In recent years, Venus Optics has developed a reputation for crafting innovative and unique optics, making a name for itself by producing lenses that often push the boundaries of engineering. I’d go so far as to say Venus Optics has become one of, if not the most exciting manufacturers on the market. The Venus Optics Laowa 10mm f/2.8 Zero-D FF II C&D Dreamer Autofocus is no exception to the company’s history of offbeat offerings.
A special thank you to Lensrentals for providing the Nikon Z8 for this review. The company’s complete list of available gear for rental and sale can be perused on its website. Author’s personal note: the yearly subscription for Lensrentals HD is well worth it if you rent more than three or so times a year.
As the world’s widest rectilinear full-frame lens with autofocus — and the world’s widest f/2.8 full-frame rectilinear lens — this lens has it all: an ultra-wide angle field of view, autofocus, the “Zero-D” promise (virtually no distortion), fast aperture, close focus, and a compact design. It can even take front circular (77mm) filters. The lens’ ultra-wide 130-degree field-of-view is the main attraction here, theoretically making it ideal for landscape photography, astrophotography, architecture, and interior work like real estate. It’s so wide that you need to be careful not to get your feet, and especially your shadow, in the shot.
On paper, it seems pretty amazing. But how does it perform? I test-drove it with both the Nikon Z7 II and Nikon Z8 to find out.
Build Quality and Handling
The first thing that strikes you about the Laowa 10mm is its compactness for such a wide-angle f/2.8 full-frame lens. Weighing in at approximately 420 grams and with a length of 70.8 mm (the Sony E version is about 2mm longer), it’s surprisingly light and portable, making it a practical option for on-the-go photographers, especially those who prefer traveling light but need ultra-wide coverage.
Despite its small size, the lens has a solid build quality and since it’s constructed chiefly of aluminum, it’s lighter than it looks. And while Laowa’s previous lenses were standard matte black, this one is finished with a metallic dark grey — I quite like it, though it doesn’t match the camera body like a traditional black lens if that matters to you.
The lens features a sleek and minimalist design, with no unnecessary adornments aside from an AF/MF switch, and it includes a removable lens hood designed to help reduce flare and ghosting. The 77mm filter thread — unusual for such a wide lens — is particularly useful for landscape and architecture photographers who may wish to use polarizers or ND filters. There’s also a rubber gasket around the bayonet; I have no idea how sufficiently the lens is weather-sealed, nor was I going to test my luck, but the gasket can’t hurt.
The lens is currently available for Sony E and Nikon Z mounts. There is, however, a manual focus version for both Canon RF and Leica L mounts (as well as Nikon Z and Sony E). Aside from focusing, the only difference is that the manual focus version sports 14 aperture blades while the autofocus version in this review features only five. Unlike this variant, the manual focus version has focus distance and hyperfocal markings, as well as an aperture ring. The new autofocus lens is being marketed (at least on the box) as “FF II” — presumably, the first iteration is the manual focus one. From what I can tell, the optical design is identical.
If I could add one feature — and I’d say this about any wide-angle autofocus lens — it would be a focus clutch, which allows users to rack the focus ring into a position with focus distance markings and hard stops at minimum focus and infinity. This is something Olympus/OM System has implemented for over a decade on many of their “Pro” lenses like the 7-14mm f/2.8, 8-25mm f/4, 12-40mm f/2.8, and others. This would allow users to set a focus distance more easily for hyperfocal shooting and execute linear, repeatable focusing. Many videographers and astrophotographers would likely appreciate the option.
Autofocus Performance
As Laowa’s first foray into autofocus lenses, the 10mm f/2.8 lens delivers excellent performance. Autofocus is incredibly snappy and accurate in every condition I threw at it, even on the Nikon Z7 II, which has a rather “outdated” autofocus system at this point. Even in the dim light of the California Academy of Science’s dark aquarium exhibits, the lens had no problem locking focus.
The only times I ever encountered any issues were at extremely close focus distances in low light (with very little contrast) — something just about every lens I know of would struggle with. In those situations, manual focus may still be the better option for some people, which is why the lens features a smooth manual focus ring for those who prefer to fine-tune their shots. I personally never had to resort to manual focus, though; even with the lesser (though still great) autofocus of the Z7 II, I had no issues.
For videographers, the autofocus system performs very well for general use on the Z8 (and presumably the Z9 and Z6 III). The motor is extremely quiet, and there is minimal focus breathing, making it an excellent option for ultra-wide shots in video production, including vlogs, real estate tours, and whatever else you might want such a thing for.
