Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Venus Optics
Venus Optics (Anhui ChangGeng Optics Technology Co., Ltd.) is a Chinese manufacturer of photographic lenses, specialized in the design of innovative macro, wide angle, shift and f/0.95 lenses. Headquarters and production are in Hefei, while sales and marketing offices are located in Hong Kong and the USA. They are currently marketing the lenses using the brand 'Laowa'.
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 ('old frog').
Laowa's optics designer, Dayong Li, is believed to be the optics designer of Tamron, the reputable camera lens manufacturer from Japan. He was heavily involved in numerous Tamron's project development including the popular 24-70mm f/2.8 and 70-200mm f/2.8.
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 (e.g., where and how the subject lives) in the photo. Due to physical reasons, the working distance in the macro range is rather short (at 1:1, focusing distance is 12.2 cm resulting in a working distance of only 4.7 mm). 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 (see table).
Besides optics for photography company also produce cine lenses. Traditional and anamorphic.
Most Laowa lenses (an exception is e.g., the 100 mm f/2,8 2x Ultra Macro APO) 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 (OIS), 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.
Since 2017, Laowa had organised multiple international marketing campaigns bearing its slogan "New Idea, New Fun".
Hub AI
Venus Optics AI simulator
(@Venus Optics_simulator)
Venus Optics
Venus Optics (Anhui ChangGeng Optics Technology Co., Ltd.) is a Chinese manufacturer of photographic lenses, specialized in the design of innovative macro, wide angle, shift and f/0.95 lenses. Headquarters and production are in Hefei, while sales and marketing offices are located in Hong Kong and the USA. They are currently marketing the lenses using the brand 'Laowa'.
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 ('old frog').
Laowa's optics designer, Dayong Li, is believed to be the optics designer of Tamron, the reputable camera lens manufacturer from Japan. He was heavily involved in numerous Tamron's project development including the popular 24-70mm f/2.8 and 70-200mm f/2.8.
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 (e.g., where and how the subject lives) in the photo. Due to physical reasons, the working distance in the macro range is rather short (at 1:1, focusing distance is 12.2 cm resulting in a working distance of only 4.7 mm). 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 (see table).
Besides optics for photography company also produce cine lenses. Traditional and anamorphic.
Most Laowa lenses (an exception is e.g., the 100 mm f/2,8 2x Ultra Macro APO) 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 (OIS), 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.
Since 2017, Laowa had organised multiple international marketing campaigns bearing its slogan "New Idea, New Fun".