Laowa 15mm f/4.5 Zero-D Shift

The world’s widest full-frame shift lens

The world’s widest full-frame shift lens, for Canon, Nikon, Sony and L-Mount bodies

The Laowa 15mm f/4.5 Zero-D Shift adds to Venus Optics’ standing as a producer of exotic, esoteric and excellent lenses. On paper, what the Laowa 15mm f/4.5 Zero-D Shift offers is extraordinary: it’s the world’s widest full-frame shift lens, offering plus or minus 11mm of shift. However, so large is the image circle that this lens can also be used on medium-format cameras, delivering up to plus or minus 8mm shift on bodies such as the Fujifilm GFX 100S and the Hasselblad X1D II 50C.

These properties make it an excellent option for genres like architectural and interior photography – but, unlike the best tilt-shift lenses, the Laowa 15mm only shifts: it isn’t able to tilt. It’s also a fully manual optic, with no electrical connections, and there’s no weather sealing.

That all aside, this lens is a joy to handle and use. It offers a number of physical advantages over something like the Canon TS-E 17mm f/4L, the big one being that its shift axis can be rotated by 15° intervals as opposed to the 30° stops on the Canon.

Performance

The shift function does a fantastic job of correcting perspectives and vanishing points. If you’re using it for ‘true’ architectural work, to render accurate and undistorted images of buildings as they actually appear, you will enjoy the near-perfect lines you can achieve. And if you’re using it to render distorted perspectives, you will appreciate how the very shift feature designed to produce accurate images can also deliver the most creative ones.

Armed with a tripod and a mirrorless camera, the Laowa 15mm Shift becomes almost effortless to use for shooting buildings and interiors. Freed from the tripod, it can even become a formidable street photography lens, adding an extra dimension to wide-angle documentary and reportage images. James Artaius