Laowa 17mm f/1.8 MFT lens announced! Review by Richard Wong.

The  new Laowa 17mm f/1.8 MFT lens has been announced and can now be preordered at VenusLens.net (worldwide shipment).

Laowa 17mm f/1.8 MFT is perfect for street, travel and everyday photography. Weighted 6oz (172g) only, this remarkably light, compact and agile lens serves as an exceptional complement to MFT cameras. It is a great tool that should be in every photographers’ kit bag. The wide angle of view(65°) pair with the large f/1.8 aperture can easily handle different lighting conditions. The lens houses nine elements in seven groups, and has a seven-blade diaphragm to give a traditional sunstar rendering in out-of-focus highlights.

Richard Wong tested the lens:

Laowa has just released a new 17mm f/1.8 lens for micro four thirds camera. The price is only US$149 and it’s also quite a compact and light weight lens. But is this lens good enough and what are the gotchas?
Apart from the usual image quality tests, I also used this lens to do a bit of street photography. And I’ll share with you my photos and test results in this video.

And a test video shot on the new lens:

 

Panasonic S1H For Vlogging? Full Frame vs M4/3

Camera Conspiracies:

Today we try to vlog on the new Panasonic S1H with 24-105 f4. We’ll pit it against the G85 with new Leica 10-25mm f1.7. See what has better stabilization. We’ll test the autofocus, slow mo etc. See if it’s worth vlogging on a full frame camera or if it’s better to stick with the smaller lighter m4/3 system.

Panasonic 10-25mm f/1.7 review at Lenstip: “optics can be called sensational, and its build quality is very solid indeed”

Lenstip tested the Panasonic 10-25mm f/1.7 lens and concluded:

Pros:

  • solid casing, top-of-the-range build quality,
  • unique parameters,
  • outstanding image quality in the frame centre,
  • excellent image quality on the edge of the frame,
  • slight longitudinal chromatic aberration,
  • sensible correction of lateral chromatic aberration,
  • lack of problems with spherical aberration,
  • slight coma,
  • good performance against bright light,
  • quick, accurate and silent autofocus.

Cons:

  • high distortion on RAW files,
  • a bit too high vignetting.

The lens, tested by us, is fast aperture-wise, it features a unique focal lengths range, its optics can be called sensational, and its build quality is very solid indeed. Do you have to add anything to that? Yes, in fact I think you do – our „Editor’s Choice” badge.

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10-25mm lens on BHphoto, Adorama, Amazon and FocusCamera.