Review on 📷 Laowa 12mm f/2.8 Zero-D Sony FE Lens: Wide Angle MILC/SLR Photography with Manual Focus – Sony E-mount by Lisa Lopez

Just got my new Laowa 12mm Zero-d lens and I love it. I have a hobby and at the same time I am learning a new hobby, a new camera and a new lens. I don't normally write reviews but this is the cheapest wide angle lens you can buy for Sony full frame cameras and it really works. And I thought I should share the news. Thanks to the wide-angle lens, I was still able to capture the Milky Way even though there was a moon in the sky and I was in an area with heavy light pollution. I found two local parks in town and gave it a try. (See Photos) Can't wait for the Galactic Core and New Moon to return to my local sky. I couldn't find any barrel distortion. You can see a distortion of perspective in these photographs. Caused by the way I framed my photo. If I tilt the camera slightly toward the horizon, vertical objects straighten out. If I were further away from vertical objects, they wouldn't lean inward. In these cases, I chose to focus on the big sky and not worry about the foreground. I use the landscape version of these photos on my desktop and the portrait version on my phone's lock screen. I've been told that there is perspective distortion with any ultra-wide lens, so I'm not worried about that. I just need to improve my shots by looking for different vantage points. I'm still trying to sharpen my close-ups. It's not real macro, but you can get very close. These photos of flowers were taken from less than a foot away and then cropped. I found them pretty good for a wide angle lens. This is a durable lens. Appears to be well built. The 1.4 pound camera and 1.3 pound lens make holding this setup a bit of an exercise. Luckily I do most of my work on a tripod. This lens made it easy for me to focus on the stars. This lens lets in a lot of light, which is very nice. I use it with the new Sony a7iii and after this purchase I had to think seriously about lenses and my budget. This lens was great for astrophotography and fit my budget. So I tried this lens and am very happy with it. Why only 4 stars? Communication. Only ISO data and shutter speeds are transferred to Lightroom. So if you're using Lightroom to view stats about your photo to prepare for your next trip, you're going to be missing some information. If you want to use filters, you also need to buy a special filter mount. In general I like it. Many thanks to Venus Optics.