# Venus Optics announce the new Laowa 15mm f/4.5 Zero-D Shift Lens – World’s Widest Shift Lens for Full Frame Cameras



## Canon Rumors Guy (Oct 30, 2020)

> *Anhui China, Oct 30, 2020* – Venus Optics, the manufacturer specialized in making unique camera lenses, pioneered Laowa 15mm f/4.5 Zero-D Shift, the widest shift lens for full-frame cameras and medium format cameras. Giving credits to a ±11mm shift amount (±8mm on the medium format), this ultra-wide shift lens breaks through the industry level and bringing the wide-angle lens standard to the next level.
> Image quality is guaranteed with high image sharpness and nearly no optical distortion (Zero- D). The 15mm f/4.5 Zero-D Shift enriches the diversity of Laowa’s extensive wide-angle lens collection by giving photographers more control on the perspective in their images.
> 
> World’s widest shift lens for Full Frame Cameras
> 15mm f/4.5 Shift is the widest shift lens for a full frame camera. The angle of view is 110°, and it covers a huge ⌀ 65mm image circle. The wider perspective offers great deal of flexibility for photographers to capture architecture and interior shots when space...



Continue reading...


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## bbasiaga (Oct 30, 2020)

Wow! Very interesting. 

I have been enjoying messing around with a 24mm Samyang tilt-shif I have. I wish someone would make one in that price range at the 50mm focal length. Maybe someday these guys will get in that market. 

-Brian


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## gkr (Oct 30, 2020)

Canon Rumors Guy said:


> Continue reading...


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## gkr (Oct 30, 2020)

The lens in the comparison seems to have about 17mm. I have the canon 17mm shift since a few years and cannot confirm any unsharpness. It is a great lens I am using frequently.


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## jvillain (Oct 30, 2020)

That is a pretty crazy lens. I really respect Laowa for not chasing bread and butter lenses but going after really unusual designs. One way or another there is a Laowa probe lens in my future.


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## keithcooper (Oct 30, 2020)

I've got one of these on its way to me at the moment to review and test _(just in time for the publication of my book about using tilt/shift lenses ;-) )_

I'll have a full review in due course, but will post updates and info at http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/laowa-15mm-shift-lens/
If anyone has any questions, please do let me know? I'll be checking it against my TS-E17 on my 5Ds. The TS-E17 does have a falling off of detail in the far corners and a bit of colour fringing on bright edges - not serious, but obviously there (as you expect for any lens with that image circle and coverage)


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Oct 30, 2020)

keithcooper said:


> I've got one of these on its way to me at the moment to review and test _(just in time for the publication of my book about using tilt/shift lenses ;-) )_
> 
> I'll have a full review in due course, but will post updates and info at http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/laowa-15mm-shift-lens/
> If anyone has any questions, please do let me know? I'll be checking it against my TS-E17 on my 5Ds. The TS-E17 does have a falling off of detail in the far corners and a bit of colour fringing on bright edges - not serious, but obviously there (as you expect for any lens with that image circle and coverage)


I'm curious about the need for shift of such a wide lens but I can understand tilt. I suppose there are enough cases where the shift would help with stitching very wide lenses for interiors.

I'm looking forward to the review.


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## privatebydesign (Oct 30, 2020)

bbasiaga said:


> Wow! Very interesting.
> 
> I have been enjoying messing around with a 24mm Samyang tilt-shif I have. I wish someone would make one in that price range at the 50mm focal length. Maybe someday these guys will get in that market.
> 
> -Brian


I was lucky and found a Canon TS-E50 on eBay virtually unused for a very good price. It is an amazingly good lens, sharp but not soulless, it has functionality to die for, is great for close focus, and it is just a delight to use. It takes the EF 1..4 and 2x TC's too so the versatility is solid.


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## privatebydesign (Oct 30, 2020)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> I'm curious about the need for shift of such a wide lens but I can understand tilt. I suppose there are enough cases where the shift would help with stitching very wide lenses for interiors.
> 
> I'm looking forward to the review.


I'd put it the other way around, I can see the use for shift on an ultra wide, but not tilt as the dof with these lenses is very deep anyway.


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## privatebydesign (Oct 30, 2020)

I got the TS-E 17 when it was pretty young and used it a lot, mainly because it was so much fun, but the truth is I mostly use it with the 1.4TC now. Now when I need 17 I have the 17 but that is rare enough that I can't see me personally ever 'needing' a 15mm!

