GOOVIS ART Head Mounted Display Review

Dustin Abbott

July 15th, 2025

Probably few people in North America have previously heard of GOOVIS (a name that doesn’t translate particularly well), but this is a company that has a well developed reputation in Asia for its work in high definition head-mounted displays (HMD). GOOVIS holds more than 150 global patents, and the product I’m reviewing from them today – the GOOVIS ART – shows every indication of being a mature, polished product. This is a not a VR (Virtual Reality) device; it is a head mounted display that allows you to watch what looks like a big screen (110″ at a 4 meter distance) in a very compact device. Most importantly, it just works – effortlessly and effectively. I’ve allowed a bunch of people to strap on the GOOVIS ART and tell me what they think, and the response (all the way up to my 85 year old father-in-law) has been a lot of “wow”.

The ART can be had for as little as $469 USD, and it might just become your best friend if you routinely commute on public transit systems, planes, or live in a small space where having a big screen just doesn’t work.

Thanks to GOOVIS for sending me a review sample. As always, this is a completely independent review. All thoughts and opinions expressed here are my own.

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AI SUMMARY: The article offers a detailed review of the GOOVIS ART head-mounted display, highlighting its high-quality micro-OLED screens, impressive resolution, and user-friendly design. It emphasizes the device’s plug-and-play connectivity with smartphones and other media devices, along with its adjustable settings for IPD and diopters, making it adaptable for various users. The open design provides a balance between immersive viewing and situational awareness, making it versatile for different activities like commuting or working out. Overall, the GOOVIS ART delivers a crisp, visually stunning experience at an accessible price point, though its open design may lead to some light leakage and reduced immersion.

Strengths:

Excellent display clarity with high resolution and contrast
Easy to set up and operate
Comfortable, lightweight, and adaptable fit
Situational awareness maintained due to open design

Weaknesses:

Compatibility issues with older smartphones or devices
Possible light leakage in bright environments
Dependent on the connected device’s battery life
Less immersive than fully enclosed headsets

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The basic principle is simple – the GOOVIS ART does not use an internal power supply but rather runs off of the USB-C cable that you plug into your phone, tablet, or media device. If you are using a source with HDMI, there is a simple adapter you can use that will adapt from the HDMI to USB-C.

When something like my iPhone 15 Pro is connected, the ART’s display will immediately turn on and mirror the display of the phone. When you go into media content it will display the proper horizontal view and fill the screen. There really isn’t much to figure out; I was shocked by how quickly I was up and running. As we’ll detail later on, that’s less true if you are using an older playback device.

There are several features that also help to accommodate the broad spectrum of human vision. First of all, there is a locking/unlocking switch on the top left that allows adjust the IPD (interpupillary distance adjustment) from 58mm – 74mm. This allows you to make sure that there is the proper distance between your eyes. The second adjustment is an independent diopter on the outside on each side to give you independent control for each eye. You can adjust from 0 to -3.5 to adjust for your vision…in each eye. This allows you to get very crisp detail even without wearing glasses, though if your vision falls outside that range, there is room to wear your glasses.

Other controls include the ability to switch between 2D and 3D, and you can long press that same button to swap between left-right images (the 3D function is side by side). I have been able to find some 3D content, but it isn’t easy.

There are also volume controls on the top of the ART as well which apply not only to the built in speakers but will also control the volume of any headphones you’ve attached to the 3.5mm earphone jack on the forehead section. If you are using Bluetooth buds your volume controls will be separate. The USB-C cable connects into the right side of the forehead rest, and there are several cable routing straps built into the head straps so that you can keep cables out of your way. I was able to use the GOOVIS ART even while working out by just running the cable under my shirt and putting my phone in my pocket. It worked surprisingly well, as the display moves with me even when I’m on my back and repping weights.

The twin displays each have a native 1920 x 1080P resolution and look very crisp. Resolution is an extremely high 4496 PPI (pixels per inch), considerably higher than, say, the 3,386 PPI of the Apple Vision Pro. The contrast ratio of the display is rated at an extremely high 100,000:1, and black levels look impressively good. The display type is a micro-OLED. Lag is extremely low if you want to use it for gaming, with a response time of <0.01ms. The GOOVIS ART uses Glass-Plastic Hybrid Aspheric Lenses (ASPH) lenses that produce very crisp results and delivers a distortion level less than 1%. Bottom line is that the display looks fantastic, and many people will be shocked by how much the viewing experience will change even familiar viewing material.

I never say audio/video sync issues, though one thing to watch out for is that many apps will default to the built in speaks when playback starts. You can swap to your Bluetooth buds either by clicking the audio device icon in the upper left part of the screen (on your playback device) or often by pressing or squeezing your Bluetooth buds control for play/pause. I did run into one app where there wasn’t an option presented, but I plugged in wired headphones and had no problem.

You can connect the ART to a wide range of devices, from gaming consoles (would be very cool with a Nintendo Switch!) to smartphones to cameras to drones. Connecting the display to your camera while filming sounds interesting, but I never could figure out a way to make it work.

One of the unique features about the ART is that the display floats in front of your eyes but does not obscure your peripheral vision. The downside is that your ambient light could potentially impact your viewing experience (though it still works surprisingly well in brighter conditions), but the upside is that if someone comes to talk to you, it is possible to look around the display to see them. I could wear the display while working out, and still see to grab the weights.

The GOOVIS ART is very lightweight at just 110g, though if you add the padded forehead section (you’ll want to!) and the requisite USB-C cable the weight comes in at a still lightweight 277g. I never found wearing it got uncomfortable. You can add a “zero pressure headband” option, but I just found that it added unnecessary bulk and didn’t deem it necessary.

