Played with the Venus Optics Laowa 15mm f/4 Macro Lens for Nikon F today

I tested the lens on my D800 and found that the copy I tried was noticeably weak on the right 2mm or so of the frame, at all apertures. On a DX camera it wouldn't be a problem, and I'm considering trying another copy because on the left side of the frame the resolution was fine on my D800. It's a well constructed lens, but my copy wouldn't firmly lock in the center or top shift positions while it did lock in the bottom position -- which raises another issue, there are only three shift positions (6mm above or below the center of the short axis, and centered), and they can only be applied up or down in landscape orientation or right and left in portrait orientation, and as marginally useful as 6mm is for shifting (I will take it) being an all-or-nothing option makes it a bit less useful. Again, on a DX camera the shift goes from 25% to 37.5%, and the vignetting I saw fully shifted on my D800 wouldn't show up on a smaller format camera. There is a wavy distortion which is only partially addressed using PT Lens, and that would show up on a smaller format too. A tilt function would be nice to have on this lens.

Now for the positive part -- this lens has a good deal of creative potential. The bokeh is nice (14 rounded aperture blades) on this is 15mm, 1:1 magnification macro lens. Used for that purpose the softness at the edge of one side of the frame that I saw when focused at infinity practically becomes a non-issue. Here's the thing though, when you start working at such short distances (4.7" focus distance) perspective distortion becomes an issue, and the .2" working distance means that you will very often be blocking the light reaching your subject. Before packing the lens up to send back to B&H Photo, I took this shot in my apartment's front yard:

At $500 I'm on the fence about replacing the copy of this lens that I tried. I guess there's a bit of buyer's remorse due to the single axis 6mm shift limitations. I do feel that if I can use it as a functional replacement for my Samyang 14mm lens on my D800 then I can justify the expense because in spite of its limitations this is a more useful lens and I can recover some of its cost by selling the Samyang, and this lens is smaller than the Samyang (400 grams instead of 530 grams). Later this month Laowa is coming out with the Venus Optics Laowa 15mm f/4.5 Zero-D Shift lens which will do sunstars with its 5 blade aperture, shifts up to 11mm in every direction, has about half the magnification (which is plenty for me and enough to do the shot above), weighs 50% more (about 600 grams), and costs about $1200 plus tax.

I just tried a copy of the f/4.5 Zero-D Shift lens, and it was much worse than the f/4 Macro lens. It is getting second chance, but if it comes up short I may well be back to trying another copy of this lens.

More to come.