Welcome back to brewery TV viewers it's Chris Nichols here and look we're Outside we're not coming to you from my Living room for a change and that's Because we've got a field test today we Are testing the brand new laowa sea Dreamer Zero D 19 millimeter F 2.8 for The Fujifilm gfx system now Unfortunately as you can see it's not Ideal testing conditions for an ultra Wide medium format lens but that's Winter time in Alberta that's just the Way it goes it's freezing there's Nothing we can do about it but I do have A big announcement subsequently Jordan And I are going to be moving our and our Entire extended families to British Columbia Kelowna the Okanagan Valley uh As soon as we convince everybody to do That because So my weapon of choice today for our Lens test the gfx100s because it's just So compact fits into this little wooden Craft three and a half liter pilot Perfectly easy to carry around so yeah Let's get to it I hope I can find Something to shoot Oh look Jordan it's uh it's Lake Michigan Yeah super cute so in typical law of Fashion the 19 millimeter is actually Fully metal construction which is great Because it gives you that really nice Buttery smooth manual focusing metal
Helicoid but I was actually impressed by How well the aputure ring is built as Well it actually feels a little bit more Solid has a little bit of a nicer click Than I've seen on other Lowell lenses Now of course we've got depth of field Focusing indicators which is great if You want to do hyper focal distance Focusing which on a lens like this you'd Probably actually do quite a bit Otherwise you do have a 77 millimeter Filter thread that's nice a nice metal Hood comes with it and overall we'll Leave about 550 grams so a quarter of a Knock for a full metal lens I mean it's Quite compact quite lightweight easy to Carry around now as usual with many low Lenses we're talking about a fully Mechanical lens here none of the Electrical conveniences you would Normally find in a lot of other products So that means of course manual focusing Your aperture is not going to be Transmitted to your exif data your focal Length won't be transmitted none of that You got to program your in-body image Stabilization for the right focal length All that kind of stuff right I mean That's pretty typical here but one thing I do like a lot of mechanical uh Non-electronic connection lenses tend to Have poor Distortion characteristics you Know if it's not corrected the camera's Not going to automatically do it there's
No profile so you got to do it all Manually in Photoshop afterwards but With the laowa lenses here they're Basically very low Distortion lenses so There's minimal if any correction that Needs to be done afterwards so that's Nice when you're previewing your shots And you actually don't have any Distortion but it also saves you time on The back end now a lot of really wide Angle primes usually double as decent Macro lenses letting you get really Close and allow a sea dreamer we're Getting about 18 centimeters that's not That physically close to our subject Although keep in mind this is a medium Format camera so that does make sense But we're getting about one to five Life-size reproduction a little bit less Than that so I wouldn't call this a Macro lens certainly though you can get Fairly close to things you can get some Neat close-up shots but not macro by any Stretch but you know I don't think we're Gonna get any flare or Sunstar shots Today not with the web other the way it Is so hopefully it'll cooperate in the Next few days we'll get some sun to be Able to do some more tests so when you See me again we'll be back for the rest Of the lowest sea dreamer 19 millimeter All right and I'm back and you wouldn't Know it by the weather today but since I Last saw you I was able to actually get
Some sunny conditions and do some flare And Sunstar tests we're gonna talk about It just a bit but first I want to touch On bouquet on this Lao 19 millimeter now It actually does have nice smooth Transitions but again this is an ultra Wide it's not really the lens that You're going to get super shallow depth Of field but when things are out of Focus it has a pretty nice transition Now this does have a five bladed Aperture what that means is when you're Shooting wide open you're going to get The round opening of the actual lens Mount itself and you're going to see That you actually get nice round bouquet Balls and actually quite nice looking But when you stop down you will get These adorable pentagons now they're Kind of cool they're kind of neat Looking I mean I'm not going to say it's A terrible thing but you definitely Notice it and it can be distracting and You look at a shot here you're Definitely going to see specular Highlights taking on that shape now Normally we use circular bladed Apertures and lenses to give an even More smooth rendition of out-of-focus Areas but what this should do with this Pentagonal shaped aperture opening is Actually give you really interesting Sun Stars so the 19 millimeter Lauer can Deliver quite dramatic sunstars as you
