Laowa 9mm f/5.6 FF RL Review
Widest Rectilinear Full Frame Lens
Laowa 9mm f/5.6 FF RL (Link)
Announced- June 2020
Pro
Unique Perspective
Small Size and light weight
Nice metal body
Con
Soft Corner, Vignetting
Not Dust/Water Resistance
Not chipped for electronic communication with body
I bought this lens because I was really interested to see what is it like to shoot with a 9mm lens. This is such a unique lens that I broke my habit of buying only auto focus lens.
What’s included:
Inside the box, the lens comes in a plastic draw string bag with a plastic body cap, and a metal lens cap. There are sometimes promotion that will include a 100mm filter holder for free, which is a great value as it is necessary if you want to mount any filter. However, I did not wait for the promotion so cannot comment on the filter holder.
Body
The lens is pretty small in size, only 66 x 62.4mm and 350g, and comes in 4 different mounts (Leica M/L, Nikon Z, Sony E). It is a fully manual lens and is not chipped for communication with the camera body.
The front element are almost like a glass ball. This is a very unique 9mm full frame lens and is the widest rectilinear full frame lens on the market, offering 135 deg diagonal angle of view. For reference, 12mm on a 12-24 gives 122 deg, and 16mm on a typical 16-35 gives 107 deg. There is no reason to get this lens for APS-C body, Laowa also makes a 9mm F/2.8 for APS-C and MFT mounts.
The lens body is metal with a fixed metal lens hood. There is no way to screw in a normal filter at the front. There is an aperture ring at the front and a focusing ring at the rear with good resistant when turning them. The aperture ring is clicky at each full stop without any option to de-click for video shooter.
There is no dust and weather sealing on this lens. There is also no white marker on the side of the barrel like other Sony E-mount lens to line up with the body. A bit more attention to detail than just switching the mount would be great.
There is a focus scale on the side. There is not much need to focus on this lens, since the depth of field is so deep with such a wide angle that I usually just set it to 1.2m.
The non-Leica M mount versions also have this focusing tab to help move the focus ring, which I don’t find really helpful or even needed on this lens.
Image Quality
This lens aperture starts from f/5.6 to f/22. Below is a comparison on different aperture with the A7RIV. The camera in program modes consistently under exposed, I had to bump up the exposure by 0.66 stops. Since there is no metadata, the shot at 1/125 is f/5.6, 1/100 is f/8, 1/50 is f/11. There is not much additional light being gathered from f/5.6 compared to f/8, just gathering around 1/3 stops more. For sharpness, the center is ok and the corner is soft. I don’t see any significant improvement stepping down. Please look at the sample photos (you can click on the pic to see a larger view) and draw your own conclusion.
Noticable vignetting across the range, about 2 to 3 stops around the corner.
Barrel Distortion. Not a great sample, but it was hard to fill the frame with such a wide lens.
Shooting Experience
The lens is really fun to shoot with, and it always amazes me how wide the view is. There are a lot of “impossible” shots that can be made with the lens, and even normal objects are fun to shoot again with this lens and get a fresh perspective. Manual focus is not a problem with such a wide angle lens, I just focus at 1.2m most of the time and it is fine.
However, tilting the camera slightly up or down would dramatically affect the image. There are times where the image looks really normal, but also times where the image is really weird. Another things to watch out for is what object is at the edge/corner of the frame. Similar to other wide angle lens, definitely need to make sure nothing is cut off/included by accident, or stretched too much.
Camera level, things look normal.
Camera tilted down, building are distorted.
Camera tilted up, buildings are distorted.
Since the view is so wide, the sun tends to get into the shot. Luckily, the lens produces a sharp 10 points sun star easily. Just have to watch out for flare in the image.
Conclusion
This Laowa 9mm f/5.6 FF RL lens is really unique lens. The lens is not that great technically with the soft corner, vignetting, and distortion. In addition, it is not very practical and is challenging to use. On the other hand, it provides an perspective that no other lens can offer. In landscape, the 9mm FOV stretches the sky and land, pushing the object out to create a dramatic shot. In city and interior, it is able to fill the frame with objects that would not normally fit. The lens pairs well with the A7C with its light weight and small size. I also do not feel like I am missing a lot of detail shooting on a 24mp sensor vs a 61mp with this lens. My complains are the lack of chip to send metadata to the body, and no dust/water resistance.
Overall, this is definitely not the lens to get for first, second, or even third lens in the collection. However, I still recommend to give this lens a try as it is a fun challenge.
Sample Gallery (post processed, mostly from A7C)
