Laowa 15mm f/5 "Cookie"
110º Full-Frame Ultrawide for every camera (2025 ~ today)
Sample Images Intro New Good Bad Missing
Specifications Performance Recommendations
Laowa 15mm f/5 "Cookie" in Black in Canon RF mount (also comes in silver and in mounts for all cameras, 39mm filters, 5.6 oz./158g, 0.4'/4¾"/0.12m close focus, 0.20× macro ratio, $399). bigger.
I'd get mine at Adorama or at B&H, or get it used if you know How to Win at eBay.
This all-content, junk-free website's biggest source of support is when you use those or any of these links to approved sources when you get anything, regardless of the country in which you live. Thanks for helping me help you! Ken.
February 2025 Better Pictures Canon Nikon Sony Fuji OM SYSTEM LEICA Zeiss HASSELBLAD All Reviews
Why Fixed Lenses Take Better Pictures
Sample Images top
Sample Images Intro New Good Bad Missing
Specifications Performance Recommendations
More samples throughout this review at Falloff, Macro and Sunstars.
These are just snapshots; my real work is in my Gallery.
Pacific Beach Pier and Pacific Ocean with Amazing Clouds before Seeing an Exhausted Doe, 2:22 PM, Thursday, 07 December 2023. Canon EOS R6 II, f/8 at 1/400 at Auto ISO 100, Radiant Photo software. bigger or camera-original 24 MP © 3 MB JPG file.
Its Peripheral Color Shift is severe; that's why the sides are purple. Therefore I only can use its images in monochrome, in which the severely darkened edges contribute to making a stronger image:
Same images as above, split-toned print. bigger or same camera-original 24 MP © 3 MB JPG file.
Introduction top
Sample Images Intro New Good Bad Missing
Specifications Performance Recommendations
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This is a tiny, 110º ultrawide lens with ultralow-performance optics to match its tiny size. It's available in mounts to fit almost any camera. It's intended more for emphasis and special effects than traditional straight photography, a lens for the creative. It offers toystore-level optics in a solid metal mount at a moderate price.
It is a primitive lens with absolutely zero electronic or mechanical communication with your camera, except in Nikon and in Sony mounts, which offer aperture communication. Otherwise there is no autofocus, EXIF data, no automatic or remote aperture control, no automatic diaphragm and no automated lens corrections. Not only do you have to focus manually (scale focus works best), you have to open the diaphragm for focus and then stop it down by hand for every exposure.
This is a special effects lens for the truly demented — or creative, if you will. If you want excellent optics in a tiny lens, look instead at the Voigtländer 15mm f/4.5 ASPH, or get the older screw-mount Voigtländer 15mm f/4.5 and use an adapter to your camera.
If you want sharp pictures on Canon, you'd be a complete idiot paying more for this thing than Canon's own superb RF 16mm f/2.8.
I received this 15mm lens in late 2023 in advance of its release. It took until February 2025 for me to see that it was available for sale so I could write this review so you'd have a place to get it; I don't review things we can't buy.
This is a full-frame 15mm version of the older 10mm f/4 version for APS-C. I hadn't realized it until I wrote this in 2025, but coincidentally I had this lens with me back in December 2023, and I also had the 10mm f/4 with me back in April 2022, and brought each along on what turned out to be some unexpectedly amazing walks — but this had nothing to do with the lens; just coincidence that one of these two related lenses are what I had with me each time.
Looking back at my photos, the 10mm f/4 shot on my Fuji XT-30 gave much sharper shots with much less peripheral color than this 15mm lens gives on my R6 II.
I'd get mine at Adorama or at B&H, or get it used if you know How to Win at eBay.
Laowa 15mm f/5 "Cookie." bigger.
Laowa 15mm f/5 "Cookie" on my EOS R6 II. bigger.
New intro top
Full-frame version of the Laowa 10mm f/4.
Good intro top
Tiny.
All-metal construction.
Manual focus is easy to move, with a little lever on the bottom‚ but you're best off focussing by scale.
Extremely close-focusing.
Markings all engraved and filled with paint.
Bad intro top
Horrible optical quality; use this for special effects.
Soft in the corners.
Horribly purple and dark in the corners.
Primitive lens with absolutely zero electronic or mechanical communication with your camera:
No autofocus.
No EXIF data.
No automatic aperture control.
No remote aperture control.
No automatic diaphragm (have to open and close by hand to focus and then shoot each frame).
No automated lens corrections.
Missing intro top
No autofocus.
No EXIF data.
No automatic aperture control.
No remote aperture control.
No automatic diaphragm (have to open and close by hand to focus and then shoot each frame).
No no automated lens corrections.
