Laowa15mm F/2 Zero D Lens For Nikon Z, Ve1520Nz

Extremely sharp lens. Well built and great Quality control compared to cheaper Rokinon lenses. I bought this lens mainly for astrophotography with my Nikon Z5 and it has not disappointed me till now. Being a fully manual lens, you'd need some time getting used to it. But it's worth it as the picture quality is superb. Another great feature is it's ability to focus very close which makes it excellent for macro photography when you combine it with large aperture. The only downside (not for me) is that this lens doesn't transfer any electronic information to the camera body, so you might not be able to see aperture information. The other glitch is the infinity focus is a bit behind the infinity mark on the lens. Check twice to see both the edges and center are in focus, as sometimes they're not. Other than that, I'm pretty sure you'll have a great time using this lens. Nothing beats the price as wide angle lens with large aperture is really complex to build.

I have been looking for a lens for the occasional night/milky way shot that a) does not weigh a ton b) does not break the bank c) has reasonable performance and d) preferably does not require adapaters on my Z6. The Laowa 15mm f2 "zero D" seemed to fit the bill based on the available reviews, so when one became available for sale on Amazon in "like new" condition I decided to jump on it.While shooting it on a tripod side by side with a Nikon lens at the same focal length, I noticed that at equivalent f-stop the Laowa would meter differently in A mode, and under equivalent settings in M mode it would produce darker images. Which caused me to run additional tests. On a tripod, in A mode, under fixed artifical lighting conditions I would simply record the metered shutter speeds.The Nikon lens behaved exactly like you would expect. In the f/4-f/22 range at 1 stop increments the metered speeds weref/4->f/22: 1/20, 1/10, 1/5, 1/2.5, 1/1.3, 1.6"f22->f4: 1.6", 1/1.3, 1/2.5, 1/5, 1/10, 1/20The Laowa not so much:f/2.8->f22: 1/40, 1/20, 1/13, 1/5, 1/3, 1/1.6, 1"f22-> f2.8: 1", 1", 1/2, 1/5, 1/10, 1/20, 1/40The aperture ring was in "click" mode. It is immediately obvious that the calibration is not correct, and there is significant backlash/hystersis between the up and down series. I repeated the test a couple of times and it was repeatable. As soon as the aperture was decreased above f/5.6 the increments were not integer steps of 1/2, and the return sweep was offset from the forward one.In addition, the lens would meter in A and S modes, but not in M mode. Not sure if I would blame Laowa for that one, it may be something due to Nikon software, but it is a hassle to deal with either way.Have not done detailed comparisons of IQ yet but it seems about what you would expect relative to the Nikon lens. Not as good contrast, not as good sharpness, slightly muddy look in the corners, even at f/16. Given that this lens lists for 65% of the Nikon the latter is not too surprising. I did not note any obvious decentering issues, though I have not looked too carefully.These results are disappointing. I was hoping that the lens would be good enough to keep. Will have to look for alternatives, unfortunately there are none in native Z mount at the moment and nothing is coming in the foreseable future that would not cost a ton.

This lens is amazing. It's sturdy, and built nicely. It doesn't feel cheap and although it isn't heavy necessarily, it's really well built. It's a manual lens so that part takes getting used to but with the functionality of the Z camera's it's pretty easy to make sure everything is in focus. I use it most for real estate photography.