Optical Design and Image Quality
The Laowa 10/2.8 employs a highly modified Biogon-type symmetric design with 15 elements in 9 groups, including two aspherical elements (one near the front and one at the rear), three extra-low dispersion elements, and six ultra-high refraction glass elements. The front negative meniscus element boasts the rather humorously named “frog-eye coating” (FEC), which, ideally, helps control flare and improve transmission.
The MTF chart provided by Venus Optics promises some genuinely outstanding performance for a lens with these specifications — although the chart doesn’t actually indicate what aperture is being “measured” (Quotes used because manufacturers — except for Zeiss — only publish theoretical MTF charts).
One of the key selling points of the Laowa 10mm f/2.8 lens is its “Zero-D” (Zero Distortion) designation. Ultra-wide lenses often suffer from distortion, where straight lines appear curved, but the Zero-D claim ensures that architectural shots, interior photography, and other applications where straight lines are critical remain free of noticeable distortion.
Thanks largely to its symmetric design, distortion control is outstanding (especially for a full-frame 10mm lens), with only minor barrel distortion (easily corrected in ACR/Lightroom by applying the lens profile). This makes the lens particularly appealing for real estate photographers and anyone working in environments where preserving geometric accuracy is vital. You will, of course, still have perspective distortion — this is an immutable characteristic of the wide field of view and your distance to the subject. With such a wide FOV, it is inevitable in many (if not most) circumstances that some parts of the periphery will be significantly closer to the camera than those in the center.
At f/2.8, the center is exceptionally sharp, but resolving power gradually deteriorates as you move toward the edges. In the very outer periphery, sharpness is substantially degraded and, for me, unusable for many types of photography due to substantial field curvature. At f/4, the center is even better, and the midzones and corners improve quite a bit, but it isn’t until f/5.6 to f/8 that they become decent (and they only ever become just decent).
The performance here is the worst thing about this lens, and it’s not a trivial issue for many, if not most, applications of a lens like this. It really makes me wonder if they input the design of a different lens when that MTF chart was created because even by theoretical MTF standards, that thing is, well, optimistic, to put it lightly.
Vignetting, Flare, and Chromatic Aberration
Let’s get this out of the way: vignetting is strong. I didn’t have the time (nor inclination — others will do it, almost certainly better than I could) to precisely measure it, but I’d guesstimate it to be somewhere in the range of 4.5 to 5 stops in the corners at f/2.8. Like distortion, this is corrected by the profile built into Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom (and probably most other major programs), but there’s a substantial noise penalty for doing so. Possibly the biggest issue isn’t even the high vignetting wide open — it’s that it doesn’t improve that much as you stop down. It improves by maybe half a stop at f/4, another half stop at f/5.6, and then seems to remain unchanged after that; from f/5.6 onward, you’re looking at roughly 3.5 to 4 stops of falloff, by my estimation.
In terms of flare, pretty much any lens — especially a very wide-angle lens picking up light from very oblique directions — can be made to look quite bad. The Laowa 10/2.8 is no exception, exhibiting strong ghosting and some veiling flare, though the image always retains good contrast and never completely washes out.
The lens’s internal elements really need some of that frog eye coating applied, too, and possibly some upgraded baffling — several times, I was greeted with some very aggressive pentagonal rainbow artifacts, which are clearly the result of light bouncing around inside and reflecting the (five-bladed) iris.
Keep in mind: these are worst-case scenarios deliberately framed to provoke this. Only two times did I encounter any issues with flare without intentionally instigating it. But it was visible in the viewfinder and easily solved by a very minor adjustment.
I’m not really sure how much good the hood truly does. Yes, it will undoubtedly block light if it’s coming from very, very specific angles, but in my time with the lens, the results were more or less the same without it. The hood, however, does provide some protection against accidental dings to the front element, and it doesn’t really take up any appreciable room in your bag.
Suppression of chromatic aberration is one of the lens’s greatest optical achievements. Lateral chromatic aberration is virtually non-existent across most of the frame, only moderately rearing its head in the corners and outer edges under challenging scenarios, such as tree branches backlit by the sun. One click of “Remove Chromatic Aberration” takes care of it.
As for axial (longitudinal) chromatic aberration, I simply never saw any. And I tried my damnedest to coax it out. This could well be labeled an APO lens, and I wouldn’t argue with it.
Similarly, there is no spherical aberration to speak of.
Tradeoffs: Are They Worth It?
When it comes to image quality, concessions have indeed been made to accommodate the autofocus, distortion correction, insane minimum focus, reasonably small size (all things considered), the ability to use front filters, and its f/2.8 aperture.
Personally, I wish some slightly different choices had been made, though I appreciate the delicate balancing act involved.
