Laowa 12mm f/2.8 Zero-D Ultra-Wide Angle Lens (Canon EF Moun

I use this lens on my Zcam E2-S6, a super 35mm sensor so I have a crop of 1.54× so my focal length on this lens is 18.6ish. It is ALL Manual, no autofocus. Is this a dealbreaker for me....no... absolutely not... it is not hard to learn manual focus. The image is tack sharp for me, even at a f/2.8. The only 2 downsides I have is:1. At a f/2.8 this lens does not handle sunflares the best when shooting at goldern hourAnd 2. Due to the nature of the fish eye pupil you wont just be able to throw a filter on, you need a matte box, this is not a big deal but something you should plan around if you want to use a pro mist filter or something along those lines. Overall I am happy with the lens, build quality it great, the clicks on the aperture ring lock in place and does not feel loose at all. Overall if you "need" IS (image stabilization) and autofocus then this lens is NOT for you, the previous reviews with low ratings for the "missing features" is totally BS. Please read and understand what you are investing in. For video this is a great lens and since it is so wide even at a f/2.8 you still have alot in focus so real estate walk throughs can 100% be done.

Hard to find filter for it

Not sharp when focused beyond 10 meters. OK for closer than that, but not great. I tried two copies, both were soft in the center on distant objects, making this a poor choice for scenic panoramas. And the edges were not good. Build quality is fine, but that does not apply to the optical quality. Canon glass puts this to shame.

I bought this lens because I've seen quite a few reviews on YouTube and I was amazed with how little to none distortion they cause. After receiving it and testing it, I must say I'm far from being disappointed. This lens is amazing. It is very solid, and feels great to use.As any wide lens, the side edges tend to stretch and but anything withing the picture, all verticals are perfect.I've used this lens for real estate photography, but I'm hoping to test it with landscape and milky way photography. As soon as I get any results, I'll update this review.

The lens is a MF lens which is fine and all. I use it for Real Estate Photography and the functionality of it is good but the edges are blurred out and distorted. As you can see in the one pic. I had to crop out in most pics which defeats the purpose of it being a wide angle lens especially in Real Estate photography.

This is a really impressive lens for real estate and astro-landscape photography. The build quality is very nice and the metal construction makes it feel expensive, sturdy and substantial. The only drawback is that it is a dumb lens so you have to focus and change the aperture manually.

Just a super wide lens, I didn't like the lack of auto focus since it's fully manual prime lens (no image stabilization as well, plus it's not that sharp as the Canon lenses I have, so I decided to return, the only good side I liked is the super wideness of it :) With all do respect to youtube marketers out there, I've found that it came lower than I expected from reviews when it comes to video sharpness and colors .

it’s a great lens if you need very wide angle, no distortion and decent low light capability. The lens has no autofocus which I wish it did, and the sharpness is adequate but perhaps not the sharpest lens ever. This lens is very good at very specific things and in no way would be “an every day lens”. There are very few 12MM or less options out there (non fish eye) and so for that fact alone this lens is fairly unique. Add in the benefit of zero distortion and 2.8 aperture and I can see why Venus optics has priced the lens as it is. The zero distortion almost elimantes barrel distortion, or a “bowing” of the image. Keep in mind that “perspective” distortion (taking photos of an object looking upward or downwards and the object therefore looks larger or smaller is not corrected, perspective correction needs to be done with a tilt shift lens or in photoshop). As a Realtor that takes interior photographs I’ve had huge barrel distortion in my old micro four thirds lens and I can say that even if you’re great at photoshop, it’s very difficult, time consuming and in some cases I’d suggest impossible to totally correct. So it depends how important that is to you, for me since it’s part of my job i could justify the cost. While I haven’t used it for astrophotgraphy I would imagine this lens would also be great. I’m all about value, so this lens is probably not great “value” since it’s so limiting in some aspects (no stabilization, no auto focus) But if you need 12MM and take photos for architecture (like me) then this is it. this lens also has a terrible lens cap. That doesn’t sound like a big deal but the cap is poorly designed and sits within milimeters from the bulbous lens itself and so if you put the cap on hastily or without extreme care you could very easily scratch the lens. The cap also falls off very easily and if you put the lens into your bag there’s a good chance the cap comes off and the lens is exposed while you’re in transit. I had to buy a third party lens cap from KUVRD and that solved the issue. It’s. 4/5 because it does what it’s supposed to do very well. But at it’s price point it’s still probably overpriced. Buy it in the US as it’s half the price, rather than Canada. Even with the exchange and import duties you’ll save a ton.*update*I will add that I originally bought this for my crop sensor camera (Canon SL2) and so it was a 19mm equivalent on that camera body, I’ve now tried it on a full Frame camera and 12mm on a full frame is astonishingly wide. You don’t get a good feel of this lens’ “ability” until it’s on a full frame camera