Laowa 15mm f/2 FE Zero-D

Laowa may not yet be as well-known a brand as its big Japanese rivals, but its parent company Venus Optics is surely the most interesting – and ambitious – of the new breed of lens makers that have appeared out of China over the past few years. Unlike most, it's quickly progressed to making genuinely top-quality optics, which often fill market niches that aren't met elsewhere. Its two key specialist subjects are macro and ultra-wideangle: the15mm f/2 we're interested in here falls into the latter category.

This lens is part of a family of ultra-wide primes that are based around broadly the same optical design, but scaled for different sensor sizes. Last year I enjoyed testing its tiny 7.5mm f/2 for Micro Four Thirds and 12mm f/2.8 for full-frame DSLRs, and the firm