Laowa, a Hong Kong based camera lens manufacturer known for their extreme lenses, recently came out with a ridiculously wide 10mm lens for full-frame cameras. What makes this lens so unique is that, as its name implies, it has zero distortion, or is NOT a fisheye lens. Instead, Laowa has gone with a rectilinear design here, giving an absurd 130° field of view without any of the barrel distortion typically associated with lenses this wide. There’s still a lot of stretching, but more on that later.

This review is done with the Sony E-Mount model. There is a Z mount model available as well as manual focus versions for Canon and Leica.

Build Quality

First off, this thing feels great. It’s made from solid metal with an unusual blue finish. The lens feels very solid in your hands and does not reek of the cheapness I’ve felt with other third-party lenses that rhyme with Pokémon.

The focus ring has foregone a rubber grip, instead opting for indented notches right on the ring itself, a nice touch as it won’t degrade over time.

The most surprising thing to me about this lens’s build was how small the actual front lens element is. It’s tiny! While Sony’s own 12mm lens has an enormous front lens element, Laowa has somehow made theirs barely an inch and a half wide. This allows the lens to accept traditional screw-on filters. No need for those cumbersome, wide-angle filter attachments that are a pain to assemble.

Sharpness / Image Quality

When it comes to sharpness, the Laowa 10mm is a little bit of a mixed bag. I was expecting the worst, but I have been pleasantly surprised with ALMOST every photo. As expected, at f/2.8 there is a noticeable softness around the edges, but truthfully in landscape photography you’re rarely shooting wide open anyways. Stopping down does a lot to fix this, but it should be noted that this lens has an unusually low aperture for its “sweet spot.” Most lenses seem to hover around f/9 for their optimal sharpness, while this lens has an optimal sharpness at f/5.6. Past f/11, there is significant diffraction. In my real-world use where you get the lens close to the foreground, this translates to needing to do a lot of focus stacking.

The lens’s 5 aperture blades give a beautiful 10 pointed sunstar, which I actually prefer to my Sony and Sigma lenses.

There is no denying that the chromatic aberrations on this lens are fairly extreme. Most of this can be corrected in Lightroom, but almost every photo I took needed some manual correction. This isn’t a dealbreaker, but an extra step you don’t want to forget before printing.

Autofocus

This is Laowa’s first foray into autofocus, and for the most part, it works great. In all my testing, I never had an issue with the lens capturing focus, whether the subject was right in front of the lens or in the far background corner. In all my testing, this lens captures focus fast and accurately. The focus motor is louder than my Sony lenses, but it doesn’t affect shooting.

Astrophotography

Sadly, astrophotography is where this lens takes its first loss. While you might think that an f/2.8, ultra wide angle lens would be perfect for astro, unfortunately, this isn’t the case. Wide open, there is some very noticeable coma in the corners, and because the edges of the frame are stretched, stars around the border are noticeably dimmer than at the center.

I tried doing a Milky Way panorama with this lens, but it just doesn’t work. Because of the stretched edges, you get some pretty weird stitching in the final product. For a single-shot astro lens, this is fine, but it won’t be replacing any of my other lenses for night photography.

Practicality?

The main reason I wanted to write this review is because others who have reviewed this lens haven’t done it from a nature photographers perspective. For me, a nature photographer, despite its limitations, this lens is incredible. For near-far compositions, this lens is an absolute game changer.

Laowa advertises this lens as having a minimum focus distance of 12cm, but this is from the cameras SENSOR, not the lens itself. In reality, the minimum focus distance is just in front of the lens hood. This translates to being able to focus just a couple centimeters in front of the lens, something not possible with any of my other lenses (or nearly any other lens on the market.)

The absurd field of view allows for very unique shots and is something that you simply cannot get anywhere else. Of course this probably isn’t an everyday lens, but for certain situations, it produces stunning results. Laowa has certainly won me over and this lens has earned a permanent place in my camera bag.

Pricing & Availability

At $799, this isn’t a cheap lens, and may not be for everyone’s shooting style. (It practically requires you to get just inches from your foreground.) I should also mention that Laowa seems to have underestimated the demand for this lens because it has been backordered for several months. Even though I pre-ordered this lens, it still took me more than a month after the official release for me to receive mine. Still, for those with the money to invest, this is a great lens that produces dramatic images.

Pros

• Ultra Wide 130° field of view with minimal distortion
• Very good build quality
• Beautiful sunstars
• Ability to use screw-on filters
• Ultra close minimum focusing distance

Cons

• Heavy chromatic aberrations
• Significant coma at f/2.8
• Slightly soft when stopped down past f/11

6 Month Update

After spending more time with the Laowa 10mm, I can safely say that it’s become my go-to lens when taking wide angle landscapes. It doesn’t work for every situation, but when it does, the results are unmatched. The perspectives you can create and capture with this lens are stunning, and any drawback in terms of image quality is worth it. I whole heartedly recommend adding this lens to your arsenal.

Gallery