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Laowa Argus 18mm MFT and 25mm APS-C f/0.95 APO lens photos and specs leak ahead of upcoming announcement

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Laowa’s Argus range has been a little slow in growing, although the few fast prime lenses in the Argus line so far, have proven to be quite popular. Initially, the series launched in January 2021 with a 25mm lens for MFT, 33mm for APS-C and 35mm, and 45mm lenses for full-frame, all with that same wide f/0.95 maximum aperture. Although, that 25mm for MFT did take over a year to actually come to market.

It seems that two more are to be announced tomorrow, though, and photos and specs of both lenses have leaked early. The Micro Four Thirds lineup is doubling, with the addition of a new 18mm f/0.95 lens and APS-C is now going to see the 25mm focal length, also at f/0.95, in Sony E, Canon EF-M, Canon RF, Fuji X and Nikon Z mounts.

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This 50mm f/0.95 face-off puts Laowa vs Mitakon vs TTArtisan vs Brightin Star lenses against each other

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There seem to be a lot of very fast lens options these days, even for full-frame cameras. Very few are them are coming from the long-established big-name companies like the camera manufacturers themselves or even Sigma and Tamron, but there are a lot of manual focus ones coming from some of the newer Chinese lens manufacturers.

In this video, Christopher Frost puts four full-frame 50mm f/0.95 lenses to the test to see how they stack up against each other, including the Mitakon, TTArtisan, Brightin Star and the recently announced Laowa Argus lens. The Laowa is a hair wider than the other three at 45mm rather than 50, but it’s close enough.

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Venus Optics has announced its fast new Laowa Argus 25mm f/0.95 MFT APO lens for Micro Four Thirds

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There’s a fast new lens in the Laowa Micro Four Thirds lineup. Venus Optics has today announced their new Laowa Argus 25mm f/0.95 MFT APO lens. Offering a similar field of view and relative depth of field to a 50mm f/1.8 on full-frame, but with two stops of extra light gathering ability, Laowa says the lens creates a nice soft bokeh and lets you shoot in very low lighting conditions with lower ISO values.

It contains 14 elements in 8 groups with one aspherical element, 1 extra-low dispersion (ED) element and three UHR glass elements, which Laowa says provides sharp crystal clear images at maximum aperture in both bright and dark conditions. It’s also a bit of a weighty lens, with a durable full-metal construction.

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Laowa has now (definitely) officially announced their APS-C Argus 33mm f/0.95 lens

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This whole Laowa Argus lens lineup thing’s been a bit of a ride. The first indication that they were coming was back in January last year. In March, rumours appeared of six new lenses coming, to be expected in 2021. In December, an image of a 35mm f/0.95 was leaked. And in January this year, it looked like the whole lineup might have been announced. Nope, it was just confirmation they were coming.

Now, though, the first Laowa’s Argus line is absolutely, 100% guaranteed, officially announced. The Laowa Argus 33mm f/0.95 CF APO is now a real thing, and it’s even on the Laowa website. Hold back your excitement a little, though. This isn’t one of the full-frame Argus lenses many have been anticipating. It’s for APS-C.

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Laowa 25mm, 33mm, 35mm, 45mm f/0.95 Argus lenses announced… maybe. Or leaked? Something

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I’m not entirely sure what’s going on with these new Laowa Argus lenses from Venus Optics, but they’ve either now officially announced their first lenses in the Laowa Argus f/0.95 lens lineup, or the information’s just leaked (as it does). Or a mix of both. I’ve yet to see an actual press release, although different websites seem to variously report their existence as either an official announcement or a leak.

Anyway, these are reportedly the images of Laowa’s upcoming Argus 25mm f/0.95 MFT lens, 33mm f/0.95 APS-C mirrorless lens and their 35mm f/0.95 and 45mm f/0.95 full-frame mirrorless lenses, along with some specs. Here’s what we know so far…

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The first photo of the hotly anticipated Laowa Argus 35mm f/0.95 lens has leaked

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It was rumoured way back in January, and expected “soon”, but now it looks like it might finally be on the way very soon. The first photo has leaked of what is expected to be Venus Optics’ new Laowa FF II Argus 35mm f/0.95 lens for both DSLRs and mirrorless cameras. This means we can likely expect it to come in both Nikon F & Z as well as Canon EF & RF mounts. Chances are we’ll see Sony E and Leica L, too.

As to which mounts will come first, though, is anybody’s guess.

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Laowa is developing six new f/0.95 lenses for Sony FE – but the first won’t be here until 2021

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Laowa announced back in January that a new series of super-fast f/0.95 “Argus” lenses would be coming at some point, although there were no real clues as to what they might be. At first it was thought that they would be available for different mirrorless and DSLR systems, both full-frame and APS-C.

Fuji Addict suggested that the first might fall somewhere between 20-35mm. We still don’t know what the focal length might be, but now Sony Alpha Rumours reports that there will be six lenses coming for full-frame Sony E mount, although the first probably won’t be available until 2021.

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