Venus Optics has announced the new Laowa 10mm f/4, an ultra-compact rectilinear pancake lens for APS-C mirrorless camera systems, which the company is billing as one of the world’s widest lenses of its kind.
The lens is available for Canon RF, Fujifilm X, Nikon Z, Sony E and L mounts. It has a 109.3-degree angle of view, and offers a roughly 15-16mm full-frame equivalent focal length.
The optical construction is pretty advanced for a prime lens, consisting of 12 elements in eight groups, including two aspherical elements and four extra-low dispersion elements. The lens is fully manual, and lacks any contacts for AF/EXIF transfer.
According to Venus Optics, most compact lenses with a pancake design suffer from excessive distortion, with their extreme field of view causing either a fisheye effect,…