Venus Optics is a Chinese lens manufacturer. But most of the lenses that you’ll come across will be under the Laowa brand.
Rather than try to do everything, Laowa lenses are catering to some specific niches. For now, they’re mainly specializing in ultra-wide lenses (many of them manual, but a few autofocus), macro (and even tilt-shift macro), and some ultra-fast f/0.95 manual primes (their Argus range).
They offer lenses for various mounts, but not all lenses are available in every mount. Throughout their range, they cover Canon EF, Nikon F, Sony E, Sony A, Micro Four Thirds, Fujifilm X, Canon RF, Nikon Z, and Pentax K mounts.
You can find their full range of lenses on their website.
Laowa lens codes / categories
Like other manufacturers, Venus Optics / Laowa uses codes in the names of their lenses to identify key features and technologies of the lens. And those codes, or names, are often among the most unusual and hard to decipher.
Once you know how to read them, they can be very useful as a shorthand way to quickly categorize a particular lens. But the codes can also be confusing, and every lens manufacturer makes up its own codes.
So here’s a breakdown of the codes Laowa uses in naming their lenses.
These categories are pretty self-explanatory (unlike those that some lens manufacturers use).
- Laowa Ultra-Wide Angle Lenses – Venus Optics offers a selection of ultra-wide angle lenses with unique and extreme perspectives, including the widest rectilinear lenses available for certain mounts.
- Laowa Macro Lenses – Venus Optics produces specialized macro lenses, including lenses with a 2:1 magnification ratio, which allows for greater magnification than typical 1:1 macro lenses.
- Laowa Fisheye Lenses – Venus Optics offers fisheye lenses that provide a circular or full-frame image with a distinctive distortion effect.
- Laowa Telephoto Lenses – Venus Optics has a limited selection of telephoto lenses, including lenses with apodization elements to create a smooth bokeh effect.
- Laowa Anamorphic Lenses – Venus Optics produces a range of anamorphic lenses designed for filmmakers, providing a distinctive cinematic look and unique lens flare characteristics.
Laowa lens codes / lens features
- FF – Full-frame. Pretty self-explanatory.
- Zero-D – Zero Distortion, a designation for Laowa lenses that exhibit minimal optical distortion, making them well-suited for architectural and interior photography.
- Shift – Laowa lenses with a shift feature allow for perspective control, which can be particularly useful for architectural photography.
- Argus – A line of Laowa lenses with fast apertures, designed for low-light performance and a shallow depth of field. For now, these are all manual-focus lenses.
- APO – Apochromatic lenses, designed by Venus Optics to minimize chromatic aberrations and provide accurate color reproduction. Apochromatic lenses, often referred to as APO lenses, are specially designed optical systems that significantly reduce chromatic aberrations in comparison to standard lenses. Chromatic aberrations, also known as color fringing, occur when a lens fails to focus all colors of light at the same point, resulting in color shifts and reduced image sharpness. In an apochromatic lens, multiple lens elements made from different types of glass or other materials are combined to ensure that light rays of different wavelengths converge at the same focal point. This minimizes the color fringing effect and provides more accurate color reproduction, improved image sharpness, and better overall image quality. APO lenses are particularly beneficial in applications where accurate color reproduction and high contrast are essential, such as macro photography, astrophotography, and professional landscape photography. While apochromatic lenses can offer significant optical improvements, they often come at a higher price point due to the use of specialized glass elements and the complexity of their design.
- Close-to-Zero – A designation used by Venus Optics for lenses with minimal focus breathing, making them suitable for videography applications.
- CF – Close Focus, indicating Laowa lenses capable of focusing at a close distance relative to the focal length, useful for close-up photography.
