Venus Launches Brightest Wide Prime Lens

2023.03.28

Today Venus Optics unveiled the brightest wide-angle lens with Full-Frame coverage. Part of the Argus series, the new Laowa Argus 28mm F/1.2 FF is the only wide-angle lens with an F/1.2 maximum aperture or brighter. Its large aperture makes it possible to capture wide scenes with a shallow depth-of-field.

This bright prime lens captures a 76° angle-of-view with Full-Frame coverage which renders a wide perspective suitable for capturing daily life, group portraits, scenery and interior scenes. With its extremely bright aperture, it is highly suitable to photographing indoor architecture and astrophotography. The Argus 28mm F/1.2 FF offers a huge light gathering ability.

The Laowa Argus 28mm F/1.2 FF is designed for capturing fine details even wide open. Its optics were created to fully take advantage of its super-bright aperture. Using a 13-blade iris, this lens can render backgrounds with extreme smoothness to isolate subjects and for artistic effect. A standard 62mm filter-thread provides additional versatility, allowing to use a polarizer to minimize reflection or an ND filter to capture very long exposures with a shallow depth-of-field.

Image Courtesy of Venus Optics ©2023 Bastian Kratzke

This lens can focus 50cm from the focal-plane for a maximum magnification of 0.07X which is typical for wide lenses. The focusing system is internal to stay balanced and keep the lens length fixed. There are no lenses to compare with directly but the Laowa 28mm F/1.2 is compact for an ultra-bright Full-Frame lens. It measures less than 11cm long and weighs 562g. Lens this bright are often twice as heavy. Of course, Venus Optics saves some weight by producing entirely mechanical lenses. As such, this is a manual-focus only lens and the aperture must be set directly on the lens. For video work, the aperture-ring can be declicked.

The Laowa Argus 28mm F/5.6 FF is available for Sony E, Nikon Z, Canon RF and Leica L mount at a relatively low price of $600 USD. Follow these links for full specifications. Purchase options will be added when available.

With the addition of this lens, there are now 2000 lenses in the Neocamera lens database, all fully searchable via our Lens Search Engine. Third-party manufacturers have stepped up to full many gaps present among native lenses for relatively new mirrorless systems. They may be lacking modern features yet they sell for much less.

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