Venus Launches Aurogon 10-50X Magnification Lens

2023.09.27

Overnight, Venus Optics, makers of Laowa lenses, released an optic like no other. Their new lens introduces an entirely new concept that spans magnifications from 10X to 50X in discrete steps. This manufacturer has been a truly innovative force in the camera lens world and they created a completely unique concept with the Aurogon.

Very few camera lenses have been so ground-breaking and unique that they cannot be represented among our extensive database of camera lenses that features over 2000 models from first and third-party manufacturers but the new Laowa Aurogon FF 10-50X NA/0.5 Supermicro is one of them!

At first glace, the image above looks like a set of lenses from the same series, a concept which has been more popular over the last few years, yet this is quite different. The leftmost lens shown above can be used as a lens in the traditional sense. That is in fact the front of the Aurogon FF 10-50X. It mounts only one of the tubular lenses to its right in order to form a complete lens. With two pieces joined together, the entire item becomes a lens that can be mounted on a camera. Depending on which one is attached the magnification is 20X, 35X or 50X. With only the front mounted directly on a camera, magnification is still an incredible 10X.

The Laowa Aurogon FF 10-50X NA/0.5 Supermicro is those 4 parts. Two are used at a time which is what gives it discrete magnification steps, rather than a continuous 10-50X which would require significantly more complex optics and a mechanism to control them. The working distance is always 20mm from the front of the lens. That is, the lens will always be a fixed distance from the subject.

Moth Scales @ 50X Magnification - Image Courtesy of Venus Optics

Even though there is a 9-blade iris in the center, the traditional concept of aperture as a relative to focal-length does not apply here. Instead, it varies on a linear scale from 0.15-0.5, where 0.5 captures the most light. This is a very narrow aperture and therefore will require significant amount of subject illumination when capturing images indoors. The weight of the front component is 390g, while rear components weight between 377 and 609g, meaning that one complete lens can reach 1kg. The entire set is just under 2.5kg.

The FF in the name indicates this lens provides Full-Frame coverage. Venus Optics makes this lens 6 Full-Frame mounts: Canon EF, Nikon F, Sony E, Canon RF, Nikon Z and L mount plus two more: the smaller PL-mount used commonly by film cameras and the Fujifilm GFX lens mount which is a Medium-Format mount with 0.8X crop. A Full-Frame lens mounted on it would therefore be cropped by 1.25X.

The Laowa Aurogon FF 10-50X NA/0.5 SuperMicro lens is available for $1500 USD directly from Venus Optics.

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