I never found using anything other than my phone to be necessary for playback, but if you have an older phone, you might potentially have some direct compatibility issues. Here’s a page where you can check your device. Direct iPhone compatibility, for example, only begins at the 15 stage, though there seems to be a deeper range of Android device support. You can get their D4H1 portable streaming device in a kit if you want to avoid using your phone. I tested the D4H1 device, which is about the size of standard 10,000 mAh power bank. This makes sense, as the D4H1 does have a built-in 8000 mAh power bank that will provide up to 6 hours of playback. It also has 16GB of storage along with a micro-SD slot for expanded storage if you need more space. That could be a good alternative if you in a situation where you won’t have Wi-Fi for streaming. The D4H1 runs a standard Google TV interface, which is familiar and easy to set up, and I do like the fact that it comes with a standard Google TV remote. Having a remote control is nice, actually, particularly if you need pause playback. My one critique of the D4H1 is that it leverages an HDMI output. That’s fine, if you are using it essentially like a dongle for a non-smart TV, but it means that you have to use the HDMI to USB-C adapter to use it with the ART, which feels unnecessarily clunky. I like having the HDMI out as a an option, but a USB-C output should have been a key component of design if GOOVIS is going to package it with their HMD models.

One tip: if you are on a long flight and using your phone as the media device, having a Qi wireless charger might be smart if you are using your phone since the USB-C port will be tied up with the connection to the display.

I found that I could often turn the display brightness down to about halfway because the display is so bright. I didn’t find any specification for how much power the ART draws, but I never noticed any kind of really obvious hit to my battery life.

All told, I found using the ART fairly painless and it made personal viewing a real joy. I’m not a binge watching, “down-the-rabbit-hole” type of media consumer, but I suspect the GOOVIS ART would truly enable that kind of behavior. Maybe its a good thing that your battery will die after a while…

Go outside and get some fresh air while your phone is charging!

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Things I Like

Easy to use*
Fantastic clarity
Deep dark levels
Comfortable to wear
Like being able to see around the ART
Great way to get a big screen on a relatively small price
Extremely low lag
Very small footprint

*Might be more difficult for those using older devices.

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Things I Don’t Like

Can get a little light leak sometimes
Running off the your phone’s battery could be an issue if you phone is nearly dead
Not as fully immersive as a closed design
Using the the D4H1 requires using the HDMI adapter

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Conclusion

I had little experience but a lot of interest in HMD going into this review, and I was pleasantly surprised by how easy the GOOVIS ART was to use and also by how great the viewing experience was. I wasn’t sure how the more “open” design would work, but I actually did find that in many situations I valued being able to retain some situational awareness. The downside is that the experience is potentially less immersive than more closed designs like their G3 models. At under $500, this is a pricey yet achievable bit of personal entertainment bliss.

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Purchase the GOOVIS ART @ Amazon https://amzn.to/44G8qnC or Amazon Canada https://amzn.to/4kcPf9x

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Keywords: Goovis, ART, HMD, Head Mounted Display, Goovis ART Review, Prime, Disney+, Netflix, Cinema, Coupon, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sample Images, Video, Photography, let the light in, weathersealing, #letthelightin, DA, #HeadMountedDisplay, #GOOVISARTReview, #MicroODLEDScreen, #4KPortableDisplay, #PersonalEntertainmentDevice, #AugmentedRealityHeadset, #OpenDesignHeadset, #USBCConnectivity, #HighResolutionVRAlternative, #LightweightHMD, #SituationalAwarenessGlasses, #HighContrastDisplay, #AdjustableIPDAndDiopter, #GamingAndMultimediaHeadset, #VisualClarityTechnology, #WearableDisplayForWorkouts

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Laowa AF 12mm F2.8 Zero D Review (Z-Mount)

Dustin Abbott

July 14th, 2025

The very first lens I reviewed from Laowa was their 12mm F2.8 Zero D wide angle prime, which I reviewed at the end of 2016 on Canon EF mount. I ended up buying that lens later on, though actually to use on Sony FE. I used the lens (with adapter) by itself, but also with the Magic Shift Converter to get what became a 17mm F4 lens with 10mm of shift in either direction. I had fun with that combination. Fast forward nearly nine years and Laowa is releasing a new (and improved) version of that lens. Whereas the original lens was a manual everything option, the new Laowa 12mm F2.8 Zero D Lite has autofocus (a manual focus version is also available), and is much smaller and lighter. It now sports weather sealing along with another key improvement – the ability to use traditional screw on filters in a common 72mm size. This lens will come in autofocus versions for Nikon Z (tested here) and Sony FE, with manual focus variants available for Z mount, E mount, Canon RF mount, and Leica L-mount. What’s more, the price is even cheaper – just $699 for this new lens. This are obviously a lot of key upgrades here – does that make this a lens a worthy option for these platforms? Either read on or watch the video below to get my thoughts.

https://youtu.be/DpfZtoUZ_x8

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Thanks to Laowa for sending me a review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. All opinions and conclusions are my own. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the 45MP Nikon Z8, which I reviewed here. You can find the product listing page for the Laowa 12mm F2.8 Zero D Lite here.

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AI Summary: The Laowa 12mm F2.8 Zero D Lite is an updated version of their original wide-angle lens, now featuring autofocus and a more compact, lighter design. With the inclusion of weather sealing and the ability to use standard 72mm screw-on filters, it offers a significant improvement in usability. This lens, available in autofocus for Nikon Z and Sony FE, and manual focus for other mounts, maintains low distortion but is still challenged by heavy vignette. Priced at $699, it is competitive considering its ultra-wide angle capabilities compared to other lenses on the market.

Strengths:

Smaller, lighter design and more affordable price compared to its predecessor.
Attractive, modern design language with weather sealing.
Excellent low distortion, maintaining straight lines in images.
Autofocus capabilities for both stills and video with quiet performance.
Ability to use standard screw-on filters for added versatility.
Great center sharpness, good flare resistance, and impressive sunstars.

