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 ^[2] and chief developer is Dayong Li ^[3] who graduated in opto-electronic engineering from the Beijing Institute of Technology.^[4]

The company develops and produces innovative^[5][6] 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. ^[7]

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.^[8] 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).^[9][10][11] 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.^[12][13]

• 
  Laowa 15 mm f/4 Gran Angular Macro con función de desplazamiento de Venus Optics
• 
  Objetivo gran angular Laowa de 9 mm f/2.8 para APS-C , presentado en 2015.
• 
  Objetivo ultra macro Laowa de 25 mm y apertura 2.5-5x para formato completo , presentado en 2018.

La mayoría de los objetivos Laowa (con la excepción, por ejemplo, del 100  mm f/2,8 2x Ultra Macro APO) son objetivos puramente manuales. No existe comunicación entre el cuerpo de la cámara y el objetivo, por lo que no hay transferencia de datos Exif , ni función de autoenfoque , ni estabilización de imagen basada en el objetivo (OIS), ni control automático de la apertura . Sin embargo, el autoenfoque tiene una función secundaria en fotografía macro y gran angular. El horquillado de autoenfoque no es posible con objetivos manuales. La empresa no descarta el desarrollo de más objetivos con componentes electrónicos. ^{[ 6 ]}

Desde 2017, Laowa había organizado múltiples campañas de marketing internacionales con su eslogan "Nueva idea, nueva diversión" . ^{[ 29 ]}

• Lista de fabricantes de equipos fotográficos

• Sitio web de Venus Optics