New Venus Optics 20mm Extends Shift Lens Series for 8 Mounts

2022.03.28

Venus Optics just launched their most ambitious Shit lens yet. The new Laowa 20mm F/4 Zero-D Shift is an ultra-wide angle lens for Full-Frame and Medium-Format cameras with Shift capability, up to 11mm of offset for Full-Frame and up to 8mm for Medium-Format.

The Laowa 20mm F/4 Zero-D Shift captures a 94° angle-of-view with virtually no optical distortion. With its added shift feature, the field-of-view can cover 117° without changing the optical axis. Its optical formula allows this lens to focus down to 25cm which translates into a 0.17X maximum magnification. It can be shifted along any axis and even comes with a special rotating lens hood that can be used to tune the protection against stray light rays.

A mechanical ring selects aperture from F/4 to F/22. This iris is made of 14-blades to produce very smooth bokeh and allow out-of-focus regions to blur very evenly. The front of the is fitted with an 82mm filter-thread for standard screw-on filters. A knob controls the shift offset while a lever unlocks rotating elements to set the shift-axis. Even though it sports a complex mechanical design and optical formula, its weight remains a very manageable 747g.

A lens like the new Venus Laowa 20mm F/4 Zero-D Shift is extremely well-sutied to architectural photography and will excel at captuting large monuments and temples. Such a specialty lens is rare and many mounts have extremely limited access to these. Incredibly, Venus Optics produced this lens for 8 mounts: Canon EF, Canon RF, Nikon F, Nikon Z, Sony E, Pentax K, Leica L and Fujifilm G. This is certainly among the most widely supported shift lenses. The launch price is exactly the same for all mounts: $1300 USD.

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