Weaknesses:

Autofocus glitches noted during testing, possibly firmware-related.
Heavy vignette that can impact metering and requires correction.
Corners can be somewhat soft, especially at wider apertures.
Lack of in-camera corrections for lens issues like vignette.

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Laowa’s market expertise has largely been in two areas of lens design – macro and wide angle. They have have produced other lenses, but the majority of their lenses fall into one of these two baskets. This includes a lot of unusually wide angle lenses. When the 12mm F2.8 Zero D was released nearly ten years ago, that was an uncommonly wide focal length. Since that point, Laowa has gone even wider, and in many ways this new 12mm Lite (which we’ll refer to it as in this review to distinguish from the older lens) most resembles the AF 10mm F2.8 Zero D that I reviewed last year. The 12mm Lite is ridiculously wide, with a 122° angle of view. This is the kind of lens that you need to watch to make your feet aren’t in the frame, and if you point the camera towards your feet, it’s a long way down!

The 12mm F2.8 Zero D Lite has familiar Laowa strengths and weaknesses. One of the primary strengths is right there in the name: Zero D. The “D” refers to distortion, and while it may not be mathematically zero, the 12mm Lite has impressively low distortion. Interior lines look nice and straight in this shot without any correction.

The greatest weakness is also familiar for Laowa, and that’s vignette. I’ve always found vignette very heavy on Laowa’s wide angle lenses, and that is only exacerbated by reviewing on the larger diameter Z-mount. Vignette is at the “max-out-the-sliders” level and is heavy enough to impact metering on cameras.

This was considered proper metering in my Z8, but if I clicked the “auto” adjustments in Lightroom, it felt the need to add about 1.3 stops of exposure (that’s a LOT!) This isn’t new for Laowa lenses, but it definitely does present a challenge for some types of photography. This is an extreme instrument – is it worth buying? Let’s dive in and find out.

Laowa 12mm F2.8 Zero D Lite Build and Handling

I’m doing this review on a Nikon Z-mount version, and there will also be a Sony E-mount autofocus version available. Because Canon has still not opened their platform to license autofocus, the RF and Leica L mounts of this lens will be manual focus only, with similar MF versions for Sony and Nikon available. The version I’m testing has 5 aperture blades to allow for clearly defined sunstars (bokeh won’t really be a thing here!):

You can get a higher blade count option in manual focus, but frankly I think this is the best option. Look at how gorgeous that clean, simple sunstar is. You don’t really need round specular highlights in a 12mm lens anyway.

The winners here are Sony E-mount and Nikon Z-mount users, as they have access to an autofocus lens that works well and makes Laowa a more accessible brand, because switching to autofocus means a few other things as well. The inclusion of electronic contacts means:

We get full EXIF data – information like the lens name and aperture value for the shot is now included.
Information for VR (in body image stabilization) is automatically transferred so the lens stabilization works properly.
Any manual focus aids dependent on electronic communication will now work.
What we don’t seem to get (at least in the pre-release copy I tested) is in-camera corrections. As we’ll see, distortion is so low that it doesn’t really need correction, but vignette is another story. This is a chronic weak area for Laowa wide angle lenses, and, as we can see below, the JPEG has just as much vignette as the RAW images.

That’s unfortunate, though that is something that could potentially change in the future.

The Laowa 12mm Lite carries forward the new Laowa design language that is a major departure from their previous look. Previous Laowa lenses had a black anodized metal look, while this new lens has a cobalt blue/grey type finish that looks fresh and unique.

The lens has a completely different profile from the long, slim original 12mm F2.8 Zero D. The Lite is 77.2mm (3.04″) in diameter and just 80.6mm (3.09″) in length. That definitely favorably compares to the 113mm length of the older lens. The weight is also reduced to just 390g (0.86lb) from 699g (1.4lb). That’s an impressive amount of size and weight reduction!

This hasn’t come at the cost of poor build quality. The lens has a reassuring density and the materials still feel like metals rather than plastics.

Laowa has managed to retain traditional screw-on filter threads in a relatively common 72mm size for this lens (quite an accomplishment on an F2.8 lens this wide!) That’s a huge improvement over the first generation lens and adds a huge extra layer of versatility for a wide angle prime.

Look at how much more interesting the long exposure version of this image is:

It is much harder to achieve this with lenses that can’t be easily filtered.

The lens sports an AF/MF switch on the side of the barrel, which is always welcome.

Most of the lens barrel is dominated by a wide manual focus ring. It’s different than typical Laowa fare due to this being a mirrorless autofocusing lens, which means that focus is now focus-by-wire (input on the ring will be routed through the lens’ focus motor). Body specific manual focus aids will all be available. The damping is nice and smooth, allowing for good focus precision.

There is a flat section on each side of the ring with the brand logo stamped there. What’s interesting is that due to there being no hard stops on a focus-by-wire lens, those logos could end up pointing anywhere. But they can be used to some advantage as it does give you some point of visual reference for a focus throw. The ring is not linear, however, but speed specific. The focus throw is about 100° and seems to be fairly linear.

There is some badging on the lens along with a nice scalloped curve near the lens mount that has a nice visual look and tactile feel.

There are electronic contact points along with a nice weather sealing gasket in a faint blue color. It’s nice because it is visually different than everything else. There are no other internal seals, however, so weather resistance is limited to just this gasket.

The lens has a shallow metal hood that can be removed. It won’t block much sun and is more than to protect the front element from bumps.

The front cap is (thankfully) a traditional pinch camp which fits easily into a pocket.

There is no aperture ring, so the aperture iris will be controlled from within the camera. As noted earlier, there are just five aperture blades to allow for easy sunstars.

Minimum focus distance is 14cm (5.51″), which means you can get very close to your subject. Resulting magnification is a very high 0.21x.

