![\"nisi](\"https:\/\/phillipreeve.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/A7301795.jpg\")
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Some time ago NiSi changed its name from NiSi filters to NiSi optics, if you ever wondered why, I can tell you now: because they also wanted to start producing lenses, not only filters.
\nThe first lens aimed at photographers is this NiSi 15mm 4.0 Asph, let us have a look, if it is a viable alternative to the lenses of reknown manufacturers in this segment!<\/p>\n
![\"nisi](\"https:\/\/phillipreeve.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/nisi_15mm_4.0_asph_sample_12.jpg\")
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<\/p>\n Most of the sample images in this review can be found in full resolution here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n This is NiSi’s first lens and it comes for a few mirrorless mounts including E-mount. It has the following specifications:<\/p>\n You can also have a look at the official page<\/a>.<\/p>\n buy from B&H<\/a> | ebay.com<\/a> | amazon.com<\/a> | amazon.de<\/a> for $479\/479\u20ac<\/strong> (advertisement\/affiliate links) A pre production sample of this 15mm 4.0 Asph was kindly provided free of charge by NiSi Optics for reviewing purpose and to give some initial feedback to the manufacturer. As this is NiSi’s first lens we will of course have a very close look at the build quality and handling aspects, but keep in mind this is a pre-prodcution sample, so there may still be small adjustments made for the final prodution model.<\/em><\/p>\n While the lens is not big, it does not follow Laowa’s and Cosina’s trend of making the lenses as small as possible, so it is roughly the same size as the Laowa 15mm 2.0 – and shares its 72mm filter thread – while being 2 stops slower.<\/p>\n The feeling of the materials and rings is similar to that of the Zeiss Loxia lenses, we have a very big focus ring which turns ~100\u00b0 from the minimum focus distance (20 cm) to infinity and a clickless aperture ring with equidistant stops that rotates ~90\u00b0 from f\/4.0 to f\/22. The markings seem to be only printed on, not engraved.<\/p>\n A removable lens hood is also part of the package, those that avoided the Laowa 14mm 4.0 or Voigtlander 15mm 4.5 because of their non-removable hoods will surely be glad to hear that.<\/p>\n Of course I cannot tell you much about the longevity of this lens, I can only tell you what it feels like and that would be solid and well made.<\/p>\n Wide open you get roughly 2.3 EV light falloff in the corners of the A7rII sensor (which is 1.5 EV less than the tiny Voigtlander VM 15mm 4.5 II). Stopping down yields little improvement, at f\/11 it is still 2.2 EV.<\/p>\n As is the case with many small ultra wide angle lenses there is a bit of green color cast visible in the corners. With normal subjects I did not notice it, but when taking pictures of a snowy landscape or an overcast sky it can become visible. The NiSi 15mm 4.0 shows a good performance here. Many ultra wide angle lenses show a severe midzone dip which is luckily not the case here and even the extreme corners are usable from f\/4.0. The midframe improves slightly on stopping down to f\/5.6, corners also look best between f\/5.6 and f\/8.0.<\/p>\n The Laowa 15mm 2.0<\/a> performs better here with slightly higher corner resolution whereas the Laowa 14mm 4.0<\/a> showed some issues with field curvature in our review. A minimum focus distance of 0.2 m allows you to get really close to your subject, in fact so close, you may be shading it with your lens. Performance is very good from f\/4.0, as usual field curvature is higher at these distances so if you are shooting a flat subject stop down a bit.<\/p>\n As always evaluating flare is a complex matter since you can get any lens to look bad if you push it hard enough and a slight change of scenario can affect results a lot.<\/p>\n With the NiSi 15mm 4.0 the performance is a bit of a mixed bag. With the sun inside or just outside the frame you can often find smaller or bigger less obstrusive ghosts somewhere in your picture. Usually not something that will completely ruin your picture, but some lenses (e.g. the Voigtlander 15mm 4.5 SWH E<\/a>) clearly do better here.<\/p>\n As is the case with most lenses there is one position with the sun in the corner that will result in a big and obvious veiling flare, reframing a little helps here.<\/p>\n One thing to note though: I received the lens hood much later than the lens and thanks to mostly overcast skies I could not test how much the hood helps yet.<\/em><\/p>\n At night with strong light sources you may also find small ghosts somewhere in your picture:<\/p>\n I tend to say the performance is not great, but also not as bad as to really make me worry. Still, we have seen better.<\/p>\n Coma is well controlled, you can see a small improvement on stopping down to f\/5.6 but I wouldn’t mind using it at f\/4.0 if necessary.<\/p>\n The lens shows only low but slightly wavy distortion. With architecture subjects this can be visible, so we should hope for someone to create a lens specific correction profile.<\/p>\n NiSi decided to go for 10 aperture blades and similar to the Zeiss Loxia lenses they are also slightly closed at the maximum aperture, so you get sunstars around point light sources even at f\/4.0. Generally the sunstars are well defined, if you want to learn more about this topic have a look at this article<\/a>.<\/p>\n To close this chapter a real world sample with the sun in the frame:<\/p>\n Shallow depth of field photography is probably not the main application of a 15mm f\/4.0 lens, but thanks to the minimum focus distance we can get very close to the subject and this changes things. Not too uncommon for ultra wide angle lenses the NiSi 15mm 4.0 shows a noticeable amount of lateral CA. These are still easily corrected in a raw developer like Lightroom by one click.<\/p>\n As this is a very wide and rather slow lens longitudinal CA (loCA) are nothing to worry about.<\/p>\n All the current 15mm options for E-mount are covered in our Guide to Ultra Wide Angle Lenses for the A7 Series<\/a>, therefore I will only pick out a few very obvious alternatives to talk about here.<\/p>\n Voigtlander 15mm 4.5 E SWH III:<\/strong><\/a> Laowa 15mm 2.0 Zero-D FE:<\/strong><\/a> Laowa 14mm 4.0 FF RL Zero-D:<\/strong><\/a>![\"nisi](\"https:\/\/phillipreeve.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/nisi_15mm_4.0_asph_sample_10.jpg\")
