photography, it comes with its own set of challenges when you’re new to using it. In this video, Mark Denney talks about the three most common mistakes photographers make when shooting with wide-angle lenses. I know I’m certainly guilty of some, are you?
Laowa new super compact ultra-wide 11mm f/4.5 full-frame lens actually has a front filter thread
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Laowa has today announced their new 11mm f/4.5 FF RL lens. It’s a tiny lens for its short focal length and wide field of view at only 58mm long and weighing a mere 254g. It’s a rectilinear lens, not a fisheye, and it’s designed to offer complete coverage on full-frame mirrorless cameras.
With a 126° field of view, the lens actually has a front 62mm filter thread. Laowa boasts it as the widest rectilinear lens ever made for full-frame that does actually have a filter thread. Despite its small stature, though, the price is a little more than some might hope for.
The Laowa 9mm f/5.6 is the world’s widest full-frame rectilinear mirrorless lens
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We shared with you some photos and footage taken with Venus Optics’ insane Laowa 9mm f/5.6 lens. And now it’s finally here! While Venus Optics already has a 9mm lens, it’s made for crop sensor cameras and it has maximum aperture of f/2.8. The new Laowa 9mm f/5.6 FF RL is a rectilinear lens made for full frame cameras, made in four different mounts. So, let’s dive right into more details.
The fun of shooting 11mm on a full frame camera
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I didn’t buy the Irix Blackstone 11mm f/4 because of its optical qualities even though they are more than satisfactory. Truth be told, I wanted to experience what it would be like to shoot ultra wide-angle (UWA) for the sheer fun of it.
There are plenty of reviews for this lens, so this article has a different aim. I will share some images and a few words on how it feels to use the lens. In addition, I will mention a few ideas on how to take advantage of the wide-angle distortion.
Even though this is a rectilinear lens there will be distortions. An UWA lens will stretch the edges, and it will diminish objects in the middle of the frame.
The Irix’ maximum angle of view is a whopping 126 degrees, so you have to be careful how you place both your and your tripod’s feet.
First exclusive footage samples of Laowa’s upcoming 9mm Full-Frame rectilinear lens
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The Laowa Venus Optics 9mm Full-Frame Lens f5.6 Dreamer is just one of Venus Optics’ newest upcoming lenses. At 9mm you’re probably associating it with a fisheye. This lens, however, is rectilinear by design. We got our hands on an early pre-production model and took it for a spin. Turns out 9mm is incredibly wide
Can you shoot effective portraits with a wide-angle lens? Well, yes, you can
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Ultra-wide-angle lenses are typically associated with portrait photography. In fact, most people will specifically avoid them for portraits, casting them out as “useless”. But this video, part of a series called The Focal Length Challenge by Becki and Chris, looks at how we can take advantage of an ultra-wide 16mm lens in order to shoot effective portraits.
Here are the first images taken with the Laowa 9mm f/5.6 full frame lens
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A little while back, Laowa (A.K.A. Venus optics) announced a very exciting new 9mm f/5.6 full-frame lens. (Laowa already has a 9mm 2.8 lens for crop sensors, but this lens is for full-frame and lower aperture).
One of the exciting features of this lens is that it is a Rectilinear, low distortion lens and does not create any fish-eye distortion. It is not as distortion-free as Laowa’s Zero-D, but still has very (very!) low distortion for a 9mm lens.
We managed to get our hands on a few sample photos for the lens made with various cameras, click on each image for larger resolution.
The best wide angle lenses for astrophotography 2020
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When it comes to Astrophotography, the lens can often times end up being more important than the camera. Good lenses allow you to get sharp images at wide apertures, with little chromatic aberration, astigmatisms, or coma.
In this article we are going to go over my picks for the top of the line of the best Lenses for modern Full frame DSLR cameras available today.
It should be noted that the title of this article could easily be swapped for “My Favorite Lenses for Astrophotography” since a lot of this will be based primarily off of my experience and preferences, and I would highly recommend getting more than one opinion.
How I built my own DIY wide-angle macro lens
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The wide-angle paradox
As we know, wide angle lenses show a larger field of view and therefore make things appear smaller and appear further away than they are. Which contradicts the concept of macro photography, where we want our subject to be projected onto the sensor at a magnification ratio of at least 1.0x. So how can we combine a wide angle perspective and macro macro-capabilities?
The concept of wide-angle macro photography is not exactly new and there are other photographers out there, who built their own super-wide macro lenses. There even are a couple lenses on the market that provide 1.0x at a15mm focal length, but I much rather an interesting DIY project than spending 500$ on a niche lens.
The history of the fisheye lens and why it’s used for album covers
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Fisheye lenses are useful for different purposes, from scientific to artistic. But there’s one field where their unique look has been consistently popular from the early ‘60s to this very day: album covers. In this interesting video, Vox brings you a brief history of fisheye lenses. It explores why they have been such a popular tool, both for album covers and music videos, for nearly 60 years.
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