Venus Optics Laowa 12mm f/2.8 Zero-D lens reviewed by Photozone

Laowa 12mm f/2.8 specifications:

• Image circle: 24×36
• Field of view: 121.96°
• Optical formula: 16 elements, including 2 aspherical elements and 3 elements made of glass with anomalous dispersion, in 10 groups
• Number of aperture blades : 7
• Aperture range: f/2.8 – f/22
• Manual focus
• Minimum focusing distance: 0.18m
• Maximum magnification: 0.2x
• Maximum diameter: 74.8mm
• Length: 82.2mm
• Weight: circa 570g.

Venus Optics will soon announce a new lens, the Laowa 12mm f/2.8. The announcement is expected for July 30, 2016. Lens reviewing site Photozone appears to already have a copy of the lens. “Zero-D” stays for “zero distortion”.

From the conclusion:

[…] the lab-based results are quite promising. Given the extreme nature of the lens we can’t expect a uniform performance across the image field. The center performance is nothing short of outstanding straight from f/2.8 whereas the outer image region is soft at this setting. The corners/borders improve the more you stop down and they reach good to very good levels at medium apertures with a peak at f/8. Please keep in mind that the mighty Canon EF 11-14mm f/4 USM L struggled somewhat more on the EOS 5Ds R. Lateral CAs are impressively low for such a lens. Laowa claims zero image distortions (thus the “Zero-D” in the name). Well, it comes close at least. We measured a barrel distortion of just 1.1% (at a close focus distance to be fair here) which is substantially less than what we’ve seen from the competition.

[via Photozone]