The Laowa LW-FX 15mm f/4 lens is a marvel of technology at a very affordable price.
The videos at Laowalenses.ca are inspirational: beautiful demonstrations of the lens’ ability to master near and far in depth of field and present a stunningly wide point of view. However, all seem to use a tripod and Live View video capability for composing, focusing and metering.
As a street photographer, I wanted to dispense with both the tripod and Live View. Bryan Irvine of Amplis Foto suggested I use Live View. Stubbornly, I persisted without it. I did not let frustrating difficulties dissuade me. Silly me.
Conclusion: Follow Bryan’s advice. I could do without the tripod, which I feel slows me down, but definitely had to use Live View which seemed to control accurate exposure and was necessary for focusing at close distances to the subject when depth of field is shallow.
I tried the lens in two situations: outdoors in the field and a small studio setup.
Here are the photos with my comments. The photos are unedited so you can see exactly what was originally recorded. (All photos ©Henry Gordillo)
First, remember this is a very wide-angle lens. I forgot and got parts of my body in the picture. Don’t panic and don’t do it.
Because it is so very wide angle, it is perfect for using with Photoshop and Lightroom for perspective control. There is a lot of image that you can afford to crop to get perspective adjustments and remove key stoning. Plus, there is the lens shift. But that I left for another experiment since that does benefit from having the camera on a tripod.
It does seem to see to infinity and beyond. Sometimes that leads to the transcendent.
At other times, it brings out the chaos of our daily material life.
The monolith (2001 – A Space Odyssey) and flowers. Although the latter are a little creepy since they are dead.
These are my favorites. Overall review judgement: In spite of a turbulent beginning with the lens since I did not use Live View, I think the lens is magnificent and well worth exploring much more. Okay – I love it.
Happy shooting.
About the Author – Henry Gordillo
Henry Gordillo is a street photographer. Visit his website to see what that means: henrygordillo.com.
He also teaches at Ryerson University in the School of Image Arts.
His upcoming Ryerson courses are: Traveling Camera (CDFP 915) preparing to travel and using the camera. Photography Production I (CDFP 328) an introduction to photography through digital camera work. And Photographing in the Field (CDFP 318) a practical course shooting and talking in Toronto’s streets and parks.
Contact him through his website for further information.
And to register, go to the Ryerson CE website.
