Shai po greetings everyone and today the Venus Optics company go back to their Roots and offer us a new Ultra wideangle Lens this time an extremely wide-angle Zoom lens for apsc mirrorless cameras The lower 8 to 16 a mm f3.5 to 5 it'll Be available for Sony E fui X neon Zed And Canon RF and EFM Mount cameras Offering an apsc or cropped image Circle And its price will will be $550 it's a completely manual lens Manual aperture control and manual focus Although focusing manually at such wide Angles is actually pretty easy to do and Well what a neat little thing this is And its impressive Zoom range takes you From a very wide angle of 16 mm to a Gaping the wide angle of only eight that Is really impressive the full frame Equivalent of about 24 to 12 mm so You'll never have an excuse for not Fitting every everything into your Picture with this optic it's potentially Useful for all kinds of landscape Photography travel and architecture work As well as simply getting a crazy Perspective on what might otherwise be a Boring photo I'd like to thank Venus Optics for learning me this lens for a Couple of weeks for testing although as Usual this is a totally independent Review the lens's build quality is very Typical for a lower lens here it's made Of metal it's a little bit weighty in
Your hand and it has very tightly Assembled build quality it's based on a Metal lens mount with no weather ceiling Or space for a rear filter then comes a Metal apture ring with markings for when You're zoomed out to 8 mm bear in mind That when you're zoomed in the aperture Will be twice as dark a switch on the Side lets you toggle between that apture Ring having clicks gentle clicks or Turning smoothly in front of that comes The zoom ring which turns very smoothly And evenly and a little heavily and then Of course comes the manual focus ring This too turns really smoothly just a Little firmly and with plenty of Precision it's very easy to manually Focus this lens whether you're zoomed in Or zoomed out we do see a moderate Amount of focus breathing but video Makers aren't really going to be doing Focus pulls this dramatic on such a Wide-angle OpTic The Lens comes with a Well-designed front cap which clicks Into place securely and interestingly it Comes with a front filter adapter yes This lens can take large 86 mm front Filters although you will definitely Want them to be as thin as possible to Avoid extra vignetting and forget about Stacking more than one of them for the Same reason still a fantastic feature on Such an extremely wide angle lens and Overall build quality is excellent here
Okay let's consider image quality now I'll be testing it on my Sony a5100 Camera with its 24 map apsc sized sensor In camera Corrections are not available With this lens at 8 mm and f3.5 image Quality is spectacularly perfect in the Middle let's move into the corners then That sharpness actually remains very Strong right up until you get right into The very edges where we do see some Blurring and also chromatic aberration On contrasting edges and darkness are Also issues in the corners stop down to F5.6 and you'll see well only a small Improvement to be honest f 8 and f11 Look about the same and F16 sees a touch Of softness emerging due to the effect Of defraction so at 8 mm there are Issues in the image corners but Admittedly the lens remains very sharp Indeed right until you reach the very Edges let's zoom into 16 mm then again Image quality is absolutely excellent in The middle this time the rest of the Image frame starts getting softer quite Quickly and the corners are no good Really stop down to f8 for a nice Improvement though and f11 actually Looks quite decent except for a bit of That color fringing on contrasting edges Okay overall well the lens is not an Optical Masterpiece but at least at 8 mm We're seeing a lot of sharpness and at 16 a MM stopping down yields good
Results there's more color fringing here Than I was hoping to see but also that's A typical Optical problem for a lot of Ultra wideangle lenses particularly zoom Lenses and others have the benefit bit Of in camera corrections to clear it up Okay let's see about Distortion and Vignetting now at 8 mm there's less Distortion than I was expecting to see But a bulbous mustache pattern Barrel Distortion is still noticeable and Unsurprisingly the corners are dark at The maximum aperture at f5.6 they Brighten a little but at f8 or Beyond They are no brighter this is probably Natural vignetting we're dealing with From working at such a wide angle rather Than Optical viting which means ler Probably couldn't have done anything About it zoom into 16 a MM and that Distortion flips into a very mild pin Cushion projection and vignetting is Almost non-existent so when shooting at 8 mm you might want to boost that corner Brightness in editing this lens can Focus down to about 20 cm which is okay If you're zooming in a bit at F5 Close-up image quality remains very good Getting just marginally sharper at f8 Although you might not be able to see The tiny difference on YouTube all right Let's see how well the lens works Against Bright Lights OU there are quite A few issues here as you can see right
Away whether bright lights are right There in the picture or on the edge Where a particularly large glare is Catching zoom in and things are about The same while we're working in the dark Let's see about coma levels even at f3.5 Coma smearing on bright Points of Light Remains nice and under control on on This lens with just a small amount to be Seen right in the very edges stop down To f5.6 to see it gone replaced with Impressive sunstars in fact let's zoom Out to see them a bit more clearly wow Stop down to f11 and they get just a Little bigger although at F16 they're Even bigger again nice kind of makes up For the flaring problem maybe finally Bcka it's very difficult to get out of Focus backgrounds with this lens as you Might imagine from its parameters Although if you do zoom in and get very Close to your subject then some nice Soft Boger is visible overall in a lot Of ways I liked this new lower lens very Much but it certainly does have its Issues including Corner softness and Darkness to work around and some strong Flaring problems however its strengths Outweigh its weaknesses in my opinion Its sharpness at 8 mm is good its Ability to use front filters a huge Blessing and its low coma and big sun Stars are pretty spectacular I really Liked its handy and rather extreme Zoom
Range too I think I can just about Recommend this lens for the exciting Images it's able to get just don't Expect Optical Miracles out of It okay thank you for watching and two Things firstly if you haven't already Check out the new playlist on a playlist Section of my channel which list my Reviews Now by camera mount and in other Cool ways to help you browse the lens Reviews you want and secondly thanks to My patreon supporters of course patreon Supporters get all kinds of exclusive Bonus content and early access to videos As well as a warm fuzzy feeling inside Them for playing such a big part in Keeping this YouTube channel going ciao For now [Music] Everyone
