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Laowa 17mm F4 for the GFX


jlmphotos

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Hey everyone,  Hope everyone is safe and well.  I'd like to know if anyone here has any experience with the Laowa 17mm F4 for the GFX system.  I'd like to know how it would handle on my 50R.  I've been looking at the Laowa in order to save about a grand over the 23mm Fuji lens.  Any input is appreciated.

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  • 9 months later...
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Well I went and bought the lens from B&H for US $999.00 instead of the 1199.00 the lens is listed for.  I received it, I tested it, and I promptly returned it the next day.

The lens looked great on my 50R. It felt solid in the hand.  The fit and finish was very, very nice.  The aperture ring had a nice solid, but subdued quiet click.  

If only the the lens performed as well as it looked and felt.  Unfortunately my copy of my lens was, in my opinion, sucky.  It was very, very soft in the middle, upper portion of the frame as well as the lower middle section.  Also, two of the corners were so smeared, even at F11 that I just couldn't deal with it or fix it in LR or Capture One. I tested the lens on a tripod at F4, F5.6, f8, f11 and f16.  I found F8 to be the sharpest - it even reduced the smearing in all four corners.  However, even though I knew it was manual focus only, and I knew the aperture would not record into the EXIF,  that plus the fact the lens was not sharp at all was a no go for me.  I'm headed out for a week to Cape Cod and Nantucket Island and I was really looking forward to using an ultra wide on my GFX.  I suppose I'll just use my XH1 with my Zeiss 12mm (18mm equiv in FF) for now.

That's my short and sweet review of the lens.  I really, really wanted to like it and keep it but unfortunately it was way too soft for me. 

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