Venus Optics makes some of the most fascinating lenses in the world, and they are showing no signs of stopping, as their latest lens is an absolute show-stopper, as it is the world's first full frame 9mm rectilinear (non-fisheye) lens. What is it like shooting with it? Check out this fantastic review to see.
Coming to you from Kai W, this great video takes a look at the Venus Optics Laowa 9mm f/5.6 lens. I reviewed the Venus Optics Laowa 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6 lens last year, and it was both an impressive lens and jaw-dropping experience. Most of us only shoot as wide as 16mm or 14mm at the most. A few consumer lenses make their way down too 12mm or even 11mm, but it is hard to convey the difference each millimeter makes at this extreme. I remember walking down the streets of Manhattan with the 10-18mm pressed to my eye, and it was both fun and utterly disorienting, particularly as I watched my own feet moving at the bottom of the frame. I have never used a 9mm full frame rectilinear lens (as this is the first), but surely, you can create some very unique images with it. Check out the video above to see what Kai thinks!
Voigtlander is chipped!!! Get a chipped lens years down the road there maybe lens corrections and you will know what lens you used!!!!!! Have used wides since film days. Have the V 10mm f/5.6 and old V 12mm with screw on filters (not chipped), if used inside like a cathedral or an old mansion windows and doors at the sides are elongated and lights (above/below) and fans are twisted every which way. Please for these learn to do a panorama. Where a 10mm shines is say Horseshoe Canyon where the subject is close AND lens coverage in landscape orientation goes straight down to the river below while others doing a pano standing on the edge with the wind from behind lose camera and tripod to that water below (yes saw it). Believe or not I use my 10mm f/5.6 (12mm f/4) (use the digital NPF not film 500 rule) for astro Milky Way's for you get close to a foreground subject with a wide landscape and a very small MW Galactic center and if done in portrait orientation it looks like it goes to the shepherds heaven. This reviewer has no experience with wides and uses, a selfe get real!!! Remember wides are not for getting it all in, subjects close. Keep tall things (windmills. a building) centered. Always Always shoot level. Watch for elongations at the sides. Things look so far away!! Example want a lake in your foreground to reflect clouds and that mountain, pour a couple bottles of water in a hole put camera on small tripod. You can be close but look so far away!!! A 3:2 ratio with a normal mm pano may look better!!! Small and light easy to have if needed for a landscape if you want the peripheral vision look but still be close, please! Example - Rokinon wides have mustache lens distortion, need that correction.
That guy really can stretch a video out with a lot of fluff to deliver almost no information.
Venus Optics is on a roll with rectilinear wide angles. Not sure why the 9mm is only for Leica tho.
You say it's a rectilinear, non-fisheye lens and that's wonderful though you would do well to post some pictures taken at 9 mm so we can see what that looks like.
I'm interested because I have a 12–24 mm Sigma zoom that I use on my Nikon D600…
You neglected to mention what lens mounts the lens is offered in, it's made for the Nikon Z mount and a few other mirrorless mounts, making it useless for me being the owner of a Nikon D600.
I had to search on other web sites to find out about this…
Sad!