Laowa 9mm T5.8 VV Cine Review

Laowa has announced its brand-new 9mm T5.8 VV Cine which is even wider than the 12mm T2.9 Zero-D Cine Lens they announced way back in 2019.

It is an ultra wide-angle lens for full-frame cameras and it features an all-metal construction. The immense 135° angle of view is complemented by an advanced optical design that uses low dispersion, aspherical, and high refractive index elements to control a variety of aberrations and distortion to achieve what Laowa claims is high sharpness, clarity, and color accuracy.

The optical construction of the lens consists of 14 elements in 10 groups and there are 5 aperture blades.

I have been lucky enough to get a loan unit from Laowa to put through its paces.

Laowa has also announced the 10mm T2.9 Zero-D VV Cine, 12mm T2.9 Lite Zero-D VV Cine, and 14mm T2.6 Zero-D VV Cine.

The 9mm and 10mm are the widest Cine rectilinear lenses in the market. The 10mm T2.9, 12mm T2.9 and 14mm T2.6 are Zero-D where lines remain straight.

Ultra Wide

At least to my knowledge, this is one of the widest PL mount full-frame lenses on the market and it is 3mm wider than their own 12mm T2.9 Zero-D Cine Lens.

There is also the GL Optics 10mm ZERO-D which is a rehoused Laowa stills lens.

ARRI has an upcoming Ensō 10.5mm T2.8 that will be coming out sometime later this year. Yes, that lens isn’t quite as wide, but it is a lot faster at T2.8.

ARRI also has the 12mm T1.8 Signature Prime, although that is considerably larger, heavier, and much more expensive.

Laowa has a reputation for making unique and unusual lenses, and the 9mm T5.8 follows in those footsteps. I like how Laowa has continued to walk its own path and not just make the same lenses everyone else is making.

Rehoused Stills Lens

The 9mm T5.8 VV Cine is based on the same optical design used in Laowa’s regular 9mm f/5.6 FF RL Lens. Essentially, like a lot of affordable cine lenses, it is a re-housed stills lens.

It is very common these days for companies to turn stills lenses into cine lenses by rehousing them. They do this primarily to keep costs down so you don’t have to pay an arm and a leg to buy one.

Despite being a re-housing of a stills lens, the cine version is only $ USD more than the standard lens.

The lens features standard 0.8 mod gears on both aperture and focusing rings, as well as a 90° focus throw.

Unlike the 12mm T2.9 Zero-D Cine, the 9mm T5.8 doesn’t come with a 114mm step-ring to expand the front diameter to fit with industry industry-sized matte box. The reason for this may be that it would be hard for a matte box to be used with this lens without getting any vignetting. I will test this out later in the review.

What you clearly need to remember is there isn’t a really easy way of attaching any type of filter to the front of this lens, so you will need to use a matte box if you are using it on a camera that doesn’t have built-in ND.

Optical Design

The optical design of the lens consists of 14 elements in 10 groups and it features 14 aperture blades which is 8 more than the stills version of the lens.

Build Quality

The 9mm T5.8 VV Cine is well made. The entire enclosure of the lens is made out of aluminum alloy. For a rehoused stills lens, Laowa has done a pretty good job when it comes to the build quilty. It does arguably feel more like a rehoused stills lens than a purpose-made cine lens. However, to be perfectly clear, there is nothing wrong with the build quality, but you shouldn’t expect it to feel like a much more expensive cine lens.

The focus and iris rings are reasonably well-weighted. The focus rotation is not overly big, but that is hardly an issue given it is an ultra wide angle lens.

Covers Vista Vision Sensors

The lens will cover a 43.65mm image circle. This allows cinematographers to not only use the lens on full-frame sensors but also on Vista Vision sensors such as the ARRI Alexa LF (open-gate 44.7mm). I tried the lens on a Kinefinity MAVO LF in 6K Open Gate and I had no issues with any vignetting.

The lens is also ideal for Super35-sized camera owners with the ultra-wide 13.5mm equivalent field of view. It is certainly a lens that you can use today and in the future if you decide to buy a camera with a larger sensor.

If you are going to buy a lens you really want it to last a long time and be able to use it on a multitude of cameras. What I like about PL mount lenses is that you can adapt them to just about any other mount that is out there.

As this is a manual focus lens, for me personally, it makes far more sense to buy this lens in PL mount regardless of what mount your camera is (unless it is Canon EF). It is easy to buy a PL adapter for most camera systems and then you can use this lens on more than just one camera platform.

Weight & Size

The lens is extremely compact and lightweight for a wide-angle prime that covers such large sensors. It measures 3.3” / 84mm long and weighs less than 1.32 lb / 600g. This makes it ideal for people wanting to use it on gimbals or drones.

Above you can see how much smaller it is than the 12mm T2.9 Zero-D Cine.

At 1.32 lb / 600g, it weighs almost twice as much as the stills version of this lens (12.35 oz / 350 g).

I was actually surprised at just how small the lens is. It really is tiny when you compare it against other PL mount wide-angle lenses.

Distortion

People tend to steer clear of using ultra-wide-angle lenses because of the extreme optical distortion they usually create. A good wide-angle lens should have no more than 2-4% distortion. The FF 9mm T5.8 features a rectilinear design, which is claimed to render subjects with minimal distortion.

