Landscape photographers often go after a lens that allows them to squeeze as much detail as possible. One of the reasons being that you need to see the vast vistas as they were witnessed by the photographer themselves. With more and more young photographers looking to buy an alternative lens that does not burn a hole in their pocket, there are many third-party chinese lens brands who are doing what they can to cater. Here’s a look at one such lens from Laowa, which is perfect for many serious enthusiasts.
The Laowa 20mm f4 Zero-D Shift is the perfect option anyone can ask for. Why? Well, here are two reasons for it.
Innovation At Its Best
The lens is a tilt-shift lens designed for those who do not wish to compromise. The lens is known for its impressive distortion control, and does not have any barrel distortion at all. The lens is designed with 16 elements in 11 groups, including 2 aspherical elements and 3 ED elements. It also offers a 14-bladed aperture, a 0.17x magnification, and weighs only 747g. It feels heavier than its 15mm sibling, and the lens hood rotates even after it’s mounted. There are also some good shift lock and rotation lock knobs that further help to keep the lens in place. The design is simple, and the materials used to make the lens are pretty durable. However, it will take getting used to, especially if you have not used a tilt-shift lens.
Images Quality Worth the Money
The Laowa 20mm is an ideal focal length for landscape shots, both in nature and the city. The 20mm offers more contrast than the 15mm version and even in challenging conditions, the lens provides stunning image quality. Even if you do not wish to use shift abilities, the lens still makes for a good wide-angle landscape lens. For a lens of its nature, the bokeh is nice, and the background separation is great as well. As for the colors, as you can see above, they are really vibrant and they stand out. The blues are vivid, and so are the orange and green hues. The sharpness is good at f4, but when you step down, you get sharpness across the whole frame.
The Laowa lens does not have autofocus, but it is one of the best options one can get at $1,000. It offers a nice build, colors, and the ability to capture varying subjects. As we said in our review:
As with all Laowa lenses I’ve tested so far, my only complaint is the lack of electronic contacts. Still, this lens’s image results and tilt capabilities more than make up for this shortcoming. Even the tallest structures (and I photographed the world’s tallest with this) can be exceptionally well captured with the Laowa 20mm f4 lens.
Tilt-shift lenses were largely made by Canon, but with Laowa entering the market, Nikon and Sony photographers also get the chance to experience the beauty of a good tilt-shift.