p.4 #1 · Laowa 15mm f/2 FE: Rolling Review and Comparisons
I can help with vignetting: Bastian measured the Laowa at 2.9 stops wide open, 2.3 stops at f/2.8, the Loxia is at 2.5 stops wide open, the Batis at 2.6 stops and the Firin at 2.6 stops wide open and 2.1 stops at f/2.8. Bastian will have my Firin for two or so days to compare it to the Lox but his Laowa is garbage.
p.4 #4 · Laowa 15mm f/2 FE: Rolling Review and Comparisons
wallpapervikin wrote:
So this is only being offered in Sony E-mount then?
No option to use the Magic Shift Converter and have this used a shift lens on the Sony A7RII?
It's a true mirrorless wide; so the rear elements are going to be too close to the sensor for shift mounting.
The trade off with a shift lens is that not only does image circle have to be large, it has to have space for the shift mechanism, which undoes some of the mirrorless advantage of not needing retrofocality....
EDIT it occurs to me that it *might* be possible to have some fixed elements behind the shifting ones in some future mirrorless shift lens. But I doubt it...
p.4 #6 · Laowa 15mm f/2 FE: Rolling Review and Comparisons
DavidBM wrote:
It's a true mirrorless wide; so the rear elements are going to be too close to the sensor for shift mounting.
The trade off with a shift lens is that not only does image circle have to be large, it has to have space for the shift mechanism, which undoes some of the mirrorless advantage of not needing retrofocality....
EDIT it occurs to me that it *might* be possible to have some fixed elements behind the shifting ones in some future mirrorless shift lens. But I doubt it...
In the case of the Laowa Magic Shift Adapter, it seems to enlarge the image circle of DSLR lenses like the Laowa 12mm f/2.8 from 43.2mm to 60mm in diameter. The equiv. result is 17mm f/4 with added shifting ability of +/- 10mm. I've not seen any examples but we can expect some degradation of IQ.
I believe that currently their Magic Shift adapter only works with the 12mm f/2.8 (DSLR) but I don't see why it would not work with other brands.
p.4 #7 · Laowa 15mm f/2 FE: Rolling Review and Comparisons
Fred Miranda wrote:
In the case of the Laowa Magic Shift Adapter, it seems to enlarge the image circle of DSLR lenses like the Laowa 12mm f/2.8 from 43.2mm to 60mm in diameter. The equiv. result is 17mm f/4 with added shifting ability of +/- 10mm. I've not seen any examples but we can expect some degradation of IQ.
I believe that currently their Magic Shift adapter only works with the 12mm f/2.8 (DSLR) but I don't see why it would not work with other brands.
Ah yes I had forgotten that.
Be interesting to see who it goes; but basically it's magnifying the whole image circle so it's hard to believe there isn't a significant penalty.
Also, with a high enough resolution camera, it's not obvious that optical magnifying is any better than magnification in post (that's certainly shaping up to be true with many TCs on a high rez camera: I compared resampled crops with TC crops a while back, and it was swings and roundabouts)
In which case you may as well hold your 12mm lens straight, and then crop out the bit you want and resample...
p.4 #8 · Laowa 15mm f/2 FE: Rolling Review and Comparisons
DavidBM wrote:
Ah yes I had forgotten that.
Be interesting to see who it goes; but basically it's magnifying the whole image circle so it's hard to believe there isn't a significant penalty.
Also, with a high enough resolution camera, it's not obvious that optical magnifying is any better than magnification in post (that's certainly shaping up to be true with many TCs on a high rez camera: I compared resampled crops with TC crops a while back, and it was swings and roundabouts)
In which case you may as well hold your 12mm lens straight, and then crop out the bit you want and resample......Show more →
There is a significant resolution penalty when cropping in post. Here is an experiment comparing the CV 12/5.6 III cropped to Canon's TS-E 17/4L framing: (Emulating shifting in post) https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1442885/1#13835941
It's likely that the Laowa 'magic' adapter (), will introduce some type of aberration but I have not tested it yet.
p.4 #10 · Laowa 15mm f/2 FE: Rolling Review and Comparisons
Fred Miranda wrote:
There is a significant resolution penalty when cropping in post. Here is an experiment comparing the CV 12/5.6 III cropped to Canon's TS-E 17/4L framing: (Emulating shifting in post) https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1442885/1#13835941
It's likely that the Laowa 'magic' adapter (), will introduce some type of aberration but I have not tested it yet.
Thanks Fred.
Yes I did similar tests on 4/17 and 3.5/24 compared with crop and resize, and found the same thing; of course that's comparing to a 'real' shift lens that natively has the large image circle.
