‘Born to be wide’ - Laowa 9mm f/5.6 — Robert Beasley Photography

Not quite New York, but Oxford’s not a bad place to test out a new lens

If you’ve been following me on the socials for a while or read my review of the Venus Laowa 12mm - Zero D, then you know I’m a wide-angle addict and a huge fan of the Venus Laowa products. Loawa are a relatively young lens manufacturer, but what they may lack in years on the market, they more than make up for with their constant innovation and development of products which allow you to view the world in a way like never before. So when Laowa kindly offered me the opportunity to test out their upcoming 9mm f/5.6 Wide-Dreamer, safe to say I jumped at the chance.

This 9mm f5.6 offering is an absolutely ground breaking piece of engineering, at the time of writing, this is the world’s widest full-frame lens, and it’s going to be available for the Nikon Z, Sony E, Leica M and the new Panasonic/ Leica/ Sigma alliance L - mount in a matter of weeks - so get excited! As a Lumix shooter, I’ll be reviewing the L-mount copy of the lens on the Lumix S1 mirrorless. As the lens will fit natively on the S1 (which is L-mount) there will be no need for me to adapt the lens like I had to with the 12mm, which is fantastic!

Only downside - due to pandemic I wasn’t able to test the lens out in a modern city setting like I was with the 12mm; so I had to get creative in my hometown of Oxford and the surrounding areas, here in the UK.

Build & handling

The 12mm Zero-D I reviewed earlier this year weighs approximately 655g (without the mount adapter), the 9mm Wide-Dreamer comes in at an impressive 415g. As I explained in my review of the 12mm, Laowa’s lenses are built like tanks (in the best way possible!) and I had no problems carrying it around New York for hours on end; All that aside, a difference of 240g when carrying gear around for long periods of time and for an even wider option is not to be sniffed at. What Laowa have been able to create with the 9mm is truly incredible!

I’ve spoken before of how I love being able to trust robust gear, that’s why I put my faith in Lumix, Peak Design and Laowa products, even in the most testing conditions they’ve never let me down. This lens is no different, full metal construction with an inbuilt lens hood which helps to protect the lens’ front curved element. Unlike the 12mm coming with a plastic lens cap (which I could not get to stay on) the 9mm comes with a matching velvet lined metal lens hood, which fits like a glove. The white and red distant markings are the same on both lenses, nice and clear to read, with no signs of fading despite heavy use and taking them in and out of bags. One surprise is the addition of a focus tab on the underside of the lens, again all metal, an awesome extra I never thought I’d need, but ended up using a lot.

As is true with all the products I’ve used in the Laowa line, the focus wheel is nice to use, with the perfect amount of give and a hard stop at infinity; the aperture ring is also smooth to operate with clicks at each stop. The big difference between the 12mm and the 9mm in regards to construction and how it is operated is that the aperture and focus rings are the other way around from each other, with the focus wheel being the nearest to the camera body on the 9mm with the aperture control at the front of the lens, this is why the focus tab comes in handy I guess; that being said during my time with the lens I can’t say this made a great difference to how I like to shoot. If anything it improved my wide-angle shooting - there have been a few occasions in the past with wide lenses where the focus is located at the front of the lens, where I have left my hand on the focus wheel and ultimately captured a random pinky at the corner of the frame, no such issue here.

With the L-mount still very much in it’s infancy, currently the range of native lenses isn’t huge, and whilst there are more offerings from Lumix and Sigma on the horizon, I can’t see either releasing an ultra-wide lens any time soon. The mount is a new one for Laowa too, with the 9mm their first outing; it’s great how well the lens fits on the mount, snug with absolutely no play, it is a firm locking without being overly tight.

One last note in regards to build, it appears that Laowa’s ‘frog eye’ coating is present on the front element, which makes sense as it is ever present on Laowa’s other wide angle offerings. Wide angle lenses, especially when stopped down can often be plagued by dust, dirt and watermarks on the front element, but the coating helps combat this and does a very good job from my experiences using the 7.5, 12 and now the 9mm.

Do you even filter bro?

For landscape photographers, the use of wide-angle lenses with curved front elements can often lead to many headaches when it comes to using filters, but worry no longer. Laowa have developed a solution in the form of a 100mm Magnetic filter holder system. As the wide lenses do not have the option to fit thread base filters on the front on the lens, this system locks into position at the front of lens, sitting snuggly on top of the inbuilt metal lens hood. As someone who rarely uses filters, (I’m new to square filter systems) it took me less than 30 seconds to attach the system to the 9mm and select my graduated ND of choice. Like the lens itself the filter system is also made entirely from metal, meaning no relying on flimsy materials to hold your expensive filters in place.

Image quality

Make no bones about it, with this being the world’s widest lens it does suffer from distortion and vignetting at the edges, but Laowa aren’t marketing this as a Zero-D lens, and whilst there is slight elongation effect going on in the corners, this is still a rectilinear lens, meaning that even this wide, straight lines don’t get the curvature you find in similar lenses (usually fisheye) with this field of view. I was able to rectify any distortion issues I had in a few shots (normally caused by holding the lens at a strange angle in relation to the subject matter) in Lightroom using the geometry tools; that being said I’m praying for the day Laowa’s lens profiles are added to Lightroom!!

Like Laowa’s other wide lenses, this lens is also full manual, so unfortunately (for some) there is no autofocus here. At f5.6 there isn’t a vast depth of field, meaning in general, once you hit focus, whatever is beyond that up to infinity is in focus, which makes this lens great for gimbal and POV work. I’ve spoken about my use of peaking on manual lenses in the past and with the 9mm on the S1 I did have to tweak and dial down my focus peaking settings a touch, as initially everything on screen was peaking and of no help.

