Let’s start this review by looking at this lens’s design and build quality.
Table of Contents
Design and Build Quality
The Laowa FF II Argus 45mm f/0.95 is very similar to the Argus 35mm lens for design and build quality. This Laowa FF II Argus 45mm f/0.95 is a fully manual lens designed for full-frame mirror cameras. This lens is available for Sony E, Canon R, and Nikon Z. The lens body is made of metal and is a large and heavy lens. The weight of the Nikon version is over 900 grams. The focus ring is at the front of the lens. It is a significant focus ring, and the focus ring itself feels very smooth. Compared with the previous Argus lens, the focus flow of this arcs 45mm lens is also quite long. It is about 300 degrees. There is a mechanical aperture ring near the lens mouth and a switch on the side for you to switch between whether the aperture ring has clicked or is de-clicked. All fully mechanical lenses should come with a removable metal lens hood. Its front filter thread is 72 millimeters, like the 35mm arcus lens. Overall, this lens feels extremely solid and high metal, and the build quality is also a bit better and feels more refined than most other fully mechanical lenses.
Close-up
The minimum focus distance of this lower lens is 50 centimeters, which is about average and the maximum magnification ratio is 0.12 times, so it probably is not the best lens for taking closer photos of small objects.
It is okay to take close-up portrait photos.
Centre and Corner Image Sharpness
Let’s have a look at the center image sharpness. I’ve shot at f 0.95. The contrast and sharpness are both a little bit low. But if you are taking portrait photos, I think you probably wouldn’t mind at all. When stopping down the lens to f 1.4, you will find significant improvement in both sharpness and contrast. If you stop down to f2, the center sharpness becomes good. For its corner sharpness at f 0.95, the corner is quite soft., the corner becomes better when you stop down to f2. The corner becomes pretty sharp at f4.0.
Bokeh
Thanks to its super-fast f 0.95 aperture and 45mm focal length, this lens makes it easy to dissolve the background and create some foreground-background separation. When shooting some close-up portrait photo, it can melt the background completely. The transition at the edge of the bokeh is soft. So, you could create some very lovely dreamy bokeh at the maximum aperture. I noticed a bit of 4k clipping near the edge of the frame, and there is a little bit of cast eye effect. When stopping down to f2, most of the creeping effect would disappear, and the bokeh balls become round even at the corner of the photo. The Bokeh balls remain very rounded when I stop down the lens further. But there is a small amount of onion pattern in the bokeh, which is relatively minor and noticeable in most photos.
Distortion
Let’s look at the distortion, and as usual, look at my brick wall test photo. Even though this is not a lower cod lens, the amount of distortion with this lens is pretty minimal, I see a tiny amount of distortion, but it is relatively minor. I think it shouldn’t even be noticeable for most kinds of photos when shooting at the maximum aperture.
Vignetting
Vignetting is strongly noticeable in a test photo and a real-world photo. You can see the pretty noticeable vignetting. But that is not unexpected for an f0.95 lens. Stopping down the lens would gradually reduce the amount of vignetting and at f2.8 vignetting becomes relatively minor. I think vignetting adds a bit of character to the photos.
Chromatic Aberration
Chromatic aberration control with this lower 45mm lens is alright. There is a small amount of color fringing in some of my high-contrast photos. Still, even when shooting at f 0.95, I don’t see any nasty color fringing, so I feel lower did a pretty decent job controlling the chromatic aberration of this 45 mil arcs lens.
Lens Flare
I’m shooting with this lens, especially when shooting at f 0.95. I get a bit of lens flare, and contrast can also drop when a light source is in front of the camera. But one thing is lens fare is not always bad; at least that’s what I think. I remember when I reviewed the Laowa arcus 33mm f0.95 lenses. That lens has a lot of lens flare, but I love it because the lens fair looks charming and very cinematic, so I was a bit disappointed when I reviewed their first full-frame arcus 35mu f 0.95 lens as that lens doesn’t have those cinematic looking lens flare.
But this time, with this arcus 0.95 lens, this cinematic lens flare is back. It is less intense than the argus 33mm lens, and the effect is more subtle. But with a vital light source in front and just outside the frame, you can still produce it, and I love that effect. It seems the closer the focus distance you set the lens to, the more than orange lens fair you can create. It’s great to take a close-up portrait photo with a bit of lens flare at the corner of the frame that makes the picture look fantastic.
Sunstars
When I stop down the lens to around f5.6, I can see sunstars in the photo. But the shape of the sun stars doesn’t look very nice when I stop down the lens to the minimum aperture of f16.
Comma
Commas can be pretty noticeable when taking the photo at the maximum aperture f 0.95; I wouldn’t say it is terrible.
I would even say it is pretty decent for an f 0.95 lens, but if you zoom into the photo and look at the corner of the image, you can see the comma quite quickly, and at f 2.8, the comma becomes relatively minor.
You will love the long focus flow for filmmakers, which allows you to do very precise focus pooling. You also love the option to make the aperture ring decrypted so you can have reasonable control of this Laowa lens. You will probably also love the cinematic lens flare that this lens can render; however, the focus is a bit more than I expected when I do my standard 1 meter to infinity focus briefing test. Look at the brick wall on the left. The amount of focus breathing is quite noticeable.
Sample Photos
Price
$899
Conclusion
I remembered not too many years ago there were only a minimal number of f0.95 lenses in the market, and most of them were designed for smaller sensor cameras. But nowadays f 0.95 lenses are getting more and more popular this year. This Laowa FF II Argus 45mm f/0.95 is not the sharpest lens I’ve ever reviewed as the corner sharpness is relatively poor at maximum aperture if I want a sharp lens, an f1.8 or f2 lens.
If I want to buy a lens like this, I want to capture a photo that an f 1.8 or even an f 1.4 lens can’t do. I’m not just talking about the super shadow depth of field at f0.95 The rendering needs to have some unique characteristics, and this laowa 45mm lens can meet my needs in this regard.
The bokeh is soft, and the lens flare is very cinematic. The image captured by this lens looks very pleasing to my eyes. I understand the long focus flow allows more precise focus adjustment, but in my opinion, 300 degrees seems to be a little bit too long; the biggest downside of this lens is probably the weight. It is a heavy lens. But the pleasant shooting experience and the beautiful photo and video captured by this lens
would make you forget about the weight of this lens
