Laowa 20mm F4.0 C-Dreamer Shift for Fujifilm GFX Coming March 28th

On March 28, Venus Optics will announce the Laowa 20mm f/4.0 for various mounts including Fujifilm GFX. The first specs leaked by SonyAlphaRumors are:

  • Laowa FF S 20mm F4.0 C-Dreamer SHIFT lens
  • 82mm circular filter
  • hood can rotate 360° to reduce the appearance of flare ghosts

Laowa is already offering the following lenses for the GFX system:

GFX Gear – Buy within April 3 and submit your claim by May 3

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via SonyAlphaRumors via CameraBeta

Save $200 on Laowa 17mm f/4 for GFX and More Black Friday Deals Uncorked

 

Stores have now unleashed their first Black Friday deals. Here are the dedicated deal pages.

Also, some Laowa lenses for Fujifilm X and GFX are on sale right now, such as a $200 rebate on the Laowa 17mm f/4 Zero-D for Fujifilm GFX

USA

EUROPE

Laowa X and GFX Lenses

Luminar Neo Deals

Godox & Lighting Deals

SOFTWARE DEALS:

f/0.95 Showdown: Laowa Argus 33mmF0.95 vs Mitakon 35mmF0.95 vs 7Artisans 35mmF0.95

You might remember how we already shared a comparison between the Laowa Argus 33mm f/0.95, the Mitakon 35mm f/0.95 and the 7Artisans 35mm f/0.95 made by Richard Wong. We have summed it all up including his final thoughts in this article.

Now also Christopher Frost made the very same comparison, but will he also get to the same conclusions?

  • all very similar build quality. All made of metal
  • all focus rings are precise enough for accurate focusing at f/0.95, although the Laowa turns round further, which can be helpful
  • all manual focus, no IBIS, no EXIF transmitted to camera
  • the Laowa Argus is bigger and heavier than the other two lenses
  • at f/0.95 all three lenses are surprisingly sharp in the middle, but none of them has impressive contrast
  • at f/0.95 the 7Artisans shows quite strong color cast and some magenta color fringing
  • at f/0.95 the Mitakon as some purple fringing
  • at f/0.95 the Laowa Argus shows a bit less color fringing than the other two
  • in the corners the Mitakon is by far the softest followed by the 7Artisans while the Venus Optics Laowa lens remains surprisingly sharp
  • at f/1.4 all lenses remain sharp as before in the corners, while in the middle they gain a lot of contrast and look a little sharper than before with the Laowa Argus being still noticeably ahead of the other two
  • at f/2 all three lenses look virtually perfect in the center. In the corners the situation is the same as in the wide apertures
  • at f/4 all three lenses enjoy a nice improvement in corner sharpness with the Laowa being ahead of the others
  • af f/11 diffraction kicks in
  • vignetting and distortion: all three lenses have a remarkably similar performance. They show just a little barrel distortion af f/0.95
  • the Mitakon seems to show the least vignetting at f/0.95 and the Laowa Argus the most
  • at f/2 the vignetting is gone on the 7Artisans and Mitakon, but it remains a bit on the Laowa
  • close up focus at f/0.95: Mitakon is the softest, the 7Artisans is sharp but with terrible contrast, the Laowa is pretty sharp with a bit of color fringing
  • at f/1.4 the Mitakon begins to look sharper and the 7Artisans gains contrast, and the Laowa looks the sharpest
  • af f/2 all gain sharpness, although the 7Artisans still suffers from lower contrast
  • against bright light sources, they all show tons of intrusive flare with the Mitakon looking a bit worse than the others
  • Bokeh: on the 7Artisans is fine but can be a bit nervous and also show a little colorful outlining. Background bokeh on Mitakon and Laowa is exceptionally soft and smooth. The Mitakon suffers a bit of longitudinal chromatic aberration.

Conclusions:

  • 7Artisans typical low budget model that can give some gorgeous narrow depth of field image
  • the Mitakon is more expensive than the 7Artisans. He liked it a lot when it came out, but it’s the oldest of the three and now shows its age
  • if you want to spend more for the lens than for the 7Artisans, go for the Laowa, as it is sharper and better in every way over the Mitakon, except for vignetting

Order Yours:

The f/0.95 Lens Battle: Laowa Argus 33mmF0.95 vs Zhongyi Mitakon 35mmF0.95 vs 7Artisans 35mmF0.95

There is a vast offering of third party manual focus only Fujifilm X mount lenses. We share a selection of them down below.

Among the most popular ones, there are the ultra fast Laowa Argus 33mmF0.95, the Zhongyi Mitakon 35mmF0.95 and the vs 7Artisans 35mmF0.95.

Now Richard Wong compared them all on his youtube channel. As usual, I’ll provide a summary for you guys in case you don’t have time right now to watch at the 22 minutes long video.

