It features the most complex optical design among these lenses and also an optical stabilizer. Its main disadvantage on paper: it is about 65% more expensive.

Sample Images

You can find most of the shots in this review in full resolution here.

Further Reading

• All Lens Reviews
• Sony FE lenses: Our Guide to Portrait Lenses
• Review: Zhong Yi 135mm 1.4 Speedmaster
• Review: Viltrox AF 135mm 1.8 LAB
• Review: Olympus 180mm 2.0 OM Zuiko

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BastianK

My name is Bastian and I am your expert here when it comes to ultra wide angle lenses, super fast portrait lenses (ranging from a 50mm f/0.95 to a 200mm f/1.8) and I also have reviewed way too many 35mm lenses. Don't ask me anything about macro or wildlife shooting though.

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