Laowa 10mm F4.0 Cookie

It's the widest-angle rectilinear pancake lens available, but is this tiny and affordable prime any good?

- Andy Westlake

Venus Optics might just be the most creative lens maker at the moment, and its latest design again illustrates why. It’s a unique ultra-wideangle prime for APS-C mirrorless cameras that’s just an inch long and weighs a mere 120g. Available in Canon RF, Fujifilm X, Nikon Z, Sony E, and L mounts, and in a choice of black or silver finishes, it costs a very palatable £339.

The firm describes it as ‘the world’s widest rectilinear pancake lens’, but this almost does it a disservice. It’s actually one of the widest-angle APS-C lenses around regardless of size, surpassed only by the larger, more expensive Laowa 9mm F2.8 Zero-D. It offers a huge 109° angle of view, equivalent to a 15mm lens on full frame, which should make it an interesting option for landscapes, interiors, and architecture. ‘Rectilinear’ means that it renders straight lines without distortion, unlike a fisheye lens.

Like all Laowa lenses, the 10mm f/4 is manual focus only. It also requires the aperture to be set using a ring on the lens barrel, rather than from the camera. But with a lens this wide used on mirrorless cameras, neither should be a deal-breaker. Let’s see how it performs.

Features

Given its slimline dimensions, the Laowa 10mm f/4 uses an impressively complex optical design. It squeezes elements arranged in eight groups into an optical unit that’s just 3cm long. This includes four elements made from extra-low dispersion (ED) glass and two from ultra-high refraction (UHR) glass, along with a pair of aspherical elements. The aim is to minimise distortion and chromatic aberration.