Last Updated on 06/14/2017 by Chris Gampat
It just goes with the territory, the wider that you want to shoot, the more distortion and correction you have to be comfortable with – or do you? Venus Optics, maker of the Laowa branded lenses out of China has announced their new 12mm lens, a focal length that would typically feature significant distortion issues, which they boast as having almost no distortion along with an F/2.8 aperture. The Chinese-based optics company is launching the lens through a Kickstarter campaign.
“The lens incorporates with 16 elements in 10 groups optical design, including 3 pieces of Extra-Low Dispersion elements and 2pc of Aspherical Elements. This design not only delivers an outstanding image sharpness and controls the distortion to [a minimum]”
Below you can see a few of the sample images provided by Venus Optics, which look pretty good. Obviously we will have to wait and see what unaffiliated, third-party images end up like, but based solely on these samples this looks like a new killer option for landscape/architectural photographers who aren’t fans of distortion.
The new Laowa 12mm F/2.8, which by the way makes it the fastest 12mm lens on the market, will be available in Canon EF, Nikon F, Sony E, Sony Alpha and Pentax K mounts. It’s expected retail price will be $949, but you can get an even better deal on it now if you support the project through Kickstarter.
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