I'm back with another review. Laowa was kind enough to send me this lens and I have been using it since a few weeks. I put my findings in both a video & article.
I took it to Kyrgyzstan, the Netherlands and Menorca for a variety of landscapes. Review includes sharpness tests, sunstar, astrophotography and more. Hope you like it and help you decide if this lens if for you.
I am hesitant however regarding a manual focus fisheye. I shoot a lot of sports and although I thought focus was overrated when using a fisheye for very up-close shots, I was wrong. I have the TT Artisan 11mm 2.8 fisheye lens and after using that for a while (with some great success and some focus issues) I purchased the Canon 8-15 for my Canon camera.
I wish that Sony had a not expensive fisheye option with AF. I think that Sigma creates an AF fisheye lens but it is too much $ for me.
Again, I really liked your photos and your review seems very extensive!
albertdros wrote:
I have never used the sigma, but I am pretty sure the most obvious pros and cons are:
pros:
- (Much) better low light performance as its f/1.4
- Better IQ at f/2.8 for sure
- AF
cons:
- much heavier
- much more expensive.
- no 180 diagonal (no zoom)
Thanks, I hoped you might have tried the Sigma in the past .
I was totally unaware of this new Laowa fisheye, I think I'm going to buy it once it's available thanks to your review. It seems plenty sharp to me. Besides, for some reason, the more I shoot, the less I'm concerned with pixel-level sharpness.
When I first switched from Canon to Sony I held onto my Canon 8-15L which I used with an adaptor for awhile until I eventually wanted the CV10 and couldn't justify holding onto both of them. Still miss the old 8-15L at times, didn't get used much but created some unique images when it did.
This not having AF and electronic contacts might matter to some, but in the ways you're most likely to use this lens it might not matter.
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