But hats off to Laowa for pushing the envelope yet again, I hear nothing but great things about their lenses and am sure this will not disappoint.


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## keithcooper (Oct 30, 2020)

Actually the other way round here - I looked at photos I'd used it for and noted that I use tilt about 1 in 50 shots compared to shift. I do architecture and wide is no use if the walls of buildings are leaning inwards. Tilt is only when I need to run the plane of focus along a ceiling/floor/wall. If I want to emphasise a positioned plane of focus, it's almost always with a longer, wider aperture lens

Lack of shift is why when I had to sell a lens earlier this year it was the 11-24 that got the chop. It's also why a 14mm RF tilt/shift would get me to jump to mirrorless ;-)


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## keithcooper (Oct 30, 2020)

bbasiaga said:


> Wow! Very interesting.
> 
> I have been enjoying messing around with a 24mm Samyang tilt-shif I have. I wish someone would make one in that price range at the 50mm focal length. Maybe someday these guys will get in that market.
> 
> -Brian


Well, if you find some old M645 lenses...
These added 35/55/80/210mm for tilt/shift with a Fotodiox T/S adapter on the RP. I previously used them with a simple shift adapter on EF mount. but the Fotodiox adapter and mirrorless makes them really easy to use.
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/fotodiox-tilt-shift-lens-adapter/


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## degos (Oct 30, 2020)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> I'm curious about the need for shift of such a wide lens but I can understand tilt. I suppose there are enough cases where the shift would help with stitching very wide lenses for interiors.



I did some work on windmills and stone towers this summer and even in portrait at maximum shift the 17mm wasn't always quite 'tall' enough to get them in the frame before I'd run out of back-stepping space, so I ended up having to tilt the camera slightly. Once I had to give up and use the 100-400 from afar.


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## BeenThere (Oct 30, 2020)

degos said:


> I did some work on windmills and stone towers this summer and even in portrait at maximum shift the 17mm wasn't always quite 'tall' enough to get them in the frame before I'd run out of back-stepping space, so I ended up having to tilt the camera slightly. Once I had to give up and use the 100-400 from afar.


You can also get some perspective correction in post software.


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## Nemorino (Oct 30, 2020)

Interesting lens! It has some nice features as the adjustment by twisting. Also the lens support is a clever accessory. Have you watched the video? It looks well designed with it´s lockpoints.
Sadly again without electronic aperture control.


bbasiaga said:


> I wish someone would make one in that price range at the 50mm focal length.


I am still hoping Laowa will release a tilt macro lens! I would like one of Canon´s but they are far to expensive for me.


privatebydesign said:


> But hats off to Laowa for pushing the envelope yet again, I hear nothing but great things about their lenses and am sure this will not disappoint.


I own their first lens the 60mm ultra macro and it is at the moment my favourite lens in the macro range.
But it suffers from a bad focus breathing.
The 15mm macro is also very nice but challenging for macro work and has bad corners.


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## keithcooper (Oct 30, 2020)

BeenThere said:


> You can also get some perspective correction in post software.


Yes, I've a building nearby that I needed to do this for, with the TS-E17 - definitely one I'll try with the Laowa.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Oct 30, 2020)

My only experience with a TS lens was the 90 TS-E I bought for product photography. I ended up realizing it wasn't wide enough, It wasn't practical to get back further from my light table and I did not want the 50mm.


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## dilbert (Oct 31, 2020)

keithcooper said:


> If anyone has any questions, please do let me know?



Would love to see worked examples of how tilt/shift fix architecture problems, as in "before any changes" and "after adding XXX".

Ok, this helps a lot.









How to use a shift lens on a camera and why you should use one


How to use a shift lens on a camera, the results you get and why you should use one. Perspective control and changing your viewpoint with a tilt/shift lens




www.northlight-images.co.uk


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## keithcooper (Oct 31, 2020)

dilbert said:


> Would love to see worked examples of how tilt/shift fix architecture problems, as in "before any changes" and "after adding XXX".
> 
> Ok, this helps a lot.
> 
> ...


