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Lens review

Venus Optics LAOWA 9 mm f/5.6 FF RL

13 August 2020
Maciej Latałło

9. Ghosting and flares

Laowa should promote its lens as an optical instrument with an additional kaleidoscope functionality. What's more, you are able to influence colours of these huge flares – you can choose between purple, yellow, and white (I don't doubt women would be able to name even more colours). The hue of your flares depends on the position of source of light; just a slight shift might cause a drastic change in appearance of light artifacts.

Enough of joking; correction of such a wide angle of view demanding a big, convex element is very difficult indeed. We didn't expect excellent performance here so we are not especially disappointed.

As a short digression we might add that performance against bright light, no matter the parameters of a lens, remains a common ailment of devices produced by inexperienced companies. Design of optics has become easier, due to new type of software and fast computers. Optics specialists don't have to be either very experienced or intuitive in that field. It's also easier to correct your mistakes because you don't have to compute manually all parameters of a system from scratch – computers can do it for you. What's more, it's easier to carry out more difficult projects because there are new kinds of glass and apherical elements available. A solution that needed 2-4 elements in the past, now can be done with just one special element.


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Still, in the case of performance against bright light the situation is not that rosy. Apart from taking care of obvious things like good quality coatings and blackening an optics specialist has to have some amount of experience and intuition in this area. The casing has to be done in a proper way, internal apertures and baffles have to be positioned in right places. New producers usually don't have specialists with such an experience and, as a result, their products often have difficulties with the performance against bright light.

Venus Optics LAOWA 9 mm f/5.6 FF RL - Ghosting and flares

Venus Optics LAOWA 9 mm f/5.6 FF RL - Ghosting and flares

Venus Optics LAOWA 9 mm f/5.6 FF RL - Ghosting and flares

Venus Optics LAOWA 9 mm f/5.6 FF RL - Ghosting and flares

Venus Optics LAOWA 9 mm f/5.6 FF RL - Ghosting and flares

Venus Optics LAOWA 9 mm f/5.6 FF RL - Ghosting and flares

Venus Optics LAOWA 9 mm f/5.6 FF RL - Ghosting and flares

Venus Optics LAOWA 9 mm f/5.6 FF RL - Ghosting and flares

Venus Optics LAOWA 9 mm f/5.6 FF RL - Ghosting and flares

Venus Optics LAOWA 9 mm f/5.6 FF RL - Ghosting and flares

Venus Optics LAOWA 9 mm f/5.6 FF RL - Ghosting and flares

Venus Optics LAOWA 9 mm f/5.6 FF RL - Ghosting and flares

Venus Optics LAOWA 9 mm f/5.6 FF RL - Ghosting and flares

Venus Optics LAOWA 9 mm f/5.6 FF RL - Ghosting and flares

Venus Optics LAOWA 9 mm f/5.6 FF RL - Ghosting and flares