Venus Optics
Venus Optics is a Chinese manufacturer of photographic lenses, specialized in the design of innovative macro and wide angle lenses. Headquarters and production site are in Hefei, sales and marketing are located in Hongkong and the USA.
Company
Venus Optics was founded in 2013. Founder, managing director and chief developer is Dayong Li who graduated in opto-electronic engineering from the Beijing Institute of Technology.The company develops and produces innovative
photographic lenses under the brand name Laowa.
Lenses
The first lens was the 60 mm f/2.8 2 x Ultra Macro, a full frame lens with a magnification factor of 2:1 that could also be focused to infinity which is unique. In the same year, Venus Optics released the widest angle macro lens to offer a 1:1 magnification ratio, the 15 mm f/4 Wide Angle Macro. The small focal length allows to include the background details in the photo. Due to physical reasons, the working distance in the macro range is rather short. In the meantime, Venus Optics have released unique lenses mainly in the fields of ultra macro and rectilinear and/or fast ultra wide angle lenses for full frame, APS-C, MFT, and Fujifilm G-Mount.| Focal length | Max. aperture | Image sensor format | Focal length, full frame equivalent | Name | Year of introduction | Unique feature at date of introduction |
| 4 | f/2.8 | MFT | 8 | Fisheye MFT | 2019 | Smallest focal length for MFT. Ultracompact and thus suited for drone photography. |
| 7.5 | f/2 | MFT | 15 | MFT | 2017 | Combination of fast lens, ultra wide angle lens, and rectilinear projection for MFT. An ultra light version is available for drone photography. |
| 9 | f/2.8 | APS-C | 13.5 | Zero-D | 2018 | Combination of fast lens, ultra wide angle lens, and rectilinear projection w/ negligible distortion for APS-C. Ultracompact construction. A MFT version is available. |
| 9 | t/2.9 | APS-C | 13.5 | Zero-D Cine | 2020 | Ultra wide angle cine lens with rectilinear projection and negligible distortion for APS-C. |
| 9 | f/5.6 | Full frame | 9 | Zero-D | 2020 | Widest angle rectilinear full frame lens with negligible distortion. |
| 10-18 | f/4.5-5.6 | Full frame | 10-18 | Zoom | 2018 | Greatest zoom factor of a full frame wide angle lens. |
| 12 | f/2.8 | Full frame | 12 | Zero-D | 2016 | Combination of fast lens, ultra wide angle lens, and rectilinear projection w/ negligible distortion for full frame format. |
| 12 | t/2.9 | Full frame | 12 | Zero-D Cine | 2020 | Cine version of the 12 mm f/2.8 Zero-D. Field of view is 122°. Close to being distortion-free. Compact and relatively light for a cine lens. Minimum focusing distance is 7". |
| 15 | t/2.1 | Full frame | 15 | Zero-D Cine | 2020 | Wide angle cine lens with rectilinear projection and negligible distortion. |
| 15 | f/4 | Full frame | 15 | Wide Angle Macro | 2015 | Widest angle macro lens. Shift function for landscsape format. |
| 15 | f/2 | Full frame | 15 | Zero-D | 2017 | Fastest 15 mm lens for full frame. Rectilinear projection, minimum distortion. |
| 17 | f/1.8 | MFT | 34 | Prime | 2019 | Very compact and light weight lens and thus also suited for aerial photography. Small minimum focus distance of 5.9″ enables close-up shots. |
| 17 | f/4 | Fujifilm GFX | 13.5 | Ultra-Wide GFX Zero-D | 2019 | Widest angle lens for Fujifilm G-Mount. Rectilinear projection, minimum distortion. |
| 24 | f/14 | Full frame | 25 | 2x Macro Probe | 2018 | Novel concept. Allows for large distance between photographer and object. Can be immersed in aqueous media. |
| 25 | f/2.8 | Full frame | 25 | 2.5-5x Ultra Macro | 2018 | Most compact construction in this class with approximately 4 cm working distance. |
| 60 | f/2.8 | Full frame | 60 | 2x Ultra Macro | 2015 | First 2x macro lens that can be focused at infinity. |
| 65 | f/2.8 | APS-C | 97.5 | 2x Ultra Macro APO | 2020 | Apochromatic lens. Compact and lightweight APS-C version of the 100 mm 2x Ultra Macro f/2.8. Can also be focused at infinity. |
| 100 | f/2.8 | Full frame | 100 | 2x Ultra Macro APO | 2019 | Apochromatic lens. Laowa's second 2x macro lens after the 60 mm f/2.8 that can be focused at infinity. Minimum chromatic aberration. |
| 105 | f/2 | Full frame | 105 | Smooth Trans Focus | 2016 | Built in apodization element for creative photography. |
Most Laowa lenses are purely manual lenses. There is no communication between the camera body and the lens, hence, no transfer of Exif data, no autofocus function, no lens-based image stabilization, and no automatic aperture control. However, autofocus plays a minor role in macro and wide angle photography. Auto focus bracketing is not possible with manual lenses. The company does not exclude the development of more lenses with electronics in them.