Laowa 17mm f/1.8 (Micro Four Thirds) Review

[@elfcounsul]

I love my Laowa. I like the close focus too. Focus ring is smooth and aperture is not too stiff

[@TheRealRichardWong]

Do you have a favourite everyday lens? What is it? And what is your favourite focal length ?

[@derryk1]

For my everyday camera which is a Lumix G85 I choose the Panasonic 20mm f1.7 which is really 40mm on the m4/3 sensor.

[@grabshotphoto7396]

16:35 Not sure if it's the lens or the processing, but this looks very Leica to me.

[@Isaac________]

I wish Laowa made AF m43 lenses...

[@TheRealRichardWong]

I wish too! I am sure the boys and girls from Laowa would read all the comments so if more people suggest that, maybe....... Maybe...

[@LaowaByVenusOptics]

Okay, I read this now. We keep pushing!

[@andrewcampbell3184]

Yes autofocus Laowa would be amazing!

[@A1Bokeh]

@@LaowaByVenusOptics I'm releasing a review on your 7.5mm f2. Amazing lens

[@pbasswil]

I don't know if you used an 'Art' filter ('Film Mode'?) on the Panasonic for your B&W shots , but that's a pretty impressive imitation of typical old silver-halide street photography. The mapping of tones is just about right. On my Oly E-M5, the only monochrome preset is too grainy and too contrasty to look authentic.

[@TheRealRichardWong]

Hi pbadswil, I didn't use the b&w colour preset for the photos in this video. They are all raw converted to jpg in lightroom myself. Some of those photos have pretty high dynamic range so it's easier to manage the highlight and shadow myself if I shot in RAW.

[@pbasswil]

@@TheRealRichardWong Well I salute you for your b&w renderings, I think they're very tastefully done! Er, according to my old-fashioned tastes, that is. :^> I see so much digital b&w photography that looks _way_ dingy, and with too much of the darker areas 'clipped' to pure black. Sometimes I download badly rendered jpgs from the web to see if I can 'rescue' them with Curves, but I can't always do it, cuz the jpgs are already *ucked. :^/ I feel sorry for the folks who made them, I fear they've never really looked at Cartier Bresson, Kertész, or their peers. Cheers.

[@TheRealRichardWong]

@@pbasswil Thank you! Yes my b&w taste is similar to you i guess. I usually love to retain some shadow details and try avoid blown out highlight as well, for most of my photos anyway. Occasionally I love to increase the contrast and clip the shadow and highlight but it's really not my usual style :)

[@pbasswil]

@@TheRealRichardWong The choice of when to clip is esthetic, isn't it? There's no right or wrong in the arts, just what looks good to us. I'm sure you're familiar with Robin Wong's Oly colour work, where he says he always exposes for his main subject and never worries if he clips highlights - an approach that works great for his style. What I regret is when folks let their cameras make the choices, not their sensibilities. SOOC digital B&W shots usually map tones in a depressing way (imho); it takes artistic choices to get to, for instance, your attractive renderings.

[@TheRealRichardWong]

Yeah definitely familiar with Robin's reviews and photos!! And agree it's a personal preference, i myself would love to make adjustments to my photos if possible to get it look the way I want :)

[@giannagiavelli5098]

your lighting is so crazy! love it. i love to shoot my old nikon manual AIS lenses with aperture rings but the cameras are so heavy for me, so i think this 17 could be my 35mm walkaround more manual lens. what other options are like this? there is that ttartisans 1.4

[@picoiproduction]

Can you test it with Olympus 17 1.8 or Panasonic 20mm?

[@PaulCSmithPhotographer]

Nice one Mr Wong, loved the motion blur on the first image, thumbs up from me😉

[@TheRealRichardWong]

Haha thank you Paul! Glad you like it !

[@shaabanshaaban5759]

8

[@kenlee697]

Great review as usual. I might be interested in this lens. It seems good value for money

[@TheRealRichardWong]

Thanks Ken!!

[@ohshowproductionsllc]

Hi Richard, how do you feel about this lens for video? Thanks for sharing the great review!

[@TheRealRichardWong]

It is "OK" i mean it's not bad for sure and i didn't have any issue when i shot video with it, but then i don't think this lens was purposely designed for video

[@ohshowproductionsllc]

@@TheRealRichardWong Super thanks for that information, I'm looking for a gimbal lens that is wide and fast. Always enjoy your reviews!

[@TheRealRichardWong]

i think it should work fine for your requirement

[@foorichard1712]

Hi Richard can you do a manual focus video?

[@TheRealRichardWong]

Hi there whay do you want to see?

[@sav2236]

Thank you Richard for the review.

[@TheRealRichardWong]

Thank you for watching

[@sav2236]

@@TheRealRichardWong greetings from Poland.

[@CamMead]

Awesome! Some stunning b&w photos as well..

