Laowa 20mm F4 'Zero-D' Shift lens review

[@coutopraze]

You two are my favourite camera review people, thanks for the review!

[@charliewaterman816]

You guys deserve so many more subs then you have! I think it's time for some cross collaborations so people get to know you two! Always an enjoyable video 👍

[@kaminobatto]

I would classify that flaring and ghosting as a characteristic of the lens rather than a downside. I bought their 33mm 0.95 specifically for the crazy artefacts it showcases when shot against a direct source of light. Just presenting a different perspective here.

[@ramseymellette7606]

Great vid. What I’d love to know is how this Laowa 20mm compares with the Canon T-S 24mm, and the Nikon NIKKOR 24mm PC lenses. Granted, I know the Laowa is only a Shift lens, and not Tilt-Shift (as are the Canon & Nikons) but I’m curious as to how color rendition and sharpness compare. Maybe a future vid?? :)

[@何子1号]

20 is more convenient to use than 24, and there is no need to worry about tilt causing optical axis offset

[@Lance_Magillicuddy]

I agree with the other commenter that this is not really a street photography lens. The only reason I might be concerned about sun stars and flaring was if I was using it for sunrise or sunset shift & stitch panos looking into the sun. For interior architecture obviously, that's not an issue. For outdoor architecture on a tripod, likely you would need to adjust the time of day you shoot, or otherwise account for unpleasant flare or reflections. I'm always amused when people say, "nah don't need it you can do that in post". Actually, it is not the same. This type of lens is meant to be used in a considered manner, and there is nothing like carefully setting up your shot with the correct shift and framing in-camera. Perspective changes in post require sometimes some pretty severe cropping which is hard to anticipate out in the field.

[@damianip]

Keith Cooper at Northlight Images has a very "architecture focused" review of this lens. This, for me is the perfect, "I can only have one shift lens" focal length.

[@AR-vf7vg]

Early reviews at this stage; add to the list Dustin Abbott who also has a review, albeit not as thorough as I wished (none others are that to my taste so far). (I use the canon's 17 and 24 ts-e shift-tilts on my sonys mirrorless.)

[@izmargad]

Great presentation as usual. The only complaint is about the sound levels that unexpectedly jumps up or down here and there. I love to watch your videos even if the subject is beyond my interest. As a43 shooter I am also delighted to see once again that gh6 has enough shadows to pull even under challenging light conditions. :)

[@Necrorectumonomicon]

Thank you for the review! Didn't even know this lens came out. Would have liked to hear something about the geometric distortions on this lens. I have the 15mm Laowa shift, it's really useful and almost without distortions. Think I'll get this one, 20mm is a good focal length. After this, I need Laowa to make a 24mm shift lens so I can stop using the Samyang 24mm TS.

[@maxdmachy]

what's wrong with the samyang?

[@Necrorectumonomicon]

@@maxdmachy too much geometric distortion, weird color cast, lots of flares and a big loss of contrast when shooting into the light

[@maxdmachy]

@@Necrorectumonomicon Tks for the info! And sorry I wrote a comment not considering the context of our conversation. Which sounded stupid. Hope you did not read it!

[@josephasghar]

You’re still using it like a street photographer. It’s an f8-f11 tripod product. I’d have been interested in seeing you use it on sticks, with filters, and blocking the sun where necessary.

[@maxdmachy]

DPreview is a general content channel. Guess the percentage of serious architecture photographers in the audience is small. Accordingly it is a good thing to encourage other uses of this design. Btw the lens might work really well adapted to the smaller medium format.

[@stanobert3475]

This is a specialty lens designed for using with a tripod at F/11. The sun flare is a minor issue since this is for architecture anyway. This is a good value compared to the much more expensive Canon and Nikon tilt-shift wide angle lenses.

[@salvasandoval1073]

Nice review, It would be great if Infra Red performance could be also reviwed.

[@maxdmachy]

excellent review of a very tempting lens! On this kind of lens I personally don't mind the ghosting. Also wonder, are the big brand competitor any better. Has anybody tried out? Obviously for serious photos of architecture such nervous ghosting is not ideal

[@jaquandaserwaa7522]

compare gh5s to gh6? Love to see how the dynamic range differs between he 5s and 6

[@KarstenMeyer]

Just wondering what focal length I need when I want to get the same image as with this lens max shifted - just by aligning my camera horizontally - and then cropping the bottom edge away in post.

