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<\/a>What is a shift lens?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Shift lenses have been around for a while, but due to their expense, all manual operation, and specialized nature, most photographers haven’t used them. The main reason for a shift lens is to correct perspective distortion. It is able to do this by having a significantly larger image circle than needed to cover the image sensor or film. In this case, the Laowa 15mm f\/4.5 has a 65mm image circle, which is significantly larger than the 43mm circle needed to cover a full-frame sensor. The lens optics are then mounted on a mechanism that allows the entire optical package to shift, so that you can change the portion of the image circle the camera sees. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So why would someone want to do that? Anyone who has used a wide-angle lens knows the lines in the image are only straight when the camera is perfectly level. Tilting up to get more of a tall object in the frame will cause straight lines to converge. This causes tall objects to look like they are tapering to a point. Likewise, angling down to get more foreground causes the lines to converge at the bottom of the frame and diverge at the top. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Using a shift lens allows you to keep the camera aimed level to keep the lines straight, and then shift the lens optics up or down to create the framing you want. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Additionally, since the shift lens is simply showing different parts of one image circle to the camera, the shift feature, along with the ability to rotate the shift axis, allows one to do panoramic shots that are seamless, something that is generally very difficult to do with an ultra-wide lens. Most compositions will stitch panoramas beautifully with just shifting the lens. For absolutely pixel perfect stitches with close foreground subjects, Laowa offers a lens mount that holds the front of the lens stable while the camera shifts behind it. For most situations, you won’t need this. Using full shift at each of the rotational positions allows you to not only make horizontal or vertical panoramas, but also combine both to create shots that are both perspective corrected and extremely wide. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The shot above is a stitch of 11 photos, taken at full shift and 15 degree rotation from 90 degrees horizontal left to 90 degrees right. The resulting image is a 75 megapixel image with a field of view equivalent to around 10mm on full frame. I did fill in the upper corners, which were left blank since I had subject at the very top at maximum shift. For shots that don’t require maximum shift, you can crop the frame without blank edges. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The rotation feature is useful not only to change the orientation of the shift axis when moving from landscape to portrait orientation, or for panoramas, but the intermediate shift positions allows you to precisely position the frame both horizontally and vertically to keep both vertical and horizontal lines straight. The shot below was shifted at a 45 degree angle up and to the right to keep the camera straight on the buildings in the background while framing the shot how I wanted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Shift lenses have historically been manual focus lenses. Even Canon’s high end Tilt-Shift lenses are all manual affairs, though Canon does include electronic contacts and automatic aperture. The Laowa 15mm f\/4.5 Shift is likewise a fully manual lens, with manual focus, aperture, shift and rotation, with no lens contacts. For a lens such as this, that’s perfectly fine, as shift lenses are best used tripod mounted. Operation of a shift lens is also somewhat complex. With three separate control rings, plus the rotational axis to navigate, setting up your shot correctly takes a bit of effort and precision. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Laowa 15mm f\/4.5 Zero-D Shift is constructed entirely of metal and glass, and is a rather dense package at 597g. All of the lens controls operate smoothly, with excellent damping. At the front of the lens sits a ribbed metal manual focus ring that operates smoothly with just the right resistance. Behind that sits the aperture ring, which has detents at each full stop of aperture from f\/4.5 to f\/22. Due to the nature of the lens, I shot almost exclusively at f\/11 or f\/16 for maximum edge to edge sharpness and depth of field. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Behind the aperture ring is the shift ring. Rather than have a small and fiddly knob to adjust shift, Laowa has incorporated the shift movement into a metal ring, which makes controlling the shift smooth and easy. Behind the shift ring sits the shift lock knob, which keeps the lens firmly at its shifted position. Finally a rotation lever allows the lens to rotate in 15 degree increments for 360 degrees, with locking detents at these 15 degree positions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n You may have noticed the extremely bulbous front element of the Laowa 15mm f\/4.5 Shift. This is necessary due to the extreme field of view. While the lens is a 15mm lens, the field of view for the whole image circle is closer to that of a 9mm lens on full frame. The large image circle is closer to that of a 645 medium format lens than a 35mm lens. There is no lens hood, nor an option for one, and that giant front element is exposed when the lens is in use. <\/p>\n\n\n\n With this element, care must be taken to avoid damaging it when in use. Thankfully, Laowa has designed a very nice lens cap for the 15mm shift, which locks onto the lens like a lens hood, rather than using a friction design. As such, there is almost no chance of accidentally knocking the cap off the lens while in your bag or while being carried. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In all, the lens is constructed very well, with excellent control feel, smooth gearing and excellent damping on the focus ring. The lens is not weather sealed, which is common for Laowa lenses, but given the type of shooting this lens is most suited to, I don’t think that’s a huge loss. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Evaluating image quality on an ultra-wide shift lens is a bit of a challenge. This lens really has nothing else in the world to compare it to, being the widest shift lens ever made. However, based on other wide-angle shift lenses, creating a lens like this invariably involves design decisions that make creating a perfect lens near impossible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of those tough to evaluate criteria is sharpness. I tested the lens on the 45 megapixel Canon EOS R5, which with its high resolution is rather demanding on lenses. The Laowa 15mm f\/4.5 Shift lens shows good resolution, but in absolute terms falls below the very best fixed focal ultra-wide lenses. The central image area (unshifted) shows good sharpness wide open at the focus distances that are typically in use, with softer edges. Stopping down to f\/8, or even better, f\/11, brings edge and corner sharpness of the unshifted image to very good levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At maximum shift, there is some residual softness near the edges even at small apertures, but the definition is still at a notably higher level than the typical shift lens. While I have not directly compared them, I have seen other tests that put the Laowa head to head with Canon’s $2,100 17mm TS-E, and the Laowa is notably better at the edges at full shift. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s worth noting that despite things being softer near the shifted corners, there is still a fair bit of detail that can be brought out with proper sharpening. Below is an example. The shot below was taken at f\/11 and at around 8mm of shift. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Looking at the detail near the upper left corner, you can see that while there is decent contrast and moderate detail there, the overall impression is somewhat soft. With proper sharpening, however, the lens can blossom, even at the edge. The 100% crops below show the image with my default RAW sharpening on top, and then below that after a pass through Topaz Sharpen AI, which really brings out a nice level of detail at the edges. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s worth noting that while the lens doesn’t produce tack sharp corner results at maximum shift, it is still a better performance than the vast majority of shift lenses, and significantly better image quality than taking a sharper, wider lens and doing software perspective correction to correct the verticals. The detail is certainly good enough to make very pleasing large prints. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The lens can focus to a very close 0.2m, and it maintains excellent central sharpness even at f\/4.5 at this close focus distance. However, outside of the very center, sharpness falls off dramatically, with anything outside of the dead center being essentially unusable. Of course, the nice thing is that shifting the lens can keep the center of the optics focused on your subject, but in a different part of the frame. Stopping down to around f\/16 improves sharpness a little. But other than the occasional odd closeup, I think most people are going to be sticking to using this lens for architecture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A lens like this is not designed for creamy backgrounds, though wide open near minimum focus distance, the Laowa 15mm shift lens produces a fair amount of blur. It also doesn’t look too bad, with generally smooth results on distant out of focus backgrounds. However, focusing this close up dramatically increases lateral chromatic aberration, so some funky things can pop up on objects near the focus point. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In most situations, the Laowa 15mm f\/4.5 Shift produces images with nice contrast and color, with perhaps a touch of a warm tint to the images. The exception comes in case of flare, which I’ll touch more on in the next section. The 15mm f\/4.5, like many extremely wide lenses, as well as many shift lenses, has a fair bit of lateral chromatic aberration. This is minimal when unshifted, but the edges can show noticeable CA at maximum shift. This is mostly correctable in software, but it’s definitely something to note. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At close focus distances, the lateral chromatic aberration becomes extreme, especially when shifted, such that it becomes difficult to get anything particularly sharp near the edges at close focus. It’s also severe enough that auto correction tools can’t really deal with it either. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Laowa 15mm f\/4.5 is designed to have minimal distortion, which is why the lens carries the ‘Zero-D’ moniker in its name. The lens shows minor barrel distortion that is only really visible at the extreme ends of the shift range. For the most part, however, the lens shows remarkably low distortion, which is important in a lens that is primarily used for shooting architecture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The lens is a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to flare. I definitely noticed some subtle ghosting in certain situations from artificial light, and I have seen samples from other reviews that show the lens can produce rather large ghosts when the sun is in a specific position. In my shooting I did not encounter this, though I didn’t shoot into the sun much. The shot above has the sun just above the horizon, but no ghosting was induced. I did notice reduced contrast in images with the sun out of frame, however, and that’s something that could require extra processing work if shooting in sunny conditions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The lens does vignette noticeably, especially at wider apertures. The lens vignettes most notably at the edges of shifting, where the vignetting is one-sided. Since that area is usually in the sky, I didn’t find it to be distracting, but if it bothers you, getting rid of it becomes more of a challenge due to the fact that it is only on one edge of the frame. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In all, the Laowa 15mm f\/4.5 Zero-D Shift is a pretty impressive optic for an ultra-wide shift lens, with minimal distortion, good sharpness and good color and contrast. Like most wide shift lenses, it falls short of the best prime ultra-wide lenses in terms of pure image quality, but it can also do things that those lenses can’t. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Laowa 15mm f\/4.5 Zero-D Shift lens is a unique lens. It’s the widest shift lens available, allowing for ultra-wide perspective corrected shots that have never been possible before. The lens has good sharpness for a shift lens, with good color and contrast and low distortion, and it does all this for about half the cost of Canon’s 17mm TS-E, which was the previously widest fully functional shift lens. (Laowa does also make a 15mm f\/4 Macro lens with shift capability, but I discount that previous effort for serious architectural photography due to the lack of rotation and the minimal shift capability of only 6mm.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is not a lens for the masses. Using it properly takes time, fine adjustment and for the vast majority of shooting, a tripod to properly set up each shot. However, architectural photographers will love having a lens this wide that can correct perspective distortion. Despite some issues with flare and some chromatic aberration, it’s a lens that does things that no other lens can do and is easy to recommend at its relatively affordable price for this type of lens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Click on an image to enlarge.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Laowa is a relative newcomer to the consumer photographic industry, but in the short time they’ve been around they have released a large number of unique lenses that provide capabilities that aren’t available from any other manufacturer. From extreme ultra-wide angle lenses, to greater than 1:1 macro lenses and probe lenses, they’ve created some truly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10583,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/laowa15_r5.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p28RGq-2Ky","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10574"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10633,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10574\/revisions\/10633"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/a><\/a>Construction and Handling<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>Continue: Image Quality<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Image Quality<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Sharpness<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/a><\/a>Bokeh<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Color, Contrast and Chromatic Aberration<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>Distortion, Flare and Vignetting<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>Continue: Conclusion and Image Samples<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Conclusion<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Pros<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Cons<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Image Samples<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>If you enjoyed this review, check out my other reviews in the Review Index.<\/a><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"