How Does Laowa’s 20mm Lens Stack Up Against the Canon 24mm TSE?

If you’re into architectural photography, my guess is that you already know about the abilities of tilt-shift lenses. Canon has been on the forefront of this domain for years. More recently Laowa has started to offer an alternative. Now they have both a 15mm and a 20mm option.

Friend of the almanac, Usman Dawood has shared a new video on his YouTube Channel where he gets into detail about the Laowa 20mm shift lens, and compares it to the more well known Canon 24mm TSE. 

In the video he covers different aspects about the lenses; build quality, tactile feel, image quality, field of view, colors and coating, lens hood and flaring. Through example shots, he compares the two lenses so you get a deeper understanding about its abilities, and which one is the right for you. 

Usman concludes with, among other things, “…going from 24mm to 17mm is a big jump. In alot of situations, in my experience, I find that I just want to shoot a little bit wider,  I don’t want to jump from 24 to 17, I want just a little bit wider, and the 20mm lens fills that gap perfectly. Laowa differents itself enough to not be a direct competitor with Canon – it sits in its own little category. And on that basis, if you already own the 17 and 24, probably a good idea to buy the 20 from Laowa.”

Check out the video below where Usman shares his experience with the lenses.