Laowa claims that they have been able to compress the distortion to very low levels.

With a good ultra-wide-angle lens, straight lines should remain straight. This doesn’t mean you won’t get what is called ‘perspective distortion’, but straight lines shouldn’t warp.

I was keen to do some tests to see just how little distortion there was. While you are always going to get ‘perspective distortion’ with ultra-wide lenses because of the extreme angle of view, you want to make sure that straight lines remain completely straight. Below in the Real World Performance section, you can see how the lens keeps straight lines straight.

Close Focus

The lens is able to focus anywhere from 4.72” / 12cm away from the sensor all the way to infinity. Wide-angle lenses usually create a ‘flat’ image with very deep DOF and that is true of this lens because, with a maximum aperture of T5.8, you aren’t going to be able to get a very shallow depth of field even with the minimum focusing distance.

If you are focussing on an object that is too close to the lens you will get pretty bad ‘perspective distortion’. Whether or not this is acceptable to you will depend on what you are shooting. Man-made objects or people tend to look pretty bad, but scenes in nature where it is just long grass, etc. will look a lot better.

It’s a specialty lens

Ultra wide-angle lenses are somewhat of a specialty lens, and they really shouldn’t be overused. They are more for landscapes, architecture, and large vistas. If you are going to shoot people with them you need to be very careful. You don’t want people too close to the lens or placed out on the edges of frame.

You also don’t want objects placed too close to the lens and in the corner of the frame.

Perspective Distortion can actually be worse than bending lines if you don’t carefully compose and plan your shots. If objects or people are too close to the lens or too far out towards the edges of frame you will get seriously bad ‘perspective distortion’.

If you angle your lens down or up too much, or if you are doing a tilt up or down you need to consider how much ‘perspective distortion’ you will introduce.

If you want the least amount of ‘perspective distortion’ possible then you need to keep the lens perpendicular to your environment.

Sharpness

I set up a small test with the lens shooting full frame 6016 x 3172 on the Kinefinity MAVO LF. This was done to test center sharpness at various T stops. The lens is pretty sharp when used at T5.8, but it gets slightly better if you stop it down to T8.

I also compared the 9mm T5.8 VV Cine against the popular 12mm T2.9 Zero-D Cine.

Even the edge sharpness was pretty good. While it isn’t nearly as good as the center sharpness, I found it to be better than the 12mm T2.9 Zero-D Cine

For an ultra-wide-angle lens, the Laowa is nice and sharp.

Usability

Usability is a key component of any product, regardless of what it is. I was keen to see just how easy the lens was to use and if I experienced any operational issues.

What you need to clearly remember if you plan on using this lens on a mirrorless or DSLR, is that you cannot attach a front filter, you need to use it with a matte box, which comes with its own set of issues. This also applies to any digital cinema camera that doesn’t have built-in ND filters. With the matte box I tried you couldn’t use it as you will see it in the edges of your shot. If you shoot S35 then this isn’t an issue.

Because the lens is so short you are also going to find that a matte box is going to have to be placed fairly close to your camera body (even more so if you are using a standard PL mount camera without an adapter). This can make operating the lens very tricky.

The spacing between the lens gears is also extremely tight which will be an issue if you are running focus and iris lens motors as they would need to be run on opposite sides of the lens to fit.

Real World Performance

I went out and got a few shots with the lens. I was just interested in seeing how much perspective distortion there was and if straight lines stayed straight, how the lens reacted to flare, and what I could and couldn’t use the lens for.

I shot Open Gate 4.6K on the ARRI Alexa 35. Yes, this lens covers full-frame sensors, but at least in my opinion, I found it to be too wide on a full-frame camera!

The lens is reasonably sharp, and straight lines do stay relatively straight. You do get a ton of perspective distortion, but that is something I expected to see. You just need to be very careful what you shoot with an extreme wide angle lens. While it works for certain shots, with others, you end up getting very unnatural-looking footage.

I wouldn’t recommend shooting people with this lens, especially if they are too close to the lens or out towards the edges of frame.

The biggest caveat is the relatively slow T5.8 aperture which does somewhat limit its use in darker environments.

When you do large tilts up or down you do get a very surreal, almost 3D effect where objects almost seem to move closer or further away from the camera. Creatively, you can use this effect for certain shooting scenarios.

The lens is reasonably flare-resistant, which is good to see. The flare the lens does produce is ok, but it may not be to everyone’s taste.

With any extremely wide-angle lens, less is more. You wouldn’t want to overuse this lens.

Other mounts available

The lens is available in PL mount, as well as Canon EF, and Sony E-mount.

Above you can see a clearance check chart that you can download from Laowa.

Price

The 9mm T5.8 VV Cine retails for $1,499 USD. As a comparison, the Laowa 9mm f/5.6 FF RL Lens is $899 USD.

Conclusion

The 9mm T5.8 VV Cine is a really good ultra wide angle lens for full frame and larger sensors. At $1,499 USD it is also reasonably affordable.

I was impressed by the usability and optical performance of the lens. It gives you the ability to capture images that weren’t previously possible, but that does come at the expense of a slow T-stop.

Yes, it is essentially a rehoused stills lens, but that should deter potential buyers.

Is it perfect, no, but for a sub $1,500 USD cine lens that covers Vista Vision-sized sensors I can forgive it for not being perfect.