Summary

Design and Built Quality

  • all manual focus only with no electronic contacts
  • all full metal construction
  • they all feel very solid
  • Mitakon and 7Artisans size and weight is similar. The Laowa is quite a bit bigger and heavier
  • The Laowa feels a bit front heavy on X-T3
  • Mitakon and 7Artisans, when you change focus distance, the high of these lenses will extend a bit. The size of the Laowa always remains the same
  • Only Laowa comes with lens hood, a metal lens hood. But the lens cap is of plastic
  • 7Artisans and Mitakon have a focus throw of 90 degrees, while the Laowa has a much longer focus throw of 270 degrees
  • Laowa focus ring feels smooth but also a bit tight. Changing from closes distance to infinity, it will be hard to do it quickly on the Laowa. Not a problem with the other lenses
  • 7Artisans has a quite loose focus ring, so it can be tricky to focus very precisely when shooting at f/.095
  • all these lenses have an de-clicked aperture ring, which he hates. Non of his videographer friends ever changes aperture while shooting a video. He’d prefer a clicked aperture ring
  • he prefers the design of the Laowa

Field of view

  • Laowa has the widest field of view (33 instead of 35)

Sharpness

  • Center at f/0.95: Laowa is clearly the sharpest, followed by Mitakon and the last is 7Artisans
  • at f/1.4 all lenses improve contrast
  • corner sharpness at f/0.95: all quite soft, but Laowa is the sharpest and borderline usable
  • corner sharpness at f/1.4 is reasonably sharp, while you must stop the Mitakon and 7Artisans down at f/2 to get similar results of the Laowa at f/1.4

Chromatic Aberration

  • at f/0.95: Laowa is the best with only a little bit of aberration, and much better than the other two lenses. Mitakon still keeps chromatic aberration at a decent level. 7Artisans has noticeably more chromatic aberration than the other two lenses
  • LoCA at f/0.95: serious color fringing on the 7Artisans. Laowa is best. Mitakon only marginally worst than the Laowa

Vignetting

  • at f/0.95, the Laowa is worst, followed by Mitakon and 7Artisans is best
  • it’s surprising, as the Laowa is the biggest lens

Bokeh

  • at f/0.95: Laowa has smoothest and most creamy bokeh, Mitakon a bit of halo, on 7Artisans pretty noticeable halo which makes it look more nervous
  • bokeh balls: Laowa pretty round a bit swirly in the corners. Mitakon relatively round in the center, but in corners a weird triangle shape. 7Artisans bokeh a bit similar to Mitakon but not quite as extreme and corners have oval shape bokeh with pointy end

Distortion

  • overall similar and noticeable barrel distortion

Focus distance

  • similar minimum focus distance of 35/37 cm
  • at close distance, Laowa has softest sharpness, Mitakon in the middle, and 7Artisans is the sharpest at close distance

Flare

  • All have quite some lens flare and contrast drops
  • lens flare looks quite different
  • 7Artisans is best with least amount of lens flare, but the Laowa has the best and very cinematic looking lens flare with lots of character thanks to a red lens flare

Sun Stars

  • from f/8 to f/11: Laowa most beautiful. Also 7Artisans has nice sun stars. Mitakon not quite as clean sun stars
  • You can stop down the Laowa only until f/11, while 7Artisans and Mitakon go until f/16
  • Mitakon and 7Artisans have quite a bit of ghosting when shooting at f/16, so while the sun star is a bit sharper compared to Laowa at f/16, the ghosting can become a bit distracting
  • Laowa and 7Artisans are a good choice

Coma + Focus Breathing

  • Laowa Coma is at acceptable level. 7Artisans has slightly more coma. Mitakon is the worst
  • Laowa and Mitakon similar focus breathing, 7Artisans more focus breathing

Final Thoughts

  • Each of the lenses has Pros and Cons
  • 7Artisans best value for money, Mitakon overall balanced design and reasonably well in most areas
  • Laowa is his favorite. It’s the sharpness of all and has lowest amount of chromatic aberration, making it most usable at f/0.95
  • Laowa renders best bokeh and lens flare
  • Laowa has way too long focus throw
  • He would pick the Laowa, even if it is larger and heavier

Where to get them

Some Third Party X Mount Options

TIPA AWARDS 2021: Awards for Fujifilm, Sony, Canon, Nikon, Sigma, Panasonic, Pentax, Tamron, Laowa and More

TIPA has worked very hard and made a brutal selection, in which only the very best of the crème de la crème of the top of the top could win their extremely prestigious TIPA award.

Or in other words: camera companies paid again a lot of money to win meaningless awards.

And in order to make it even easier for companies to win (and hence make more money by selling award licenses), they created tons of categories, such as “expert”, “advanced” and “professional”.

Now to the winners.

Cameras

Lenses

More

Awarded Fujifilm Products

via tipa

Venus Optics Laowa Argus 33mm f/0.95 Pre-Order at B&H Photo and Additional Reviews

The Laowa Argus 33mm f/0.95 is now available for pre-order also at BHphoto here.

If you prefer, you can get it directly at the Venus Optics Store here.

As for reviews, we have already shared a first roundup that includes the review of Jonas Rask in this article. A few more can be found below, including the review of that guy, who declared FujiRumors the best rumor website of all out there. If you want to find out which are the best and worst website according to him, check out this article.

Review Roundup

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