[@TheRealRichardWong]

Thank you very much OnCam! :)

[@Jorcap]

Do you have a tip for me? I love the Sigma 35mm f1.4 on full frame cameras but I have a panasonic GX8 with a Mitakon 25mm f.095. But thats 50mm on full frame. I want to keep the f0.95 but with the 17mm field of view on mft.. I do car photography and I really want lots of bokeh on the background on the full frame 35mm field of view

[@TheRealRichardWong]

If you want super fast 17mm, the voigtlander 17.5mm f0.95 would be what you need!

[@andrewcampbell3184]

thanks for the review. Looks like it is a good lens if you happy to manual focus

[@TheRealRichardWong]

Yes it is an affordable nice little lens

[@sayanpal9533]

Wonderful video. How much would you rate this lens for landscape photography ?

[@TheRealRichardWong]

Lens flare and distortion would be the thing you have to watch out for, but otherwise sharpness, vignetting and even chromatic aberration are all quite good. Considering the price and size of the lens I would say it's quite good lens, check out my other video "Queenstown photo vlog". I took a lot of landscape photos using that lens.

[@sayanpal9533]

@@TheRealRichardWong Thanks for the detailing

[@petercavendish6935]

Great review. Thanks Richard!

[@TheRealRichardWong]

Thanks for watching Peter!!

[@giannagiavelli5098]

i think you are a great vlogger. keep up the work!

[@TheRealRichardWong]

Thank you very much Gianna!

[@Jonathan-hu3lk]

Great review. I already own the Olympus 17mm f1.8, but thinking about getting this too as I’m told it does decent Star bursts for a MFT lens. Have you had any experience of that in your time with this lens? Trying to find examples before purchasing it

[@TheRealRichardWong]

hey Jonathan, unfortunately for some reasons I didn't test the sunstars of this Laowa 17mm lens :/ But usually Starbursts is usually one of the strongest area for Laowa lens!

[@Jonathan-hu3lk]

@@TheRealRichardWong thanks for your response. I’m pretty much sold on getting the lens now anyway after seeing how close it can focus, which is much closer than the Olympus 17mm. I’m sure technically, in other areas the Olympus is better, but I feel it somewhat lacking in close focusing, which is also something I look for in a general walkabout lens

[@StewartPalmshore]

Thanks for the review, Richard. I have the Laowa 7.5 and it’s also good.

[@TheRealRichardWong]

Yes the 7.5mm is so compact!

[@lboymusic]

Is it wide enough for vlogging? Thanks

[@TheRealRichardWong]

Not really. 10-12mm is what most people prefer to use for vlogging with m43 camera

[@lboymusic]

@@TheRealRichardWong ok, but the difference in price :(

[@InspiRAWtion]

The link doesn't work for me. But thanks for the review. It looks like a great lens for the money. Wish it would have AF. And does the IBIS of G85 recognizes the focal lenght or you have to set it manually?

[@TheRealRichardWong]

hi there, the lens actually hasn't been announced yet that's why it's not on Laowa's website, try again tomorrow it should be there. :) Re IBIS, you do have to manually enter the focal length as this lens (just like most manual focus m43 lenses) does not have any electronic contacts to transfer focal length info.

[@TheRealRichardWong]

Laowa has just listed the lens on their website, so the link should be working now :)

[@joseisrael8535]

Laowa vs Olympus for video, which you’d use? Thank you!

[@TheRealRichardWong]

Laowa, mainly because it's a lot cheaper and for video I doubt you would see any noticeable difference in output

[@pfortunato78]

Laowa because of the hard stops for focusing and the fact that it is exactly the same size/weight of the 7.5mm f2. This means you can swap them on a gimbal and not have to do any rebalancing.

[@jpmccormac]

17mm f/1.8 does not appear on the Laowa link you provided above. ???

[@TheRealRichardWong]

Opps, maybe the lens has not even been announced yet ;)

[@AdolfxBlaine]

It appears now! :) Looks like a really cool tiny lens!!

[@VuurwerkOverijssel]

Would you recommend this lens for astrography?

[@TheRealRichardWong]

Sorry for the late reply.. i didn't see it until now. i wouldn't specifically buy it for astrography, but if you need a 17mm lens then it is ok to do a bit of astro with it

[@ChicanoPhotographer]

Nice pics. Thanks for sharing.

[@TheRealRichardWong]

Thank you for watching!

[@brucecggallagher1949]

does it provide exif data to the camera, Richard?

[@TheRealRichardWong]

Not this one bruce. This is one of the last Laowa m43 that doesn't have electronic support

[@revelac_ao5083]

Well done. Good photographs too!

[@TheRealRichardWong]

Thank you so much 😀

[@orange42]

Looking good

[@TheRealRichardWong]

Thanks for watching my friend :)

[@dominiquebabao6457]

Great review 👍🏻

[@TheRealRichardWong]

Thanks! 👍

[@neotheek]

Please test video quality of it.

[@pangrac1]

Good photos

[@TheRealRichardWong]

thank you!! :)