![\"nisi](\"https:\/\/phillipreeve.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/nisi_15mm_4.0_asph_sample_11.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/phillipreeve.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/A7R02023.jpg\")
Specifications \/ Version History<\/h1>\n
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\n<\/em><\/p>\nDisclosure<\/h2>\n
\nFrom 2016 to 2018 I have been a NiSi ambassador and received a few filters for free, so maybe crosscheck what I have written with some other trustworthy reviewers (e.g. lenstip or cameralabs) when possible.<\/p>\nHandling \/ Build Quality<\/h2>\n
![\"nisi](\"https:\/\/phillipreeve.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/nisi_15mm_4.0_asph_title.jpg\")
\nThe lens focuses slightly behind infinity which is normal for modern lenses because of mount tolerances.<\/p>\n![\"nisi](\"https:\/\/phillipreeve.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/nisi_15mm_4.0_asph.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/phillipreeve.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/A7302038.jpg\")
Vignetting<\/h1>\n
light falloff
\n<\/strong><\/h3>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/phillipreeve.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/vignetting_Nisi_15mm_4.0.jpg\")
<\/p>\ncolor cast<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/phillipreeve.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/A7R01945.jpg\")
\nYou can correct this e.g. using corner fix or gradients in Lightroom (latter is what I prefer).
\nI did not correct any of the sample images for this.<\/p>\nSharpness<\/h1>\n
infinity (42mp Sony A7rII)<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/phillipreeve.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Sharpness_NiSi_15mm_4.0_Asph_R2.jpg\")
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\nI only tested the Voigtlander 15mm 4.5 E<\/a> on a 12mp camera, so the results are different to compare and there seems to be a noticeable amount of sample variation. A good sample of the Voigtlander may show better corner resolution.<\/p>\nclose (0.20m, 1:7.7)
\n<\/em><\/h3>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/phillipreeve.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/nisi_15mm_4.0_sharpness_close_4.0.jpg\")
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\n100% crops from center, A7rII<\/em><\/p>\nFlare resistance<\/h1>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/phillipreeve.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/A7R01602.jpg\")
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Coma<\/h1>\n
![\"nisi](\"https:\/\/phillipreeve.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/nisi_15mm_4.0_coma_4.0.jpg\")
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\n100% crops from extreme corner, focused on corner<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nDistortion<\/h1>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/phillipreeve.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/nisi_15mm_4.0_distortion.jpg\")
Sunstars<\/h1>\n
![\"nisi](\"https:\/\/phillipreeve.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/nisi_15mm_4.0_sunstars_4.0.jpg\")
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\n50% crops from center, A7rII<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n![\"nisi](\"https:\/\/phillipreeve.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/nisi_15mm_4.0_asph_sample_9.jpg\")
Bokeh<\/h1>\n
![\"nisi](\"https:\/\/phillipreeve.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/nisi_15mm_4.0_asph_sample_7.jpg\")
\nThe bokeh is actually surprisingly smooth and undistracting for an ultra wide angle lens.
\nIn fact, when I posted this picture on our facebook page and let people guess what lens it was taken with many people thought it was taken with a faster lens, 16mm f\/1.8 was one of the guesses.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/phillipreeve.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/A7R01995.jpg\")
Chromatic Aberrations<\/h1>\n
lateral<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"nisi](\"https:\/\/phillipreeve.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/nisi_15mm_4.0_lateral_CA_uncorrected.jpg\")
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\n100% crops from extreme corner, Sony A7rII<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nlongitudinal<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"nisi](\"https:\/\/phillipreeve.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/nisi_15mm_4.0_loca_close.jpg\")
Alternatives<\/h1>\n
\nSharpness, resolution and sunstars are similar. The important differences are: the NiSi lens is cheaper, has a removable lens hood, is slightly faster and shows less vignetting, but it is also heavier, bigger and does not transmit Exif data.
\nbuy from CameraQuest<\/a> | amazon.com<\/a> | amazon.de<\/a> | B&H<\/a> | ebay.com<\/a> | ebay.de<\/a> (advertisement\/affiliate links) for $799<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n
\nDespite being a full two stops faster this Laowa lens is similarly sized and also features a 72mm filter thread. This 15mm 2.0 also shows slighty better performance at infinity.
\nBoth lenses do not transmit Exif data to the camera.
\nDownsides of the Laowa lens are the higher price and undefined sunstars (only true for early E-mount versions though, they fixed this in the later ones produced in 2019 and in the Z, RF and L versions).
\nbuy from manufacturer’s online shop<\/a> | amazon.com<\/a> | B&H<\/a> | amazon.de<\/a> (advertisement\/affiliate links) for $649<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n
\nThis is your smallest option in this focal length range for E-mount. It is also about half the weight and takes 52 mm filters, but unfortunately the non-removable hood ruins the party for filter users. Like the NiSi lens reviewed here there are also no electronic contacts and the price is similar.
\nThe small size also takes its toll: field curvature is high and might be annoying and vignetting is also higher.
\nbuy from manufacturer’s online shop<\/a> | B&H <\/a>| eBay.com<\/a> (advertisement\/affiliate links) for $449<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nFirst Impressions<\/h1>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/phillipreeve.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/A7R02002.jpg\")
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