As per usual, the big challenge is getting close enough to your subject without shading it, as 14cm is measured from the sensor. You’ll only have about 4cm between the end of the lens and your subject at MFD. The good news is that when shooting video you won’t really have any limitations on focus. By the time you’re past the minimum focus distance you’ll be bumping into your subject. Up close you can get some interesting looking images.

The AF 12mm F2.8 Zero D Lite is another nice looking lens from Laowa that will look great mounted on your camera. It is nicely sized, and is light enough that it won’t be a strain to bring along. Their new design language is nice, and, what’s more, it is unique from everyone else.

Autofocus for Stills

This is the second autofocus lens that I’ve tested from Laowa (after a decade of testing manual focus only lenses from them). It’s also the first that I’ve tested on Nikon. Autofocus in general seems roughly comparable on Z-mount, though I do think I’ve seen a couple more glitches from my loaner lens. I’ve had a couple of situations where I needed to remove the lens and remount it because autofocus wouldn’t work even when I toggled the switch back and forth. I would end up with this result:

…rather than this one:

It could be copy specific, or perhaps a firmware update is needed.

The focus motor (probably some type of STM motor, though I haven’t seen it specified) is very quiet; I can only hear the slightest whirring if I press my ear right up against it.

Other than the glitch I described, autofocus works great…even when shooting in high speed bursts on my Z8. I took nearly 200 shots of guys spiking (or trying to) during beach volleyball, and it seems to me like every shot was properly focused.

Shooting from a low angle like this resulted in some wild keystoning and stretching of the image, but the resulting images were dynamic and fun.

Now, to be fair, autofocus isn’t as demanding in a lens like this. Such a wide focal length means that most everything is in focus most of the time. You can see from the photo above that even though the focus is accurately on the foreground volleyball player, pretty much everything else is at least somewhat in focus even at F2.8.

That being said, I found that autofocus changes did happen quickly in my formal speed tests. They aren’t necessarily well damped (focus seems to jump a bit), but there does seem to be plenty of thrust in the focus motors. I felt like autofocus was good on Sony with the 10mm; it is also very good here on Nikon with the 12mm. This shot, for example, I snapped on the fly while walking; I wanted to quickly nail a shot while others weren’t in the frame (and a lot of the periphery is in the frame with this focal length!)

The one thing you do have to be careful with with such a wide angle lens is composing with people near the edges of the frame. People will get very distorted and stretched near the edges of the frame. People will rarely be happy to be depicted like this:

That stretching effect (or keystoning where tall objects like buildings seem to lean into the frame) is just the nature of the focal length; it’s not actually distortion.

Video AF

I was also pleased with my video tests. Focus pulls are fast and confident and have no visible steps or hunting. There is, however, a surprising amount of focus breathing for such a wide focal length. That will negatively impact video capture in some settings.

My hand test where I alternately cover and the uncover the camera’s view of my face was smooth, with good transitions from my hand to my eye and vice versa.

Natural focus transitions when shooting video clips were fairly smooth, and the wide focal length while moving is visually interesting.

Laowa has done an impressively good job in making the transition to autofocus.

Laowa 12mm Zero D Lite Image Quality Breakdown

Laowa promises optical improvements over the first generation manual focus lens. It is a slightly different optical design, which stands to reason considering how different the physical profiles of the two lenses are. This new design is 16 elements in 9 groups, with 4 of those elements being ED (Extra Low Dispersion) elements and two being ASPH (aspherical) elements. Laowa also notes their propriety “Frog Eye Coating” on the front element, which is similar to a fluorine type coating to add some moisture and fingerprint resistance. The MTF shows an extreme sharp center of the frame performance with a linear drop towards the corners.

I can attest from real world shots that the center is very sharp, even at F2.8 and at closer focus distances.

When stopped down, it is possible to get very reasonable results even at the edges of the frame (this shot and crop at F5.6):

Taking a closer look at distortion and vignette reveals a tiny amount of barrel distortion, but this is actually probably more a byproduct of the close focus distances.

Distortion is well controlled, with just a tiny amount of barrel distortion. I could dial in a +2 or +3, but at the risk of introducing some pincushion distortion in other parts of the frame. I would say that leaving what tiny distortion is there uncorrected might be the best choice. Vignette is another matter, however, and is very heavy. I needed to max out the slider (+100) to correct the vignette, and I would say it could use even a bit more. That being said, here’s a look at the recent 14-24mm F2.8 LK Samyang adapted to Nikon via the Megadap ETZ21 Pro adapter. Even though the Laowa is much wider, it has much less distortion and vignette.

While there is always something worse, there’s also no question that the Laowa’s vignette will be an issue, and, as I discussed previously, I did feel that it sometimes lead to some metering issues.

There are minimal amounts of LoCA (longitudinal chromatic aberrations) before and after the plane of focus. Depth of field isn’t particularly shallow, so it makes this type of fringing less likely.

No problems there.

LaCA (lateral chromatic aberrations) typically show up along the edges of the frame with high contrast transition points. There is some fringing there, but nothing particularly obvious.

I didn’t notice issues with lateral aberrations in real world shots.

We’ll move on to inspecting our test chart. Before I jump into my test chart results, I will offer the caveat that the very short test distances required to frame the chart don’t always produce optimal results, particularly if there is any field curvature. That curvature means that all sections of the chart aren’t in focus at the same time, which can make something like the corners look softer than what they actually are (though the MTF chart suggests that the corners at F2.8 aren’t exceptional anyway). I will do some follow up testing to ensure I’m giving a complete picture on performance. This test has been done on a 45MP Nikon Z8 sensor. I use a high end tripod and two second camera delay to ensure vibration doesn’t affect images. Here’s a look at the test chart that we will examine at high magnification:

If we take a look at crops (at 200%) at F2.8 from the center, mid-frame, and lower right corner, we find that center performance is excellent (high contrast and detail), the midframe looks shakier, and the corners are impacted both by the vignette and also general softening.