At f5.6 it’s by no means the fastest lens in the world (theoretically the world’s widest and fastest lens would offer a completely different set of problems); This meant in low light situations I did have to bump up the ISO quite a bit to get correct exposure, but on todays full frame cameras this really is a non issue, I know from past usage of Sony’s A7Sii that high ISO usage is nothing to be afraid of anymore and the S1 was no different with super clean high ISO results.

Field of view comparison between Laowa’s 12mm Zero-D and the 9mm W-Dreamer

On paper a 3mm difference doesn’t sound that much in the grand scheme of things, but as you can see in the field of view comparison above, 3mm when it comes to wide angle lenses makes a huge difference, both of these lenses were set to f5.6! I’ve been looking back on some of my images I shot with the 12mm in New York and daydreaming about revisiting those locations with the 9mm, some of the angles I was able to get in the Vessel have been among my favourite images I’ve ever taken.

Whilst evidently there is noticeable distortion and vignetting in the corners, the sharpness across the frame remains pretty consistent, especially when stopped down, which for a lens so wide is no mean feat.

One of the biggest surprises for me when using the 9mm is it’s ability to focus so close; and whilst it’s no macro (Laowa do offer a really cool 15mm wide macro which looks cool) you can get insanely close to your subject and get some really interesting results.

Who’s this for?

Much like the 12mm this 9mm is great for architecture (interiors and exteriors), real estate / property work and astrophotography. I was watching the Space X Nasa launch a few weeks ago and for all the shots inside the shuttle all I could think was “get a Laowa lens in there”!

Note to self, ready for my next wide angle outing - I must start researching astrophotography. I absolutely love looking up to the stars, have done since I was a kid; and seeing photography of the galaxy just leaves me in awe of these patient photographers, who are able to capture such images - literally light years away from my own work. But it’s such a different skillset (generally I don’t really enjoy using tripods for stills), definitely need to have a crack. Any astro experts who want to drop some knowledge, drop me a message!

It will be interesting to see moving forward with such a wide lens, whether Laowa develop something similar to their existing magic shift converter ready to pair the 9mm with; something they have done with a number of their other wide angle lenses, just to help correct those perspectives when shooting things like architecture.

I think this lens will flourish on those vast expansive landscapes where there is a source of focus, something like the Grand Canyon, the Dolomites or cityscapes like New York, Beijing etc. Unfortunately as lovely as Oxford is, it is criminally flat in regards to any rolling hills or mountains, meaning most landscape shots with no real subject, just did not do the lens any justice.

Super compact - the Laowa 9mm W-Dreamer mounted on the Sigma FP full frame camera

There are some amazing applications I can visualise when mounting the 9mm onto Sigma’s tiny FP full frame L-mount body, as it would be an extremely compact and lightweight full frame setup, which would be great for car interiors, tight spaces or rigging, whilst offering very high image quality.

See the world in a new way

If you’re anything like me and hoping for a better (more obscure) range of native glass for L-Mount, then look no further than what the guys over at Laowa are developing, as I’m sure following the release of this 9mm there will be more to come! Whilst I had a blast shooting with the adapted 12mm in New York earlier this year, having spent time using the 9mm I have to say I will be super excited to add this to my arsenal when it comes out in the next few weeks (expected June / July 2020).

For some, the distortion or lack of autofocus will be a turn off, for others 9mm is just too wide and whilst impressive, serves no real practical applications for their work. But if you’re anything like me and enjoy finding new and innovative angles then this lens is right up your street; it has such a small footprint that rigging it in tight spaces or where weight is an issue would be an absolute doddle; which opens up a plethora of previously unachievable shots or shots which would require a lot more equipment to capture.

I’d love to see this lens on a mirrorless body mounted on a high end drone, I can only imagine how gorgeous the imagery would be using such a high quality lens with such a wide field of view flying over vast landscapes.

On a personal level, what I absolutely love about shooting with new wide angle options is the learning curve that comes with it, much like shooting with old vintage lenses. Did I have to adapt how I shot slightly to accommodate for the massive field of view the 9mm offers - sure! But it was a very enjoyable experience and one that has given me ideas and techniques when shooting wide in the future.

Love it or hate it; it’s hard to argue, Laowa are certainly pushing the boundaries in the field of high end optics for todays cameras, not only with this 9mm but their other products as well. Sure this lens comes with some caveats (depending on how you shoot), and if this 9mm isn’t for you then I’d bet there’s something in the Laowa line that is for you! They’re not only breaking new ground in lens technology, offering completely new perspectives, but they are filling the void of largely untapped focal ranges, with high quality builds, remaining humble and open to community feedback along the way.

Their passion for innovation and constantly developing their range can be seen in the exciting news of their upcoming cine range of lenses and their ongoing free online workshops and talks with top macro shooters. It’s been an absolute honour to have the chance to test the 9mm (especially during the current worldwide situation) and work with the great team over at Laowa; thank you again for all you do for the photography (and video) community; I’m excited to see what they have up their sleeve moving forward (hopefully more L-mount lenses) and can’t wait to see next set of innovations!

Have you tried any of Laowa’s amazing line of lenses yet? Do you have any questions about this lens, any of Laowa’s others awesome products or the Lumix S1? If so drop me a comment in the section below and I’ll get back to you.