Laowa 12mm: Review and study of the best wide-angle lens

Cinematography is an art that requires a lot of precision and attention to the smallest details in order to convey the photographer’s vision and achieve the desired effect. Among the basic elements of a cinematographer’s tools, lenses with a wide focal length play a decisive role in creating a distinctive and unique shooting experience. Wide focal length / wide angle lenses in cinema come with a variety of advanced technical characteristics that enhance the performance and visual impact of the image. They also often come with a huge amount of negative effects that affect the image badly in most cases, such as optical distortion of the image and the concavity that we call lens distortion, which can happen to the image and lose its splendor, in addition to problems related to the amount of widening of the lens aperture, and the nature of the effects that may occur when changing the focus from point to point, which we know as lens breathing, and many other problems that one should pay attention to. Directors of photography carefully consider it before adopting any lens. But what if I told you that we have a lens that does not have any of these problems?!

In this review, I will highlight one of the leading wide-angle lenses in the field of cinematography. I will review the technical specifications of this lens, and its ability to provide an exceptional shooting experience and outstanding results. I will also discuss the potential positives of using this lens. Venus Cine Laowa 12mm After the success achieved by Venus in producing the Laowa 12mm lens dedicated to photography, the company produced a version of the lens dedicated to cinematography and video production, and before talking about its prices and all those physical details, let me talk about why this lens is one of the very distinctive lenses that should be particularly considered when choosing wide-angle lenses, especially with its focal length of up to 12mm 1 - Its compatibility with full frame and Super35 sensors. One of the most important characteristics that this lens has is that it is not only able to cover a full-frame sensor (43.14mm), but even the sensor of Arri Large Format cameras with open-gate shooting mode with a coverage size of 44.7mm, in addition to Red sensors, which are wider in width and narrower in length than the rest of the sensors in other companies, which makes this lens compatible with all cinema lenses used in the market. In the following video from cinematographer Blaine Westropp, we are shown a simple test of the lens with the Arri Alexa Mini LF camera. Notice that the image is free of any Vignette: Definition of the term Vignette - Vignette The Vignette effect is an effect that occurs when the lens cannot cover the entire camera sensor, so what looks like black shadows appear on the edges of the image/video 2- An image free of any optical distortions - Lens Distortion One of the problems that most worries every cinematographer when talking about wide lenses, is the distortion. Regarding the extent of optical distortions that the lens creates in the image, these distortions greatly affect the shape of the face, and the vertical and horizontal lines within the scene, so the image looks very bad.

The Venus Cine Laowa 12mm lens provides an image completely free of any Lens Distortion in the image, and in fact, this feature is considered one of the most important features that this lens has, no optical distortions in the horizontal and vertical lines and no optical distortions in the faces, especially when moving the camera, whether tilt or pan: 3- Small size and light weight The lens is considered one of the small and light lenses, as it weighs only half a kilogram, with a length 8.7 cm. All of this makes it an excellent lens for use with motion stabilizers or with drones. 4- High image sharpness and a wide aperture of up to T 2.9. The lens also provides high sharpness in the images it produces, which makes it an excellent lens to use without fear of losing any details in the scene. In addition, the lens provides a wide aperture of up to T 2.9 without any significant problems in terms of sharpness and optical quality, which makes it excellent for photography in low-light or low-light scenes. Image rights belong to For cinematographer © Alan Caudillo 5- The ability to focus at a distance of 9 cm. We spoke in a previous post that we published on our Instagram account about the existence of a minimum value for the closest distance that lenses can focus on. These values differ from one lens to another. The smaller that value is, the better the lens is somewhat for its ability to photograph with a wider depth of field. Our lens today is able to focus on objects that are only 9 cm away from the surface of the lens, which is considered a very important feature of this lens. Additional Feature – Venus Cine Laowa 12mm Lens Price The Venus Cine Laowa 12mm lens is available for an international price of $1,499 and is available in: PL Mount, Canon EF, Sony E, Canon RF, Leica L, Nikon Z The lens also comes with two options for measuring distances in meters or feet, and it also comes in a hard case with a ring that allows the lens to be placed on a Mattbox with a diameter of 144 mm. (Price may vary depending on store) While the photography version of the lens is available for $850 and comes without a bag or any additional video-related parts.

The most important question at the end of this article: Can we say that this lens is the best medium-range wide-angle lens given the optical quality it provides us? Have you ever tried this lens?