I took my tests outside to a fence where I could set up with more distance between myself and the subject. Instead of being 18 inches away, I could now be about five feet away. I found the same results to be true, however. There’s definitely some field curvature at work, as I got significantly different results when focusing in the center and then on the lock at the edge of the frame.

When focused in the center and examining the center at 100%, the results are definitely better than when focused on the corner. When looking at the corner/edge of the frame, however, the results are definitely better there when focused in that area. Bottom line is that the plane of focus isn’t particularly flat, making it difficult to get everything in focus at the same time…at closer focus distances. This won’t really be an issue at further distances, which will probably also be more normal.

As you stop the lens down, depth of field increases, and that focus variance diminishes. By F5.6, for example, the corners are looking better even on the test chart.

I wouldn’t say that corner performance ever reaches the level of the center, but you can easily get landscape images that are largely sharp right into the corners when shooting at apertures like F5.6 or F8.

Sharpness consistency seems to peak at F8, with results looking good everywhere on my test chart (corners are not exceptional, but solid).

By F11 you will start to see a mild regression due to diffraction on my high resolution Z8 body, and that diffraction will become more pronounced by the minimum aperture of F22.

Bokeh isn’t going to be a big factor with a lens like this, as opportunities to strongly blur a background will be minimal. The bokeh I do see is okay but nothing exceptional.

I would call flare resistance a mixed bag. On the plus side, the coatings do an effective job of preserving contrast. At F2.8, the ghosting patterns are minimal and non-destructive. When stopped down to smaller apertures like F11, however, those ghosting patterns can potentially become much more destructive, though this is really dependent on composition and when the sun sits. Here’s a variety of images shot at different angles and apertures to allow you to determine this for yourself.

I did not have a chance to test coma during my review period, which was abbreviated by a few mitigating circumstances. My experience with similar Laowa lenses expects me to believe that there will be minor issues with star points losing shape in the corners, though here on Nikon I think the bigger issue will be with the heavy vignette bringing the potential for noise.

Optically I would call the Laowa AF 12mm F2.8 Zero D Lite solid. It isn’t without flaws, but I’m not sure any of them are fatal flaws. What’s more, there is nothing else this wide in Nikon’s own lineup, with the 14-24mm F2.8 S being the widest FX lens available. Add to this that the Laowa costs $699 USD, and the Nikkor zoom costs $2000, and I suspect there will be some interested customers. You can get some really extreme images with a lens like this…particularly when you pair it with an ND filter to get long exposures.

If you would like to see more images, check out the gallery linked here.

Conclusion

I’m glad to see Laowa revisiting some of their older lens designs and giving them a modern update, particularly when that update comes with autofocus. Hard to imagine that these second generation lenses added weather sealing, autofocus, and the ability to use standard filters while also being smaller, lighter, and cheaper. That’s a winning combination.

I often felt like Laowa lenses were priced a little too high to become mainstream options, but that may change with a lens like the 12mm F2.8 Zero D Lite AF lens. Moving the price to $699 USD makes this much more competitive, particularly when they are going wider than just about anyone else. I find incredibly wide focal lengths a little harder to use (12mm is about my limit), but there are some photographers who obsess over going ever-wider, and it is true with modern high resolution cameras that you can easily crop into images…but you can’t make them wider.

I think potential buyers of the Laowa 12mm Lite will have a lot of fun with it. It’s an attractive lens, and having the ability to easily filter it will make this a compelling option. I’m glad to see it on Nikon and Sony. It has a few flaws, but

Pros:

Smaller, lighter, and cheaper than the lens it replaces
Love Laowa’s new design language
An extremely wide angle of view + large maximum aperture
Good autofocus performance for both stills and video
Low distortion
Weather sealing gasket
Stable video autofocus
Ability to use traditional filters
Mostly good flare resistance
Great looking sunstars
Good center sharpness at wide apertures
Gets pretty sharp across the frame when stopped down

Cons:

No in camera corrections?
Heavy vignette
Real world corners somewhat soft

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GEAR USED:

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Purchase the Nikon Z8 @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

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Nikkor Z 35mm F1.2 S Review

Dustin Abbott

July 7th, 2025

All of Nikon’s Z-mount F1.2 S lenses are extreme instruments. They are big, heavy, and expensive…not for the faint of heart. But if you’re interested in premium performance (and you have a strong back), they are delivering uniquely amazing results. Nikon’s newest is the Nikkor Z 35mm F1.2 S lens, and it sits near the top of the categories of biggest, heaviest, and most expensive of the many 35mm lenses I’ve tested. Is the 35mm F1.2 S worth the big bucks? As with all of these premium fast aperture S-line lenses, the answer is “it depends”. For many photographers they are overkill, but but for some (particularly those who earn a living with their cameras), they may just be some of the best investments you can make. We’ll explore all those details in either the video review below or in this text review.

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Thanks to Chris at Nikon Canada for sending me a review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. All opinions and conclusions are my own. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the 45MP Nikon Z8, which I reviewed here. You can find the product listing page for the Nikkor Z 35mm F1.2 S here.

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Nikkor Premium Fast Aperture Comparison

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AI Summary:
The Nikon Nikkor Z 35mm F1.2 S is a high-end, large, and heavy lens tailored for professional photographers seeking top-tier performance. It delivers exceptional sharpness, beautiful bokeh, and excellent flare resistance across various lighting conditions. Its rugged build and weather sealing make it suitable for demanding environments, though its size and weight may be less practical for extended use. Overall, it offers outstanding optical quality, making it a valuable tool for portrait, wedding, and astrophotography, but it may be overkill for casual shooters.