[@oneeyedphotographer]

A lot. I have a TS-E 17 for Canon, nothing comes close in the mirrorless world. You could, maybe, work it out. Look up angle of view for your favoured shifty lens, and for wider lenses. I often use MFT, I have the camera level and throw away top or bottom as needed. You are better off with a higher resolution camera, but you can't necessarily get the same coverage in any particular circumstance. I have a self portrait done with the TS-E 17, I think the only other lens that might do it is Canon's 11-24 zoom. There's nothing at all in the MFT and APS-C worlds. I checked, the TS-E and 11-14 both have aa diagonal angle of view of 126 (shifted for the TS lens, 11mm for the zoom).

[@aukisun]

Laowa 9mm RL - easily )

[@JoseSLobo]

It depends on the direction of the shift, if you shift on the long side of the sensor or in the shorter side but in the Canon TS-E 17 you would need around 12mm in FF. There are several lenses now that can do this or wider. As an example you have the Samyang XP 10mm, Laowa 9mm, several zooms depending on your camera.

[@oneeyedphotographer]

@@JoseSLobo You can't use all your pixels. Ideally, you have a suitable vantage point half way up the building.

[@AR-vf7vg]

@@oneeyedphotographer "unfortunately" a good point, to remind that cropping means end up with (considerably) less pixels than one single full framed exposure. Here a multi sensormicroshift exposure option - by cameras that provide that option - might compensate for that (when subjects allow it. Of course the same procedure would then also benefit to shiftlenses the same way.)

[@GuagoFruit]

Is this the equivalent of like cropping an image off center (strictly technically speaking) ?

[@bobvila1010]

Hello, I just received my Laowa 15mm Shift lens for a Sony E mount. I have a Sony A1. As mentionned in the Laowa instruction, I enable the option release without lens. When I take picture, I notice in the Live view, the image is shaking when I press the button shutter and the image is not sharp. In order to prevent the camera shaking, I had to desable the 'in-body image-stabilization'! Do you have any idea what is the problem? Looks the the Laowa lens does not support, for Sony A1. the' in-body image-stabilization' On. Thanks in advance!

[@aninda1945]

Hi , I can not decide which one to buy Fuji xs10 or 2nd hand Olympus omd M1 ii? I will be very thankful for your answer. :)

[@1fareast14]

1:30 lol I liked Jordan's framing more than Chris'

[@alhOOO2O]

Genuine question; can you see in the metrics how many people are watching your videos that aren't subscribed?

[@mdhazeldine]

Decent review overall, but I can't believe you didn't include any mention of distortion. Surely distortion characteristics are a fundamental part of a lens review, especially for a lens designed for architecture?

[@glenjo0]

Nice video!

[@claudianreyn4529]

20mm on Fujifilm GFX means 15.8mm, which is pretty wide.

[@tanegaranchu]

Thank you for pronouncing "Bokeh" properly!

[@pergunnareriksson]

Shift lens? 15 years ago or so I thought it would be a fun thing to play around with. Since I'm not a professional photographer of anything, including architecture, ithese days, with all the possibilities to play with perspective in post, this lens is nothing I would spend any money on. Considering the market I guess $1000 can be considered "budget"...

[@chrish3540]

Correcting in post will result pixel crushing or stretching. If you don’t do big prints of course it’s fine.

[@mofi3641]

whats the point of taking a (leofoto) tripod with you if you just use it once?

[@marc5279]

hey, when did 1000$ become a budget price?

[@RogerOThornhill]

Missing the video review:(

[@paigecfrancis]

What’s that tripod at 0:22 and how do you like it?

[@MrNoipe]

$1000 is a budget price?

[@Lance_Magillicuddy]

compared to the OEM versions, yeah.

[@dpreview]

Nikkor 19mm F4 Tilt Shift - $3300 USD

[@just_eirik]

What made you say “I love mirrorless” in that one clip?

[@stefan_becker]

For me it always happens when I try to view my images in the viewfinder of a dslr 😅

[@just_eirik]

@@stefan_becker haha yeah I can see that. I started hated using the viewfinder on my dslrs and I eventually only used live view. Though I always used a tripod and took my time, so it wasn’t hard to use. Still though, sometimes I really miss my D610 or D700 and part of me REALLY wants a D780 since it has great live view.

[@shankar4510]

Hi I am looking for good quality canon 5d mark 2 . any chance?