Specifications top
Sample Images Intro New Good Bad Missing
Specifications Performance Recommendations
I'd get mine at Adorama or at B&H, or get it used if you know How to Win at eBay.
Optics specifications top
Laowa 15mm f/5 "Cookie" Internal Construction. bigger.
13 elements in 9 groups.
Multicoated, but with no compensation for peripheral color.
Rear focus, with a cam that accelerates the lens motion when focussed closer than 0.5 meters to make close-up focusing faster.
Diaphragm specifications top
Laowa 15mm f/5 "Cookie." bigger.
5 straight blades.
Manual control only.
Stops down to f/22.
The exit pupil is about twice the size (or a little more) than the entrance pupil, suggesting that it is a retrofocus design, while the severe peripheral color makes it seem more like a traditional wide-angle design, sort of the worst of both worlds with ample distortion and loads of peripheral color shift.
Filters specifications top
Metal 39mm filter thread.
Angle of View specifications top
110º diagonal on full frame.
Autofocus specifications top
NONE.
Focus Scale specifications top
Yes
Infinity Focus Stop specifications top
Sadly NO.
You have to focus somehow to get precise focus at infinity, just like at every other distance.
Depth of Field Scale specifications top
Yes.
Infrared Focus Index specifications top
No.
Close Focus (distance from subject to image plane) specifications top
0.4 feet.
4¾ inches.
0.12 meters.
Maximum Reproduction Ratio specifications top
1:5.0 (0.20×).
Image Stabilizer specifications top
NONE.
Caps specifications top
39mm center-pinch cap.
Hood specifications top
Tiny plastic bayonet, included (and also included in all my pictures of it here).
Weight specifications top
5.6 oz. (158g).
Quality specifications top
Made domestically in China.
Included specifications top
Lens.
Hood.
Caps.
Packaging specifications top
Laowa 15mm f/5 "Cookie." bigger.
Fancy box with a magnetic closure and soft black open-cell interior foam padding.
Price, U. S. A. specifications top
February 2025
$399 at Adorama and at B&H.
Performance top
Sample Images Intro New Good Bad Missing
Specifications Performance Recommendations
Overall Autofocus Manual Focus Bokeh
Distortion Ergonomics Falloff Flare & Ghosts
Lateral Color Fringes Lens Corrections
Macro Mechanics Peripheral Color Shifts
I'd get mine at Adorama or at B&H, or get it used if you know How to Win at eBay.
Overall performance top
Abysmal optics in a primitive metal mount.
Autofocus performance top
NONE.
Manual Focus performance top
Manual focus feels great, with a little lever on the bottom.
This lens has almost unlimited depth of field so the best results come from checking your focus calibration first (most of these lenses ship with the scale miscalibrated), and then guessing the distance and setting it on the scale.
Bokeh performance top
This lens is so slow and so wide that it has almost unlimited depth of field
Since almost nothing is ever out of focus, one never gets to see much of anything out of focus, so Bokeh, the feel, character or quality of out-of-focus areas as opposed to how far out of focus they are, isn't important.
If you want to throw the background as far out of focus as possible, shoot at f/5 and 0.12 meters.
Distortion performance top
It has moderate barrel distortion on full frame.
It wants a correction factor of +2.5 in Photoshop's lens correction filter, after which some residual higher-order waviness remains.
Ergonomics performance top
Laowa 15mm f/5 "Cookie." bigger.
If we forget the complete lack of autofocus or any sort of modern electronic or even mechanical communication, the manual focus lever works well, as well as the manual aperture ring.
Falloff performance top
Falloff is severe in both gray scale and in color, and there is no electronic correction available for this off-brand lens:
Falloff on full-frame at infinity, Vignetting or Peripheral Illumination correction unavailable:
© 2025 KenRockwell.com. All rights reserved. |
Flare & Ghosts performance top
Flare and ghosts are reasonably well controlled. This lens does have pretty good contrast.
See examples at Sunstars.
Lateral Color Fringes performance top
There are some lateral color fringes, but that aren't that visible because the corners and sides are already so dark.
There is no electronic correction available.
Lens Corrections performance top
There are NO electronic corrections available for this off-brand lens.
Macro Performance performance top
It gets very close, so close that you have to be careful not to block your light. You can see the shadow of my lens hood in the lower right:
Casio G-Shock Solar Atomic Watch at close-focus distance, Monday, 11 December 2023. Canon EOS R6 II, f/5 at 1/800 at Auto ISO 100, +1.3 stops exposure compensation, Radiant Photo software. bigger or camera-original 24 MP © 4 MB JPG file.
