LAOWA 6mm F2 ZERO-D MFT Lens Review / OM SYSTEM

On a personal note, I recently celebrated my birthday, and as a gift to myself, I clicked the buy button for a lens called Laowa 6mm F2 Zero-D.

Widest angle for MFT lenses

As a lens for Micro Four Thirds, it is likely the widest angle at 6mm (12mm in full-frame equivalent), an ultra-wide-angle lens with a 121.9° field of view (excluding fisheye lenses).
Despite that, it lives up to the "Zero-D" name with linear rendering that is free of distortion. Peripheral light falloff is a bit noticeable, but that can be adjusted during development.
Although it is a manual focus lens rather than AF, it has electronic contacts, allowing aperture settings to be controlled from the camera side. The lens body only has a focus ring; there is no aperture ring.

Sample photos

I have only just received it and haven't taken or developed many photos yet, but here are a few samples.

As expected, there is almost no aberration, the rendering is sharp to the four corners, and there is no noticeable fringing. It is also great that there is very little distracting flare or ghosting. The focus ring has a nice torque feel and I found it easy to use.

(Reference comparison)

By the way, for comparison with the fourth photo, here is the Chinese-made lens PERGEAR 7.5mm F2.8 Fisheye (130° field of view) ⬇

Compared to a fisheye lens, the zero-distortion quality of the LAOWA stands out even more.
Since the PERGEAR lens is a fisheye, it is structurally unavoidable, but it does a great job for the price, so I find it very useful. I would like to write an article about this lens someday too.

Points of concern

The minimum focusing distance of this lens is 9cm, so I tried getting close to take a shot, but perhaps because I shot at the maximum aperture, the rendering is soft and the way the four corners smear is a bit concerning.

Also, perhaps because of the 5-blade aperture, the bokeh doesn't feel very good, so I felt that given the focal length of this lens, it is basically a lens meant to be used stopped down.

Summary

　As for my overall assessment, I've only just received it, so I can't say anything definitive yet, but it's an interesting lens in terms of focal length, so I'm looking forward to taking lots of photos with it from here on out. It feels more suited to shooting stopped down rather than wide open, and I suppose it's best for scenes where you want to show the whole picture clearly, like landscapes or architecture? I've added another lens to my collection that I'm excited to start using.😊

Thank you very much for watching
once again.

ʕ•ﻌ•ʔﾉｼ

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