Can see here 10 blades you know quite Thin tines although they don't really Come to nice sharp points I've seen Better Sun stars but on much more Expensive lenses so for the price point I think there's actually quite fun to Play with and you'll get those even from F8 f11 up to you know F-16 F22 so you Can actually get some really nice Sunstars now of course shooting to the Sun we also have to talk about flare now The Lauer Coatings actually handle loss Of contrast quite well I'm not really Noticing any major stuff but like all True Laos we get a lot of ghost in here I mean you could see first off just rays Of light streaking across from the Sun And those can look kind of cool but We're also getting those concentric Rings and I've seen that on other Lowell Lenses and that happens pretty much Throughout the Apert range even stopping Down they're not really going away so Cool cool maybe in certain situations But honestly quite busy and I do Personally wish they weren't there Sharpness on the laowa 19 millimeter so Let's take a look at our chart so first Off when you're looking at the center of The image shot wide open at F 2.8 I mean It's not bad but certainly as you can See here stopping lens down at 5.6 it Does improve quite a bit in the center Of the image now looking at the corners
Again shooting wide open not super sharp But not bad stopping down again five six Does help a lot in the corners so this Is definitely a lens it likes to be Stopped down and I actually found I did Most of my shooting from then on when I Could at f8 or f11 because I really did Notice a difference now one thing that I Did notice in our particular sample when Focusing closer on objects we would Actually get a sharp Center but then This sort of Ring of blurriness around It and then actually the corners would Get sharp again so we kind of have this Thing where you know up close there's This this Bullseye pattern almost of Sharpness it was kind of strange however Let's just give a little bit more Context here the extreme corners of the Lens they still kind of get a little Squidgy they just get this weird blurred Effect on the extreme Corners definitely Lots of vignetting even when stopping Down that doesn't largely go away so the Last thing I want to mention is I shot Our sample Gallery with this lava 19 Millimeter on both the Fujifilm gfx100s And the gfx 50s and I just feel like Even when stopped down the 100 megapixel Sensor is just asking a little bit too Much out of our particular sample that We were using now on the 50 megapixel Gfx I think that was better made it and I was happy with the shots there and
Again stopping down this lens I think is Really important if you're gonna try to Get the most sharpness out of it but It's not that I wouldn't use it on Megapixel sensor I just feel like if you Want to get the most out of that sensor You might have to pay more money for Something a little bit higher end so Should you buy this lens well I mean First thing you gotta remember it's a Lao which means it's quirky I mean fully Mechanical no electrical connection of Course you'll be able to deal with that And uh manual focus only and I mean the Fact that you've got weird ghosting and Strange Flair and weird Sun stars but Actually they can be really funky Sometimes they can sometimes be annoying I mean that's part of the charm there And you know the sharpness we've talked About that yeah it does leave just a Little bit to be desired but at the same Time you have to remember that this lens Is only a thousand dollars U.S roughly And so if you're looking for a lens that You're only going to use occasionally in This Ultra wide on your medium format That could be a really nice option you Know and if we look at the other options Okay Fujifilm do make an excellent 20 to 35 Zoom now it is an F4 whereas this is A 2.8 Prime and in that regard I still Think the loud should be stopped down Anyway so I don't think that's such a
Major disadvantage for the Fujifilm but Although it's sharp and it's versatile It is also more than three times the Price of the law and then they also make A 23 millimeter Prime again in F4 and It's a really nice lens as well but it's Not going as wide it's full frame Equivalent just doesn't give you that Sort of 15 to 16 millimeter equivalent That we're looking for and at the same Time it's more than two and a half times The price now you could also do adapters You could use a lot of full frame lenses That will actually cover the gfx sensors But then again you're going to have a Lot of vignetting you're gonna have the Fall off on the corner sharpness on the Corners is going to be great and you Know you could also adapt other medium Format lenses but any of the ones that Really push this kind of wide angle Coverage they're probably going to be Really expensive used anyways so those Are options to look at but really I Think there is a niche for the lava Leave your comments below we'd always Love to see those and let us know what You think if this law was a good option For you or not otherwise Please Subscribe like the channel we'd Appreciate that check out the Sab legary On dpreview.com the link is in the Description below we'll see you shortly With another episode of deeper review TV
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