I guess my thought was that the Laowa shift converter is magnifying the smaller image circle, so is going to be reducing the resolution per unit area as well as magnifying abberations, and perhaps adding some of its own.
Digital magnification on the other hand will do the first two things without adding any of its own.
On the other hand digital magnification is constrained by the sampling frequency (for our purposes the number of MP) of the original image. My guess is for some not unreasonably high number of MP in the original image you'll be better off doing crop and resize compared with a magic shift (just as we find with many teleconverters). Of course with a theoretically perfect magic shift you'll always be slightly better off with the magic shift, for the same reason that no matter how bad the lens, it is slightly improved with more MP on the sensor.
Exactly how high the 'not unreasonably high' number of MP is I don't know of course. Maybe it's higher than 42.
And of course all this applies to magic shift, not to real shift lenses with larger elements and larger native I image circles.
p.4 #11 · Laowa 15mm f/2 FE: Rolling Review and Comparisons
DavidBM wrote:
Thanks Fred.
Yes I did similar tests on 4/17 and 3.5/24 compared with crop and resize, and found the same thing; of course that's comparing to a 'real' shift lens that natively has the large image circle.
I guess my thought was that the Laowa shift converter is magnifying the smaller image circle, so is going to be reducing the resolution per unit area as well as magnifying abberations, and perhaps adding some of its own.
Digital magnification on the other hand will do the first two things without adding any of its own.
On the other hand digital magnification is constrained by the sampling frequency (for our purposes the number of MP) of the original image. My guess is for some not unreasonably high number of MP in the original image you'll be better off doing crop and resize compared with a magic shift (just as we find with many teleconverters). Of course with a theoretically perfect magic shift you'll always be slightly better off with the magic shift, for the same reason that no matter how bad the lens, it is slightly improved with more MP on the sensor.
Exactly how high the 'not unreasonably high' number of MP is I don't know of course. Maybe it's higher than 42.
And of course all this applies to magic shift, not to real shift lenses with larger elements and larger native I image circles. ...Show more →
The best way to test this is to get the Laowa 12mm f/2.8 lens and the Laowa Magic Shift converter.
Choose a scene and shift the Magic converter to the very top (+10) showing some detail and then capture another image with the same lens + regular adapter.
In post, crop the "regular-adapter" image to look liked the "magic" adapted one and compare both at 1:1.
p.4 #12 · Laowa 15mm f/2 FE: Rolling Review and Comparisons
Fred Miranda wrote:
The best way to test this is to get the Laowa 12mm f/2.8 lens and the Laowa Magic Shift converter.
Choose a scene and shift the Magic converter to the very top (+10) showing some detail and then capture another image with the same lens + regular adapter.
In post, crop the "regular-adapter" image to look liked the "magic" adapted one and compare both at 1:1.
Yep; although I'd up-Rez the crop first before comparing at 1:1
be interesting to do it with different resolution bodies. My hypothesis is that the higher the resolution of the body, the lower the difference between them.
p.4 #14 · Laowa 15mm f/2 FE: Rolling Review and Comparisons
I got another copy yesterday, this time with decent centering quality.
Despite the obvious differences between cloudy Stuttgart and the more sunny area you live in I tend to say quality of the corners is comparable.
p.4 #15 · Laowa 15mm f/2 FE: Rolling Review and Comparisons
Fred Miranda wrote:
I confirmed that the pre-order and shipment date posted on sonyalpharumors is not for the US market.
Here is what they wrote me:
"The rumors reported is only limited the China sales.. For other countries, the date is not fixed yet.."
Hmm 5,000 RMB. I could pick one up here in Shanghai before my Euro trip (Norway & Morocco top two destinations) from mid August. Very tempted, especially if there are any promotional launch prices (non Canon/Nikon/Sony are hard sells in China). Huge advantage over my Voigtlander 15/4.5 as I start my Astro journey.
EDIT. All of the usual outlets are selling at 5,000 RMB. The Irix 15/2.4 is 3,800 RMB (only Canon. Nikon, Pentax mounts, two weight options and front or rear filters).
They kept the $850 price initially mentioned to me and I think it's a fair price for this lens.
I will post some links whenever pre-orders start at B&H and Adorama.
p.4 #20 · Laowa 15mm f/2 FE: Rolling Review and Comparisons
Laowa is including a set of free filters (72mm UV, Polarizer, ND) with the first 200 pre-orders. Nice addition if the filters are decent quality. They should be, coming from an optics company.
), will introduce some type of aberration but I have not tested it yet.