It's surprisingly sharp in the center:
1,200 × 900 pixel (5× magnification) crop from above. bigger or camera-original 24 MP © 4 MB JPG file.
If this 1,200 × 900 pixel crop is about 3" (7.5cm) wide on your screen, then the complete image printed at this same large magnification would be about 10 × 15" (25 × 38cm).
If this 1,200 × 900 pixel crop is about 6" (15cm) wide on your screen, then the complete image printed at this same extreme magnification would be about 20 × 30" (50 × 75cm).
If this 1,200 × 900 pixel crop is about 12" (30cm) wide on your screen, then the complete image printed at this same insanely high magnification would be about 40 × 60" (1 × 1.5 meters).
Mechanical Quality performance top
Laowa 15mm f/5 "Cookie," Canon Mount. bigger.
This is nice in being an All-Metal lens:
Exterior Finish
Black anodized aluminum.
Hood
Plastic bayonet.
Front Bumper
None.
Filter Threads
Metal.
Hood Bayonet Mount
Metal.
Barrel Exterior
Metal.
Focus Ring
Metal, with metal lever.
Focus Mechanism
Metal.
Identity
Laser engraved into metal ring around front element.
Internals
Seem like all metal!
Dust Gasket at Mount
No.
Mount
Chromed Metal.
Markings
All engraved and filled with paint.
Serial Number
Laser engraved into metal ring around front element.
Date Code
None found.
Noises When Shaken
Minor clicking depending on the setting of the diaphragm.
Made in
Domestically made in China.
Peripheral Color Shifts performance top
There are severe peripheral color shifts. This used to be a huge problem in ultrawide lenses, which had been solved with expert coatings and electronic corrections, but are still this lens' biggest problem.
The problem is that lens coatings shift their color transmission away from the center of the image because their effective thickness changes as light hits the glass at different angles, and left uncorrected, are much worse at larger angles away from the center. It also comes from interaction between sensor microlenses and incident ray angles if the brands of lenses and cameras aren't matched.
I would ordinarily suggest that the purple sides were also caused by the incident rays coming in at too acute an angle for the sensor, but seeing how both sides are tinged in the same color, I'll blame this directly on the lens coatings rather than this lens' rear nodal point improperly positioned for my Canon's sensor's microlenses.
You can see this in the sample image at the top, and here's a flat gray field to show it even more clearly:
Laowa 15mm f/5 Peripheral color shift at f/8 on a Canon R6 II. bigger.
Laowa claims that this severe edge-coloring is unique to the Canon sensors, but I have not confirmed it or have any reason to believe it would be any better.
Sharpness performance top
It's usually sort of sharp in the center, getting much softer on the sides and corners.
Sunstars performance top
With a 5-bladed diaphragm, I get swell 10-point sunstars on brilliant points of light.
Ignore the vertical smear at large apertures. This is a sensor artifact called interline transfer smear and is a camera, not a lens, defect.
Click any to enlarge:
Click any to enlarge.
Recommendations top
Sample Images Intro New Good Bad Missing
Specifications Performance Recommendations
I'd get mine at Adorama or at B&H, or get it used if you know How to Win at eBay.
This is a well made lens with toylike optics for special effects. Lacking any electronics it is a pain to use very manually on any camera. It is for people who enjoy fiddling, or "the process" as they call it.
If you want a sharp modern lens, the Canon RF 16mm f/2.8 offers spectacular performance with all the modern conveniences — and costs less than this lens, with the same tiny size and weight!
For other brands, if you want a sharp lens but still want metal construction and primitive function, look at the Voigtländer 15mm f/4.5 ASPH, or older screw-mount Voigtländer 15mm f/4.5.
I use a clear (UV) protective filter instead of a cap (exactly like an iPhone) so I'm always ready to shoot instantly. I only use a cap when I throw this in a bag with other gear without padding — which is never. The UV filter never gets in the way, and never gets lost, either.
The multicoated B+W 39mm MRC 010 is swell. Of course perfectionists will settle for nothing less than the LEICA 13030 E39 UVa II (black) or LEICA 13011 E39 UVa II (silver), which are as good as the B+Ws. I've never tried it, but the Formatt 39mm Firecrest UV filter should work as well for less money.
Filters last a lifetime or more so there's no reason not to buy the best as it will last you for the next 40 years. Filters aren't throwaways like digital cameras which we replace every few years, like it or not. I'm still using filters I bought back in the 1970s!
I'd get mine at Adorama or at B&H, or get it used if you know How to Win at eBay.
This all-content, junk-free website's biggest source of support is when you use those or any of these links to approved sources when you get anything, regardless of the country in which you live. Thanks for helping me help you! Ken.
Thanks for helping me help you!
Ken.
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