Last Updated on 06/23/2025 by Chris Gampat
2025 seems to be the year that many photography gear manufacturers seem to be blooming and putting on the most beautiful spring display for all real photographers to enjoy. We haven’t seen a zoom fisheye lens come to market since the 2011 Canon 8-15mm f4 Fisheye zoom. But that was for DSLRs — and this was designed for mirrorless. The brand new Laowa 8-15mm f2.8 FF is in many ways, the faint alluring scent of the spring flowers, but without all the pollen. Of course, that means that it comes with all the things that are very characteristic to a Laowa lens. But let me tell you, I’ve been asking for fisheye lenses to come back, and they’re doing a great job.
The Big Picture: Laowa 8-15mm f2.8 FF Review Conclusions
I’ll be very honest, I’ve been waiting for a lens like this to come out for a very long time. The Laowa 8-15mm f2.8 FF lens delivers when it comes to the solid feel of the lens, fairly compact size, and with the image quality. But it lacks in a few very important ways. While I pretty much never have a problem with manual focusing, this lens makes it difficult to use for what I’d really want to use a fisheye lens for: extreme sports like skating. Sure, you can stop down to f8 and probably get something in focus. But then you need a whole lot of power from your flashes.
On top of that, when I took this lens out to Coney Island’s boardwalk, I was truly afraid that sand might get into the gears and probably mess with something to cause a malfunction.
Overall, I yearned for what I could do with the old-school Canon 8-15mm f4 fisheye lens — especially with a camera like the Canon R7.
I’m giving this lens 3 out of 5 stars. If you’re using it, make sure your subjects aren’t moving. Want one? Check it out on Amazon.
Pros
- Feels nice
- A lot of controls
- Internal zooming
- This is the first fisheye zoom in a while, and I love that!
Cons
- No focus confirmation
- Having a focusing, zooming, and aperture ring could confuse a lot of people
Gear Used
We tested the 8-15mm f2.8 Fisheye FF loaner unit from Laowa with the Nikon ZF, which is our own camera unit.
Who Should Buy the Laowa 8-15mm f2.8 FF?
At first thought, we think that sports photographers will love it. Additionally, it’s a well-used look in the fashion photography world. Most importantly, if you’re really going for the look of the 90s, you can embrace this.
With appropriate amounts of time with the lens, we’re confident in saying that this lens is best for photographers who shoot subjects that aren’t moving at all.
In Your Hands
Right off the bat, there are a few things that are pretty fishy about the Laowa 8-15mm f2.8 Fisheye FF. Sorry, I had to make that pun.
What I’m talking about are the lack of a lens hood, no weather resistance, the absence of focus confirmation contacts, and this is all despite the all-metal build. Metal lenses are awesome. But with those comes the idea that they’ll be truly very sturdy and durable. But with the lack of weather resistance, that doesn’t happen.
Still, it’s easy to be hypnotized by the feeling of metal in the same way that a chef holds a really nice piece of fish or steak. You absolutely know that you’re holding a premium ingredient and that you can use it to make fantastic photographs. At the same time, you’re bound to just want to have fun with it and shoot whatever as an enjoyable snack until you cook up an idea that’s worth showing off to the world.
The Laowa 8-15mm f2.8 Fisheye FF boasts three rings: a focusing ring, a zooming ring, and an aperture ring going from the front element all the way to the back. For some odd reason, the largest ring is the focusing ring. I truly would’ve thought that this would’ve been designed for zooming instead. So instead, your mind will probably need to rewire itself to figure out how to use this lens. More importantly, you’ll be going pretty slowly with it.
Even when you think your subject is in focus, we’re telling you — it probably won’t be. So when you’re using this lens, be sure to use the magnification setting on your camera.
Focusing
Of course, it’s Laowa. All the focusing is done manually and in this case, there is no focus comfirmation. So for photography, it can be a lot more difficult or at least not as quick as you’d expect with an autofocus lens. When you’re using the lens, we strongly suggest that you magnify the area of the scene that you want in focus. Then focus the lens, make sure that it’s sharp, and then shoot.
This is a fisheye zoom, of course. So the depth of field will be pretty large anyway. But trust me when I say that it’s possible to miss the focus.
Image Quality
So far, we’re really very happy with the results that the Laowa 8-15mm f2.8 Fisheye FF can give us. But we have to do a lot more testing with it. Truly, I really just want to shove it in someone’s face as they’re eating, do some fashiony photos with it, and shoot sports. I think that all of that would be super fun to do.
Extra Image Samples
The Phoblographer has been huge on transparency with our audience since day one. Nothing from this review is sponsored. Further, many folks will post reviews and show lots of editing in the photos. The problem then becomes that anyone and everyone can do the same thing. They’re not showing what the lens can do. So, we have a section in our Extra Image Samples area to show edited and unedited photos. From this, you can decide for yourself.
Edited
Unedited
Tech Specs
- Product name LAOWA 8-15mm F2.8 FF Zoom Fisheye Format Compatibility FF
- Focal Length: 8-15mm
- Aperture: F2.8-22
- Angle of view: 175°-180°
- Lens Structure: 13 elements in 9 groups
- Aperture Blades: 9
- Focus Throw: 70°
- Zoom Throw: 75°
- Aperture Throw: 42°
- Focus Scale: Dual Scale
- Min. Focusing Distance: 16cm
- Max. Magnification: 0.23x
- Focus mode: Manual Focus
- Dimensions: 94.5mm*Ø76.4mm (measured in RF mount)
- Weight: 650g（not including the front and rear cap） Mounts E , Z , L , RF
- Price: $699
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