Strengths:

Exceptional image sharpness and detail, even at F1.2
Beautiful, smooth bokeh and pleasing background blur
Excellent flare and ghosting resistance with advanced coatings
Robust build quality with weather sealing for outdoor use

Weaknesses:

Very large, heavy, and less portable for prolonged use
Limited feature set and somewhat awkward control placement
Higher price point that may not appeal to all photographers
Autofocus not as fast or precise as some rivals for fast action

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I love fast 35mm lenses. The truth of the matter is that once you get to a focal length like 85mm or longer, even F2.8 provides a really shallow depth of field in many situations. But 35mm lenses are a different story. Depth of field is much bigger at 35mm, and it takes a fast aperture to really create a shallow depth of field. Having access to that fast aperture allows one to be much more creative with framing and depth of field.

The primary audience for this lens is pretty obvious from Nikon’s marketing – they are going after wedding and portrait photographers. It’s a little hard to summon weddings on demand, so that won’t be featured in this review, but I will try to recreate a few of the wedding detail type images that this crowd will be looking for. Here’s one using Nikon’s “Red” color profile.

The 35mm F1.2 S is excellent at F4 and F5.6, but so are a lot of smaller, lighter, and cheaper lenses, so a lot of the images I share will be at very large apertures.

This is an extreme instrument – is it worth buying? Let’s dive in.

Nikkor 35mm F1.2 S Build and Handling

Nikon’s lineup of Z-mount premium lenses – the S-Line lenses – is known for many things, but being small is not one of them. Nikon has taken the old Zeiss Otus philosophy where performance is by the greatest object and size and weight are not really significant considerations. I think they can get away with it, too, when they often have a Small | Medium | Large option at that given focal length. It’s true now of a 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm, where F1.8, F1.4, and F1.2 options all exist or surely will in the near future. (though ironically the F1.4 options are often the smallest!). I thought Nikon was brilliant for giving the 135mm F1.8 Plena (which I reviewed here) a name (Plena). I think every lens this big, expensive, and high performing should have a name. Come on, Nikon, couldn’t this 35mm F1.2 been the “Athena” or something?

*My test loaner comes through Nikon Canada’s Professional Services, so there is some additional stickers on it that aren’t “stock”.

This is a BIG lens. That is the first thing that you notice about it. It is 90mm (3.5″) in diameter and a whopping 150mm (5.9″) in length. It weighs 1060g (2.3lb). That makes it very similar in size and weight to a fast zoom lens like the Tamron 35-150mm F2-2.8! While the Viltrox LAB 35mm F1.2 hasn’t made it to Z-mount yet (I anticipate that arrival sometime in the summer of 2025, however), the 35mm F1.2 S is much larger and heavier than the E-mount version of that lens.

Wow!

You will feel that weight. I made a journal entry on my phone that after a half hour of hiking carrying the 35mm F1.2 S on my Z8 using a Peak Design Slide Lite strap (my strap of choice!) in a cross-body position my traps were burning. I switched sides a few times (which I normally) wouldn’t do on that length of hike. A wider Slide strap might work better, or finding some other carrying solution that will help mitigate the weight. I’ve shot a lot of weddings in the past when I was doing them more, and I think I’d find this lens a little much over a ten hour shooting day…but maybe I’m just a wimp.

What makes this a big, heavy lens is that there is a massive amount of glass inside right past those 82mm front filter threads.

The 35mm F1.2 S is a premium lens with an excellent build. It has a tough outer shell of metal alloys and engineered plastics, and a thorough degree of weather sealing.

There is a protective coating on the front and rear elements and then roughly 11 (by my count) internal seals at the rings, buttons, and switches. That allows you to have confidence when shooting in the elements.

I’m a little underwhelmed by the feature set of Nikon’s premium lenses. The feature set is essentially the customizable control ring, an AF | MF switch, and two redundant Function (Custom) buttons. These buttons don’t have separate functions but a shared, single function that is programmable from within the camera. There are two to allow one to be close to hand whether shooting in horizontal or vertical modes.

At least this design has a specific purpose (more on that in the image quality section).

Nikon has a specific design ethos of the feature set of these upscale S-Line lenses, which includes a few more control points than the average lens. That starts very early on the lens with an AF | MF switch that is located very close to the lens mount.

I’ve complained about this placement on a number of lenses. On my Z8, there are two controls located way too close to this area. There is a flash sync port behind a rubber cover along with the camera release button. That means if I’m reaching around with my left thumb to operate the switch, I’m having to thread the needle through a couple of obstacles. Perhaps placing it on the same tier with the Fn buttons would have made more sense.

Next comes Nikon’s clickless “customizable control ring”, which could serve as a manual aperture ring but could also function to control ISO, exposure compensation, or a few other functions – whatever you’ve set up the ring to do in the menus. Those controls can be found in the Custom Settings menu, then by selecting group F (Controls), and finally choosing custom setting F2 (Custom Controls Shooting) to change the function of the ring.

As an aside, I will note that I was able to do smooth aperture racks through the control ring without any visible steps. I like it fine for that purpose for video, but didn’t like this application of it for much else. The ring is way too sensitive and the rotational throw too short to be very useful. You’ll rack through most of the aperture in a small twist, and if I set it to exposure compensation or something similar, I’m at +/-4 EV before I know it. I’ve given Viltrox some grief over their own version of the customizable control ring, but I’d take it over the Nikkor any day of the week. What’s more, the LAB lens has the OLED that we’ve seen on some S Line lenses but for some reason not on this one.

There’s no click/declick option, and the ring would actually be more useful with clicks in stills mode because you could more easily use with precision for aperture control. The absence of the OLED also makes the control ring less useful because its not directly connected to any display but on the camera. A lens like the Viltrox also allows you to program A-B focus for smart focus pulls.

Put simply, I’m not particularly impressed by the implementation of the limited features we have here. A $2800 USD lens deserves better.