The three negative meniscus (convex-concave) elements at the front play a crucial role in managing the angle of light entry, controlling distortion, and flattening the field (reducing curvature). The front elements, however, are pretty small — you can see, despite the 77mm filter diameter, the front element is considerably smaller than that. Increasing the size of the front element could potentially have reduced the severe light falloff (vignetting). Similarly, adjusting the rear element diameter could reduce the vignetting — I imagine this may be a case where the smaller throat of the E-mount (compared to Leica L or Nikon Z) may have hampered design a little. No doubt a lens designed natively for one of those larger mounts could achieve better telecentricity.
Edge and corner sharpness, caused by field curvature and astigmatism, are easily the most significant issues. Adjusting the doublet and triplet groups near the rear and/or adding an additional aspherical element in the mid-group near the front of the aperture stop could better control field curvature, but likely at the expense of close focus distance. The point is: it’s clear that things like the insanely close focus — which inherently requires a design that bends light more sharply — can cause field curvature at wider apertures. I would have happily traded off the 1:4 magnification for, say, 1:6 if it meant more usable edge/corner performance.
Are There Alternatives?
There is nothing on the market that checks all of the spec sheet boxes that the Laowa 10mm f/2.8 AF does. Unsurprisingly, the closest manual-focus predecessor to this lens — the Venus Optics Laowa 10mm f/2.8 Zero-D FF — is identical except for autofocus capability (obviously) and an aperture ring. It’s also offered in 5-blade and 14-blade flavors, whereas the AF version only has five aperture blades.
Otherwise, you have several options, but none are ideal alternatives, particularly if you need the massive field of view that a 10mm lens gives you. There is the Venus Optics Laowa 9mm f/5.6 FF RL and the Voigtlander Heliar-Hyper Wide 10mm f/5.6 Aspherical, but these are both manual focus and two stops slower. The latter is also only available in Sony E mount. The closest analog in terms of focal length and speed is the TTArtisan 11mm f/2.8 — however, it, too, is manual focus, cannot accept filters, and is not a rectilinear design.
The Venus Optics Laowa 12mm f/2.8 Zero-D is a superior lens, but, once again, it is manual focus, and its bulbous front element makes filters an impossibility. There’s also a fairly significant difference between 10mm and 12mm.
On the autofocus front, there are several potential alternatives, depending on what sacrifices you’re willing to accept. The Canon RF 10-20mm f/4 L IS STM is undoubtedly the closest in terms of focal length — and it is an exceptional lens — but it can only take rear filters and costs over $1,500 more than the Laowa (and, obviously, only available for Canon RF cameras). Beyond that, there is the Nikkor Z 14-24mm f/2.8 S, which matches the Laowa in speed, blows it away in optical performance, and can take front filters (albeit with massive 112mm threads). The Sigma Art 14-24mm f/2.8 DG DN and Leica Super-Vario-Elmarit-SL 14-24mm f/2.8 ASPH (simply a rebranded version of the Sigma) are also quality lenses. The Sony FE 12-24mm f/2.8 GM is a gem of an optic, too, and can be used on Nikon Z bodies with an appropriate adapter.
On the autofocus prime front, there is the Sigma Art 14mm f/1.8 DG HSM, Sigma Art 14mm f/1.4 DG DN, and the Sony FE 14mm f/1.8 GM. All of these blow the Laowa out of the water in speed and image quality but also dwarf it in size, weight, price, and a not-insignificantly tighter field of view.
Perhaps the best alternative is one of the most unique: the Sigma Art 15mm f/1.4 Fisheye DG DN. Yes, it’s 15mm, but because it isn’t a rectilinear design, it actually captures a wider field of view (180 degrees diagonally vs. the Laowa’s 130 degrees) and can be de-fisheyed in post. It also turns in exceptional performance, even in the corners wide open. It is, however, quite enormous in comparison and a little under three times the price.
Should You Buy It?
Maybe. It really depends on your priorities and what you’re looking for in a lens like this. If it’s optical perfection — or even optical excellence — you will be disappointed. But, if it’s the wide-angle FOV, reasonably fast aperture, autofocus, moderate size/weight, extremely close focus capability, and the ability to use screw-on filters, then yes, the Laowa 10mm f/2.8 Zero-D FF II C&D Dreamer Autofocus is the one and only lens for you.
Astrophotographers will probably want to write this lens off unless you absolutely need the 10mm focal length. Performance at f/2.8 is simply too poor in the corners and edges, coma performance is underwhelming, there’s significant astigmatism, and vignetting is exceptionally strong.
Venus Optics must be commended for offering something unique: an ultra-wide-angle lens for full-frame cameras with autofocus, minimal distortion, solid build quality, mind-blowing close-focus capability, and the ability to use screw-on filters. Those features come with some tradeoffs, but one thing is not debatable: it’s a very fun lens to use.
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