When going for an establishing shot that encompasses a lot of straight angles, sometimes lens distortion with a spot of chromatic aberration, and a shooter’s life can get challenging. But thanks to the Venus Optics Laowa 20mm Zero-D Shift series lens, architectural details can remain as straight as the contractor that built them.
Designed with architectural photography in mind, the Venus Laowa 20mm Zero-D shift lens guards against the straight lines of a building looking like it belongs in a sequel to Doctor Strange.
Image Source: Venus Optics
With a maximum shift of +11mm for full-frame cameras and +8mm for medium format cameras, creatives can maintain maximum control of photo composition with Laser-like sharpness and almost zero distortion.
Image Source: Venus Optics
The lens is built with a 14 blade aperture, which offers a sunburst like bokeh and lens flare.
This is accomplished thanks to a 16 lens element design arranged in 11 groups with 2 aspherical elements, and 3 ED elements to eliminate chromatic aberration and provide consistent sharpness through the entire frame image.
Image Source: Venus Optics
Other key features include a 94.4° angle of view, and up to 117° panorama so that an entire scene can be captured in a single shot with little to no movement. The maximum shift amount can also be beneficial for stitching an image together to get a larger sense of scale.
The 20mm Zero-D Shift also has an impressive close-up macro range, with a 22cm minimum focusing distance. Moreover, the lens is actually two lenses in one, as content creators can adjust the Fstop setting from 4-4.5 to create a 15mm point of view for an even wider look and sense of space. Or, stop down to f4 for a narrower, more natural perspective.
A cool accessory that comes with the 20mm Zero-D is a rotatable lens hood that shades the front of the lens from light and glare coming in from the side. Any strong light source can be denied or accepted according to the photographer’s desire by rotating the hood up to a complete 360 degrees.
Speaking of accessories, there’s special lens support that can be helpful to keep the camera steady while stitching together a master image. The rotatable ring has angles inscribed on it for solid accuracy, while the tripod-mounted ring keeps the principle axis solid while changing orientations from landscape to portrait.
All told, the Laowa 20mm Zero-D Shift lens is a solid tool to keep in one’s camera bag for the shooting of nature documentaries and photography, or even to capture the hustle and bustle of city life.
Available for $1299 in all mounts. The Lens Support is $249. More details can be found at VenusOptics.com.
[source: Venus Optics]
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