The aperture iris has eleven rounded blades, and the aperture iris definitely does a nice job of keeping the specular highlights round. Here’s a look at F1.2, F2, and and F2.8:

Here’s what that aperture iris looks like from the inside.

I’m not sure what dictates whether the front or back of the aperture blades are facing out. The Plena was the opposite of this, with the back of the blades showing. I much prefer the look of the 35mm F1.2 S, which gives you a nice “James Bond” type view.

The manual focus ring is slightly raised and has a rubberized, ribbed texture. It moves very smoothly and has a nice amount of weight to it. I was able to pull off really smooth manual focus pulls and focus with very nice precision. I also love the fact that I can do full time manual overrides even when in AF-C mode.

You’ll note that there is a third rubberized section near the front of the lens that looks like another ring but is actually just a section with extra grip for either aesthetic purposes or to provide a section to grab when mounting/unmounting the lens.

There is no lens based stabilization, so you will need to rely upon the in-camera stabilization if your camera is so equipped.

The lens hood is petal-shaped and does have a small lock on the right side. It is made of plastics and feels fairly ordinary. Unlike the Viltrox, it doesn’t have a rubberized front edge. I do feel like these premium lenses deserve slightly nicer hoods.

Minimum focus distance is 30cm, giving a maximum magnification figure of 1:5, or 0.20x. The LAB 35mm F1.2 can only focus as closely as 34cm and delivers a lower 0.17x magnification. Score on for the big Nikon! Here’s what that looks like.

Close focus contrast and detail are good, though stopping down a bit will add more contrast. Here’s an F1.2 shot.

There is no VR (vibration reduction, or optical stabilization) built into the lens. That’s not a problem on a body like my Z8, which has good camera based stabilization, but could be a problem for those of you shooting on a camera without VR.

This is a big, heavy, expensive lens, but it is also beautifully made and is a nice match for a beefier camera like my Z8. I’ve been a bit critical in this section, as when a lens is priced this highly ($2800!), it comes with a set of expectations. I feel somewhat underwhelmed not only in the feature set but the implementation of some things like the customizable control ring and the position of the AF | MF switch. Maybe you don’t care about the features and just care about the performance, and if so, great! For me as a reviewer, however, I try to be even handed in handing out praise where deserved but also critiques where I feel they are warranted.

35mm F1.2 S Autofocus Performance for Stills

Nikon still uses STM focus motors in their premium lenses, which I also find a bit surprising (at least on other platforms. I tend to associate Linear or VCM style motors with the more premium lenses on other brands, but in all fairness, Nikon’s dual STM focus motors are getting the job done here. It’s not as fast as a lens like the 35mm F1.8 S (my review here), but its fast enough that I didn’t really notice focus during use.

I’ll be curious to see how the LAB 35mm F1.2 performs on Z-mount when it comes, as it has a more sophisticated QUAD HyperVCM focus system. On paper, the LAB 135mm F1.8 had a better focus system than the Plena, too, but when using the lenses side by side I would take the Plena every time for focus. Perhaps that will prove true here, too, but at least on Sony I found the LAB 35mm F1.2 to be exemplary.

That being said, I saw a few signs that suggest to me that the 35mm F1.2 S isn’t quite going to match the Plena’s focus performance. Focus pulls are a little slower. Still relatively fast, but you can see focus taking place rather than an instantaneous racking back and forth. There’s also a bit of focus noise, though it is just a light “schnick” sound as focus racks and forth. Outdoor focus seems to happen a little quicker than my indoor tests.

With some lenses I’ve been able to grab focus on bees flying in and out of the hive, but I took nearly one hundred shots in half a dozen bursts and didn’t have a lot of success in grabbing them in the air.

That’s a huge challenge, obviously. I was able to successfully track Nala as she moved towards the camera, with each frame well focused. She wasn’t moving fast, but she was moving steadily, so nailing every frame at F1.2 gives me great confidence that I would have no problem tracking a bride moving down an aisle, for example.

Shooting shallow depth of field shots was no problem.

I also had no problem focusing up close on a ring on a finger, which is one of the key shots where a lens like this might be used in a wedding or engagement shoot.

So autofocus for stills was generally good. There have been relatively few autofocusing 35mm F1.2 lenses to compare to at this point, and the only ones I’ve done in the past five years have been on Sony. I’m not sure this lens is sports ready, but I do think AF will handle anything you might encounter in a portrait or wedding shoot.

Autofocus (Video)

Video autofocus is a little more of a mixed bag. On a positive note, focus breathing is nearly nonexistent. There’s only a tiny amount of shift in the size of objects whether in or out of focus.

Nikon’s cameras (at the moment) handle video AF in two different ways. Touch to focus (selecting a focus point on the screen) happens independent of any finetuning you might do through the camera’s settings. You can slow down or speed up focus speed and tweak the reactiveness to subject changes for normal tracking, but the touch to focus settings override those settings. That often means that touch to focus isn’t great.

In this case the speed of changes is very fast, but there is also a tendency to do some micro-pulsing or an occasional fast rack in the wrong direction. This is pretty standard fare on Nikon with the current state of play, unfortunately.

But things are much better when I move to a situation where my dialed in settings for focus rules apply. My hand test, for example, went well, with good transitions from my hand to my face and back.

Likewise normal focus pulls when you move the camera from one subject to another are better damped and controlled – more cinematic.

I had no problems with static settings either. Focus does a good job of staying locked on a subject on camera without hunting or pulsing.

Video AF still isn’t quite as sophisticated on Nikon as Sony or Canon, generally, and the 35mm F1.2 S proved to be about average in performance.

Nikkor Z 35mm F1.2 S Image Quality Breakdown

Here’s where this lens needs to shine. Large aperture lenses are actually often at a disadvantage when it comes to autofocus because they have much larger glass elements to move, and they are almost always at a disadvantage when it comes to size, weight, and cost. This is a big, heavy, expensive lens, but that is in the service of exceptional performance. The 35mm F1.2 S needs to deliver. This is an optical design of 17 elements in 15 groups, which includes three ED elements, three aspherical elements, and one aspherical ED element.