I'll be sure to include a few 'why bother' examples in the review

...and in late November - see the bottom link in my .sig ;-)
The book was finished in January though, which means I've done quite a bit since - All my tilt/shift related stuff (some videos as well now) is at








Tilt and shift lens articles, reviews and tutorials by Keith Cooper


Articles & reviews about tilt/shift lenses & useage. Lens reviews and practical tutorials showing how to use tilt and shift lenses & adapters




www.northlight-images.co.uk


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## dilbert (Oct 31, 2020)

keithcooper said:


> I'll be sure to include a few 'why bother' examples in the review



The image that explained shift best was the "big" image circle and the white box being in different locations.


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## stevelee (Oct 31, 2020)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> My only experience with a TS lens was the 90 TS-E I bought for product photography. I ended up realizing it wasn't wide enough, It wasn't practical to get back further from my light table and I did not want the 50mm.


I had fun earlier in the year when I rented the 24mm and later the 17mm TS-E lenses. I may rent the 24mm again some day. It seemed more useful and a little less quirky. I can't really justify owning one for the amount of use it would get. I liked doing big panoramas in which I shifted the lens to maximum at each 30º of rotation and then stitched together 17 or so images. The result was something like 87MP and the field of view of what, a 10mm lens? If I try that again, I'll also take shots rotated at 45º to fill in the corners. Rotation stops are at 30º, but it should be usable in between. I also did a poor man's Ansel Adams with the tilt, subbing a small fountain down the street for a Yosemite waterfall. I also tried the tilt with extension tubes, shifting the plane of focus to fake more depth of field with macro shots. I can see how a TS-E macro could be good for product shots.


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## Sporgon (Oct 31, 2020)

bbasiaga said:


> Wow! Very interesting.
> 
> I have been enjoying messing around with a 24mm Samyang tilt-shif I have. I wish someone would make one in that price range at the 50mm focal length. Maybe someday these guys will get in that market.
> 
> -Brian


Voila !



(Apologies to the purists for corrupting a 15mm thread )

Fotodiox TS adapter for Pentax 67 to EF - about $190. The Pentax 67 55mm f/4 lens was one of the sharpest they made for that format, really good in the FF middle of the image circle. I've had this one since my MF film days, but I see you can get them out of Japan for about $200. So you could assess the effects of 50mm tilt for about $390, and do away with the image degrading effects of very small apertures on 50 mp. (That doesn't exist  ). 

A couple of caveats; the tilt on the Fotodiox is a little clunky compared with a TS-E lens. (OK, it's very clunky). Also the edges of the image circle really can't do justice to the modern FF digital, so if using it for shift, rise, fall etc the results are way inferior to the Canon one. But for this money you can find out if you really like what is does before splashing out on the very expensive, but superb Canon one. 

Oh yes, one other thing. It's important to get the mark III version of the lens, the one from 1989 onwards and looks like the picture above, as it is much better than the first two versions.


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## flip314 (Oct 31, 2020)

How much better is actual tilt than perspective correction in Photoshop? Obviously you will lose some quality from stretching and squashing pixels, but how much does it really matter?


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## stevelee (Nov 1, 2020)

flip314 said:


> How much better is actual tilt than perspective correction in Photoshop? Obviously you will lose some quality from stretching and squashing pixels, but how much does it really matter?


Perspective control is usually more a matter of shifts than tilts. I think Photoshop does more squashing than stretching, but you can control that in camera raw, where I do the perspective adjustments. If you still have enough pixels for your output after the squash, then it doesn’t make much difference.

It makes more difference in stitching panoramas in my experience.

Either beats all to pieces what I did in the darkroom, setting something under one end of the easel and dodging the end of the paper nearer the enlarger lens.


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## hne (Nov 1, 2020)

flip314 said:


> How much better is actual tilt than perspective correction in Photoshop? Obviously you will lose some quality from stretching and squashing pixels, but how much does it really matter?



Walking around in a city, the TS-E 24mm on full shift lets you frame a building that you'd otherwise need a 16-35mm zoom for. Except with the UWA zoom you'd either at 16-17mm have the street cover close to 50% of your pixels or point your camera upwards so much at closer to 24mm that perspective correction throws away 25% of your pixels.

From my point of view, any lens wider than 24mm that doesn't allow for shift is a gimmick.


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## dilbert (Nov 3, 2020)

flip314 said:


> How much better is actual tilt than perspective correction in Photoshop? Obviously you will lose some quality from stretching and squashing pixels, but how much does it really matter?



When you apply perspective correction in software, the software has to either remove detail or invent detail. It uses mathematical algorithms to guess what should happen.

When you use tilt/shift, there's less of a need to use softwre to invent new pixels or to take away pixels.


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