Laowa Releases Extreme-Wide-Angle APS-C Zoom Lens

2023.10.10

This morning Venus Optics announced an extremely-wide zoom lens exclusively for Mirrorless Digital Cameras with an APS-C sensor. The new lens is part of the Dreamer series of manual lenses that covers unique optics in multiple categories working to push one specification limit.

The Laowa CF 8-16mm F/3.5-5 C-Dreamer is a highly compact zoom lens that covers up to an extremely wide 120° angle-of-view. This is the widest field-of-view captured by any rectilinear lens with APS-C coverage. Only one lens matches this focal-range, the Fujinon XF8-16mm F/2.8R LM WR which is exclusively available for the Fujifilm X-mount. When mounted on most APS-C mirrorless cameras, the new Laowa CF 8-16mm is equivalent to a 12-24mm lens. Only a few such lenses exist and they are necessarily significantly larger than this new model.

Outside of its extraordinary field-of-view, this lens has fairly typical specifications for a compact third-party lens. A 5-blade iris controls the aperture which opens to F/3.5 on the wide-end and a fairly dim F/5 at the longer end. It is a fractional stop wider than most variable-aperture lenses. A minimum focus-distance of 20cm translates into 1:8 magnification which is in the ballpark for ultra-wide zoom lenses.

©2023 Mark Wiemels - Image courtesy of Venus Optics

One rare feature of this 8-16mm F/3.5-5 lens is its support for screw-on filters. The lens is thready to accept filters with 86mm in diameter. Those are quite large and expensive yet most extreme wide-angle lenses do not accept any. As with other Venus Optics lenses, this is a completely mechanical lens that must be manually controlled. It has no electronic contracts, so does not report itself to the attached camera. When mounted on a digital camera with IBIS, the focal-length used must be entered so that the stabilization works properly. This will definitely get cumbersome quickly since it is a zoom lens. It doesn't matter when shooting from a tripod though.

This lens weighs 463g which is significantly lighter than all other lenses that can capture such wide focal-length. Only Fujifilm X users have a current option with the same focal-range. Sigma made a similar yet heavier lens a long time ago for multiple DSLR mounts. Even when it was still in production, the Sigma 8-16mm F/4.5-5.6 DC HSM was a hard-find.

The new Laowa CF 8-18mm F/3.5-5 C-Dreamer is immediately available for $550 USD. Venus Optics produces versions of this lens for 5 mounts: Sony E, Fujifilm X, Nikon Z, Canon RF and Canon EF-M. It can be ordered from Venus Optics directly at the link above.

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