The MTF chart looks good at F1.2, but not exceptionally good. It doesn’t look as good as the Viltrox LAB 35mm F1.2 on paper.

I’ll revisit that comparison once the Z-mount version of the LAB comes out to verify results.

At the moment, however, the 35mm F1.2 S is the only such lens available on Nikon Z mount, and while Viltrox does have an adapter that I’m assuming works fine with their lenses, the LAB does NOT work via my Megadap adapter.

Let’s move on to the actual performance. The Plena was designed to provide very even illumination to the whole frame, including the periphery, but that’s not nearly as true here.

Distortion is well controlled, with just a tiny amount of very linear barrel distortion, that can easily go without correction and corrects easily if you decide to correct it. Vignette is another matter, however, and is very heavy. I needed to use a +77 to correct the vignette. That being said, I needed to use a +70 to correct vignette on the E-mount version of the LAB, which means that the larger Z-mount opening (which always requires more vignette correction) will mean that the Z-mount version of the LAB will almost certainly be worse and will require maxing out the sliders to correct the vignette.

The correction profile in camera or editing software works great, though, and so this isn’t a real world problem. Here’s an F1.2 image with an even foreground, and you can see that no vignette lingers.

There are minimal amounts of LoCA (longitudinal chromatic aberrations) before and after the plane of focus.

I like to use my Dad’s old SLR as a real world test, and I saw only a tiny amount of green fringing in a few spots.

No problems there.

LaCA (lateral chromatic aberrations) typically show up along the edges of the frame with high contrast transition points. I saw nothing but clean transitions on either side of the black and white transitions.

Outside of the vignette, that’s a great start to our optical examination.

We’ll move on to inspecting our test chart. This test has been done on a 45MP Nikon Z8 sensor. I use a high end tripod and two second camera delay to ensure vibration doesn’t affect images. Here’s a look at the test chart that we will examine at high magnification:

If we take a look at crops (at 200%) at F1.2 from the center, mid-frame, and lower right corner, we find that center and mid-frame performance is exceptionally good, and that the corners, while dark, are good until the last little bit.

Out in the real world this equals to pin sharp results with great contrast. This Crimson King maple leaf at F1.2 shows beautiful detail and contrast.

The crop shows that the edges of subjects are nice and crisp without the “bleeding” at the edges I sometimes see with cheaper lenses.

Stopping down even to F1.4 provides a surprising amount of additional contrast in the center and the mid-frame.

The corners don’t see quite that same bump, though there are a little brighter and show a bit more contrast.

Stop on down to F2.8, however, and you’ll find the corners just as pin sharp as everywhere else. It is a rare lens that achieves this level of corner performance at any aperture.

Stopped down a bit, and this is a killer landscape lens with exceptional detail from corner to corner.

But the joy of a lens like this is shooting at F1.2, where it delivers the kind of performance that few if any 35mm F1.2 lenses have ever delivered.

You almost have to zoom into images to appreciate what’s being done at F1.2. This image looks nice…

…but it is only when viewed at high magnification that you can appreciate how those fine details are being rendered.

Physics will affect even the mightiest of lenses, however, so expect diffraction to start to soften the image by F11 and more obviously by F16, which is minimum aperture (though this lens is still sharper than many lenses at its weakest!)

I’m not sure that buying the 35mm F1.2 S just on the strength of sharpness is worth doing, however, as the 35mm F1.8 S is very sharp as well. The bigger reason to buy this lens is its ability to give you that wide(ish) angle of view while having beautifully soft bokeh. This image, for example, looks pretty exemplary.

You can even create bokeh out of mosquitoes!

You can make backgrounds beautifully disappear.

It also handles shiny situations well, allowing you to get those stylish wedding detail type shots with a lot of big, round specular highlights.

People photos show a nice cutout effect and dimensionality.

I also found that flare resistance in many situations was good. When the sun is barely in (or right out of) frame at bright apertures, all you can is a nice glow without anything destructive.

More direct shots into the sun at any aperture seem to hold up well. There are three different kinds of coatings employed here, including Meso Amorphous Coat, Nano Crystal Coat, and Super Integrated Coating. These are clearly doing an exceptional job here.

There is both good and bad when it comes to astro performance. The heavy vignette does negatively impact images a bit at F1.2. Star points are nice and crisp, however, without much evidence of fringing, though you will see some coma towards the edge where stars look more like birds flying out of frame.

I tried stopping down to F1.6, but I didn’t see much of an improvement by that point.

Overall, however, I would say that performance for the night sky is good because of being able to suck so much light in at F1.2 while also having good sharpness and low fringing.

You pay the big bucks to get something exceptional, and that’s what this lens is optically.

The Nikkor Z 35mm F1.2 S is priced like one of the best 35mm lenses ever, and that’s exactly what it is. If you’d like to see more images, check out the gallery linked here.

Conclusion

The idea of a 35mm lens that is this big, this heavy, and this expensive is going to seem absurd to the average photographer. The Nikkor Z 35mm F1.2 S is an extreme instrument in every way, but fortunately that includes the performance of the lens.

Those who routinely do wedding and portrait work will often want the best tools possible for their work, as it allows them more flexibility to play with depth of field and to create high end images that will delight their customers. Lenses like the 35mm F1.2 S will allow people to do that.

This is not a practical lens. If you want practical, consider the 35mm F1.8 S or even the 35mm F1.4 instead. But if your goal is to have the best 35mm prime lens you can get on Z-mount, this is it. The Nikkor Z 35mm F1.2 S is not a flawless lens, but it is an exceptional one. Just be sure to start hitting the gym.