Venus Optics, the brand behind Laowa lenses has pulled the covers off its latest release and the Laowa 9mm f/5.6 FF RL can rightly claim to be the world’s widest rectilinear lens for full frame cameras. This new optic takes the title from Laowa’s existing RL lens, the 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6.
Offering photographers a 135° angle of view, the new Laowa 9mm f/5.6 is available in Leica M, Sony FE, Nikon Z and L mount. Built around a 14 elements in 10 groups optical design, the 9mm features two aspherical elements and two extra-low dispersion elements help to help eliminate chromatic aberrations.
Along with the ultra wide focal length, which will be of great interest to landscape and architecture photographers, the Laowa 9mm f/5.6 FF RL features an impressive minimum focusing distance as the optic can focus as close as 12cm away, enabling users to make more of foreground interest in their frames.
Tipping the scales at just 350g, the Laowa 9mm f/5.6 FF RL is a compact lens, measuring just 6cm long. Despite the wide-angle design, photographers can still make use of the more typically sized 100mm filters via a magnetic filter holder system, enabling users to employ ND and ND grad filters.
Thanks to a 5-bladed aperture design, the Laowa 9mm f/5.6 FF RL is also capable of producing impressive 10-point sunstars when the sun is included in the frame. With a maximum aperture of f/5.6, the new Laowa also supports rangefinder coupling on Leica cameras.
Available in black (or black and silver for Leica cameras), the Laowa 9mm f/5.6 FF RL is priced at around $899 (Leica M mount) and $799 for the Sony FE, Nikon Z and L mount options.