[@jeffrey3498]

I wish Nikon would make a Z mount shift lens, maybe 24mm. 📷😃👍

[@Mikey1962]

It sounds to me like you were in a hurry making this video Chris, a bit of speed talking. I had trouble keeping up with some of what you said otherwise good video and that lens looks interesting. I mainly shoot wildlife and macro so it would be of no use to me.

[@twbrkfd1733]

Or they sped up the original video...quite true! Some parts are almost unintelligible.

[@franciscocunhaetavora9132]

Dam! I've been wating for ages for a shift lens so I can shoot into the sun. Oh well...

[@NeonShores]

Yeah this review spent more time on flares and ghosting than on actual shift examples. Not sure how much architecture I'm going to shoot straight into the sun.

[@neffknows1]

At f/4…

[@rosariofamily8098]

Dam!!! I was watching the video and had to pause it cause I noticed a big mistake. And I can’t believe that all this time I watched your content which you guys spend so much money and time to produce. But I was so busy and entertained to not realized this big mistake. That I wasn’t subscribed. My guess is that I might have hitting that unsubscribe button by accident. But no worries I subscribe again thank to your reminder. 🥳

[@krishnansrinivasan830]

Nice & Thanks :)

[@martysender5539]

gh6 video saweeet!

[@sandros94]

4:25 ok for real? I've been watching and reading you reviews for so many years (a little bit earlier than GH5 launch), but only now noticed that I wasn't sub...

[@hagentrondheim3675]

Try shift N instead

[@alen2937]

I like your reviews, this lens, however, 1000 is not budget anywhere in my dictionary. On another topic, how about something like back to the classics where you revisit lenses and cameras from the not so past, e.g. a6000 and so on?

[@vikmanphotography7984]

Now they just need a 90mm TS to compete with Canon's dominance in the TS market

[@amalieemmynoether992]

That ghosting reminds me of a JJ Abrams movie

[@nh-ss5pw]

👍👍

[@sticky42oh]

Nice tripod >.>

[@BenjaminSandness]

I suppose the elephant in the room while shooting this in F mount is the Nikon 19mm.

[@Brause_Market]

what is the price?

[@bobuk5722]

Damn! That presenter, whats' name, asked me to do something, can't remember what it was. One of those err, oh yes, days, where I forget what I have to do. Really annoying. Now, why was I watching this?

[@marcofabiocarosi2996]

Love the content, but the video shows a lot of stutter.

[@marcofabiocarosi2996]

I love the content, but the video shows a lot of stutter.

[@maxdmachy]

I often have issues with photo channels on youtube - techies are too ambitious with video resolution and other specs in favor of video quality. If you have enormous bandwidth and the latest gadgets, it might look awesome (if you are into this 21.century feel of perfection). Many viewers would be far better off with 720p videos, methinks

[@toboldgoodbody8974]

And it goes all the way to 11(mm) 😅

[@ishanr8697]

$1100 "budget" lens. Guess I'm never buying a shift lens then

[@SueHutton]

Slow down Chris, please.....

[@erbterb]

You always have to ask: What would bezos do? He would exclusively publish on an amazon platform and reap all the tracking benefits that his government overlords and insider traders in the US congress, wants. So why serve alphabet extra revenue when dpreview can step into the cage of freedom, throw the schakels of youtube and put on the collar of jeff? Subscribing to an amazon hosted channel? Or just ask the most valuable companyjurisdiction in the world to start a video site. Turn to 330 trillion and bask in the glory. Do not worship other owners than 330 trillion.

[@JoATTech]

Budget price my ass ;). OK, OK I know it's tilt-shift ...

[@2mitts]

With tilt this would be a super bargain. Unfortunately this is just shift. :(

[@gerardferry3958]

only canon make pro shift lenses

[@franciscocunhaetavora9132]

Absolutely! All shift lenses not made by Canon are only for amateurs. The other day I saw a pro using a Nikon shift lens and I went to warn him about his mistake. He apologized for his ignorance and immediately put all his Nikon gear on e-bay and ordered a full Canon system from Adorama so he could shoot real pro shift lenses.

[@anaphylaxis2548]

@@franciscocunhaetavora9132 🤣 Ok fanboy

[@gerardferry3958]

@@franciscocunhaetavora9132 smart people use adaptors, says a lot about nikon buyers

[@aukisun]

Just to understand - im professional architectural photographer and Nikkor pc-e 19mm - best shift lens of all time

[@gerardferry3958]

@@aukisun deluded