When the Laowa 15mm 2.0 Zero-D FE for E-mount had been released in 2016 it was a truly unique offering, combining a fast f/2.0 maximum aperture with a very wide 15mm focal length in a compact package. It took until 2021, when Sony released the Sony FE 14mm 1.8 GM, for an actual competitor to show up.

Now in the M-mount world there isn’t a lens that comes even remotely close. We have a few fast 21mm lenses, but in the 15mm range the fastest lens is the super expensive Zeiss ZM 15mm 2.8 Distagon. The next best things are the Laowa 14mm 4.0 M, Leica 16-18-21mm 4.0 Tri-Elmar, the Zeiss ZM 18mm 4.0 Distagon and then the Voigtländer 15mm 4.5 lenses. They are all a long way from f/2.0. And they don’t really perform better at shared apertures.

I always like to see lenses that push the boundaries of a system and this is clearly the case here. But the Laowa 15mm 2.0 is not a lens that just sounds good on paper, it also has very good optical performance and a great mechanical design: all metal casing, equidistant click-stops on the aperture ring, click-stop at 0.7 m on the focus ring, holes for 6-bit coding the lens. It is really surprising that the aperture ring turns in the “wrong” direction compared to most M-mount lenses though.

After 7 years the E-mount version is still the lens I pick for landscape astrophotography and whenever I need an ultra wide angle lens in dimly lit environments where I cannot use a tripod. And now M-mount users have this option, too.