Review on Laowa 15Mm Zero D Lens Nikon by Sean Baller

I was looking for a lens for casual night/Milky Way photography that a) doesn't weigh a ton b) won't break the bank c ) has acceptable performance and d) requires preferably no adapters on my Z6. Based on the reviews the Laowa 15mm f2 "zero D” lens seemed like the ticket, so when one came up for sale at Revain in "like new” condition I went for it. Take it off the tripod side by side. with a Nikon lens of the same focal length, I noticed that the Laowa meters differently in A mode at the same aperture, while producing darker images in M mode at similar settings. Which prompted me to do more testing. On a tripod in mode A under fixed artificial light conditions, I simply recorded the measured shutter speeds. The Nikon lens behaved exactly as one would expect. In the range f/4-f/22 in 1-stop increments, the measured shutter speeds were f/4-> f/22: 1/20, 1/10, 1/5, 1/2.5, 1/1, 3, 1 ,6"f22->f4: 1.6", 1/1.3, 1/2.5, 1/5, 1/10, 1/20/20, 1/13, 1/5, 1/ 3, 1/ 1.6, 1"f22->f2.8: 1", 1", 1/2, 1/5, 1/10, 1/20, 1/40 The aperture ring was in of the "click" position. You can immediately see that the calibration is not correct and there is significant play/hysteria between the up and down rows. I repeated the test a couple of times and it repeated. Once the aperture was zoomed out beyond f/5.6, the increments were not in full 1/2 increments, and reverse was offset from straight. Also, the lens measured in A and S modes, but not in M Not sure if I would blame Laowa for that, it might be something because of nikon software but it's a problem anyway.contrast, not so good sharpness, looks a little blurry in the corners, even with f/1 6. considering this lens occupies 65% of nikon's positions, the latter isn't too surprising, i didn't notice any obvious decentering issues, although i didn't look closely. These results are disappointing. I was hoping the lens would be good enough to keep. We'll have to look at alternatives, unfortunately none currently exist in the native Z mount and there's nothing for the foreseeable future that would cost a ton either.