Venus Optics Laowa 4mm F 2 8 Fisheye Bewertung | 54 Daten im Vergleich

The Shutterbug review highlights the Laowa 4mm f/2.8 Circular Fisheye Lens as a fast, well-made prime lens optimized for APS-C and Micro Four Thirds, praising its excellent build quality, compact design, and sharp center performance. Key advantages include a massive depth of field for easy manual focusing and a smooth aperture ring. Conversely, drawbacks include noticeable color fringing, lack of filter compatibility, and a 210-degree field of view that often results in accidental intrusion of fingers or camera grips in the frame.

The Laowa 4mm f/2.8 Circular Fisheye is an all-metal and glass lens for APS-C and Micro Four Thirds (M43) cameras that offers high optical quality at a budget-friendly price point of $199. The lens is incredibly sharp in the center wide open and becomes sharp across the entire frame by around f/5.6, featuring exceptionally well-controlled flare and ghosting even when shooting into the sun. It is built with an extremely small, premium-feeling body that includes engraved markings and a handy Leica-style focus tab to easily adjust focus without accidentally smudging the bulbous front element. Additionally, it features an impressive 8cm minimum focus distance that allows for extreme close-up photography, and it can be highly useful for VR imaging, interior tours, and 360-degree panoramas. However, the lens comes with several physical and compositional challenges due to its extreme 210-degree field of view. A major con is that users must change their shooting posture because their feet, head, or fingers on the camera body can easily end up in the frame. Chromatic aberration and fringing are also highly prevalent away from the...

The Venus Optics Laowa 4mm f2.8 Fisheye is an ultra-compact, all-metal manual lens that retails for $199 and delivers an extreme 210-degree field of view. Tested on a Fujifilm X-T3, the review highlights the lens's excellent build quality, featuring a nicely clicking aperture ring, smooth focus ring, and a helpful focus tab to navigate its tiny size. Optically, it surprises with impressive sharpness even at its wide f2.8 maximum aperture, reaching downright excellent clarity when stopped down to f5.6 or f8. Contrast and colors render beautifully, and it features an exceptional metal lens cap that covers almost the entire barrel to safely protect the front element. The lens is highly portable at just 4.8 oz (135 g) and is widely available across mirrorless platforms, including Leica L, Sony E, Canon EF-M, Nikon Z, and Micro Four Thirds mounts. However, its extreme design presents notable physical and shooting challenges. The massive, bulbous front element lacks a hood and is highly vulnerable to accidental finger smudges when mounting the lens. Furthermore, the massive 210-degree view captures everything around it; users will easily...

The Laowa 4mm f/2.8 Circular Fisheye for Micro Four Thirds is a highly specialized, all-metal manual lens that offers an extreme 210-degree field of view for an affordable price of $199. A major benefit of this lens is its impressive center resolution, which is tack-sharp even wide open at f/2.8, with borders that sharpen up nicely when stopped down to f/5.6. Weighing only 120 grams, its ultra-compact size ensures it will not weigh down a gear bag. Mechanically, the build quality is solid, and its unique metal tube-style lens cap effectively protects the protruding front element. Additionally, it provides a budget-friendly entryway for photographers looking to create 360-degree stitched scenes or de-fished ultra-wide images using post-processing software. However, the lens presents several functional challenges, notably because its image circle slightly exceeds the Micro Four Thirds sensor, causing slight cropping at the top and bottom of the frame rather than a perfect out-of-the-box circle. Due to the ultra-wide perspective, users will regularly struggle to keep their own feet, tripods, or hands out of the shot, effectively forcing them to hold the...

The Venus Optics Laowa 4mm f2.8 Fisheye lens is a compact, ultra-wide specialty lens available for multiple mounts, including Fujifilm X, Canon EF-M, Micro Four Thirds, Sony E, and Leica L. Priced affordably at $199, it stands out for its solid all-metal build quality, featuring a smooth manual focus ring and an aperture ring that clicks nicely into place. Despite its diminutive and lightweight size, it delivers impressive image quality, providing excellent overall sharpness—even into the corners—as well as good contrast and color rendering. To protect its highly exposed optics, Venus Optics includes a robust metal lens cap that covers most of the lens body. However, the lens presents specific creative and handling challenges due to its massive 210-degree angle of view, which easily captures unwanted elements like the photographer's fingers, elbows, and feet unless the camera is held away from the face using the LCD screen. Optically, the extreme physical design leaves the protruding front glass element highly vulnerable to accidental fingerprint smudges and damage. Additionally, the lens suffers from visible color fringing, though this drawback can be easily...

The Laowa 4mm f/2.8 Circular Fisheye lens is a unique, manual-focus optics option designed for mirrorless camera systems, including Micro Four Thirds, Canon EF-M, FUJIFILM X, and Sony E mounts. Priced affordably at around $199, this highly compact and lightweight lens weighs just 135 grams and offers a massive 210-degree angle of view, giving it an 8mm full-frame equivalent focal length. Because it creates a completely circular fisheye effect, it is ideal for capturing extremely wide 360-degree virtual reality content and creative, ultra-wide circular photography. A standout benefit of this lens is its extreme portability combined with a budget-friendly price tag, making circular fisheye photography accessible without a massive financial investment. However, its specialized design introduces distinct drawbacks. The circular coverage results in heavy vignette-style black borders, leaving a massive portion of the camera sensor completely unused. This black framing becomes even more pronounced when the lens is mounted on larger APS-C sensors compared to Micro Four Thirds bodies. Additionally, users must be comfortable operating fully manual focus and manual aperture controls.