Astrophotography at f/0.95! Laowa Argus 35mm f/0.95 FF Lens Review 

Thanks Matt

Thank you, glad you thought so! I was a bit hesitant about including the videos as I wasn't sure if anyone other than me would care about such a feature, but that was truly my impetus for wanting to try this lens!

@@NebulaPhotos Yeah, I mainly shoot videos of the night sky, stars, planets & moon, with various lenses on my Canon R & RA cameras so it was nice to finally see something other than just photos. For some reason even though the cameras are so similar, the RA has better low light than the R does - at least my version does. Thanks again :)

@@NebulaPhotos It's extremely helpful. There are very few truly low light videos online. Most people walk around a city where you can get away with a relatively low ISO with street lights for illumination. There are a couple of aurora videos floating around on an A7S and some crazy video from a Blackmagic PCC4k with a Leica Noctilux under full moonlight - but even then the moon is so bright that it feels like cheating. You can see stars in some of the shots though. I'd be really interested to see how far you can push this - can the Ra do faster than 12800 for video? I think most of us don't care about noise at this stage, but for the sheer insanity of shooting live video under starlight. I'm thinking about getting one of these manuals for 4/3, but it's unclear whether the Olympus Pro f/1.2 line would be a better choice since you also get top tier A/F, superb optics and it's got the weather sealing. That extra 2/3 of a stop is nothing to sniff at, but maybe you can push the Olympus at a higher ISO. That said, you can pick up 2-3 used lenses for the RRP of the 17/1.2 (for example there is also the Voigtlander 10.5/0.95 which is ridiculous).

That's definitely one I want to compare. I have the Sigma Art 40mm and it's incredible, but quite a bit more expensive than this lens.

Glad it helped! Yes, it's amazing how many stars a modern camera with a fast lens picks up.

Thank you! I realized after the review that it comes off, and was kicking myself that I got that wrong. How do you like the lens so far?

@@NebulaPhotos I do like it. It's forced me to slow way down to make sure I'm getting things right. Playing around at the 0.95 makes it super easy to miss focus. I also have the Canon rf 85mm 1.2 DS. my goal was to grab somewhat similar bokeh without having to back away 10 miles lol.

Have you seen the video I did for Patreon only? www.patreon.com/posts/48506949 It doesn't address particular targets, but goes through different types of objects and then talks about filters for each type. With that info + telescopius/astrobin, you can get a pretty good idea about what to shoot and with what. It's not super complicated. Most filters are designed with emission nebulae in mind as those are the only types of object that really respond well to cutting out large swaths of the visible spectrum to block light pollution. Not that I don't appreciate the suggestion (keep them coming), but I have a number of videos half-started so thought I'd see if this video I previously made is up your alley.

I was wrong! I just wasn't twisting hard enough. It is is removable

@@NebulaPhotos okay sweet!

Different exposure length, I tried to keep the level consistent by looking at the histogram. I find this is a better way to gaugue star distortion.

I usually turn off all those kinds of auto processing functions: Noise reduction, anti-red eye, auto rotate, etc. just in case. Sometimes they only effect the JPEG and not the Raw, but it varies from camera to camera.

Yes, I did!

@@NebulaPhotos thanks… it’s on order, might be time to get that 135mm f2 as well

If money is no concern, I'd go for the Sigma Art 14mm f/1.8, which is available for Nikon F mount and is one of the most impressive wide angle fast primes I've tried

From what I've seen on RU-vid, yes. Of course all low-light stuff is hard to judge in RU-vid since it's compression on dark scenes is terrible!

Yes, both should work well. If they don't have intervalometer ports or internal interval timers, you may need to use an app to control them, but that's not the end of the world. I'd be interested in trying out both, but I already have too many cameras and lenses as-is. :)

No, at least not with my setup. This is an RF mount, so native glass meaning there is no room for an adapter

Yes, that would be fun to try. I've looked for RF lens adapters for that purpose and haven't found much yet, but I should look again as this was months ago.

@@NebulaPhotos Cool. I'll keep an eye out too. This application is something I'd be interested in. I was considering a rokinon 14mm to use with a spare asi533 or asi1600mm but I haven't pulled the trigger yet.

I think you must have misheard? I said 'is is also available for Sony or Nikon mirrorless full frame' I didn't say the mount types, but you are right that for Nikon that would be Z and for Sony E

Then my ears are very bad at 0:12 where I hear " available for Canon or F-mount.

Ah, there I am saying "Canon RF mount" the new Canon mount is "RF" while the camera bodies are "R": Ra, R, RP, R5, R6, etc." not sure why they did it this way, and didn't just call it the "R" mount, but that explains why we are hearing different things

A bit late, but backfocus is not the same. If the adapter is made for EF lenses, it take inot account a 44mm (or 44.5, one is canon EF, one sony A, always mess them up aha) back focus. An RF mount have a 20mm back focus, so it will not work

Nope, private farm

@@NebulaPhotos Figured, but those pine trees really stood out to me :) Cheers from Maine!

35mm is the new (came out today) full frame version, 33mm is the older APS-C version

good idea

@@NebulaPhotos I haven't seen anyone doing it on the internet :)

58 is too wide for MilkyWay shots

@@Mara-xd7bg you're too wide for milkyway shots

No, it won't. It's a mirrorless lens that takes advantage of the shorter flange distance. I'll still mostly review lenses that will work with both DSLRs and mirrorless, but this one was sent to me to check out, and I thought it sounded fun to try

Yeah. But he faked it on the Moon because he was a perfectionist.😏

@@luboinchina3013 lmaoooooo!!

It's an APSC lens, this one is full frame

@@NebulaPhotos Right 👍- the price difference is significant between the two. For older DSLRs, with APSC sensors, i.e. a Canon T3 / 1100D, can they take advantage of the newer features?

Unfortunately, no. The 33mm version is an APSC, but still mirrorless only. Due to flange distance, the theoretical limit for a DSLR is f/1, but the practical limit seems to be f/1.2

@@NebulaPhotos what makes me think is the black hole of money you talk about. Hypothetical; a buyer of the Laowa 33mm / .095 can get value use for his/her existing older DSLR and then be able to still get very good results when upgrading to a full frame body. This allows the user to extend the use of their existing body until it's worn out. But the 35mm Laowa lens requires a full frame body right from the start. Thus, I wonder what the performance differences are between the two lenses on a full frame camera, potentially influencing when should a buyer upgrade. Saving a couple hundred bucks (or more, the 33mm lens is available in 🇨🇦, for $400 USD) that can eventually used to buy a full frame body while still getting a .095 f stop performance lens might be appealing.

Hunt's isn't an off brand website, it is my local camera store. I always would rather support my local camera store than Amazon when I can.

Nope, I don't feel I'm being intellectually dishonest. We might just have different goals in terms of this kind of astrophotography lens. As I said in the video I'm not a pixel peeper, but I did show the corners at 100% zoom and 400% zoom for those that are. In terms of a 'blurry mess away from center, I disagree. This lens does suffer from astigmatism and lateral chromatic abberation, but the comatic abberation is well controlled. The single 15s. image of the milky way I show in the video and on my instagram instagram.com/p/CTpR7gnLckT/ has nothing done to the stars. I only took the raw file and applied a slight curve and saturation boost, took a few seconds. I'd be happy to share the raw file if interested. f/0.95 is certainly not pointless for astrophotography- I tried to point out all of the useful applications for it in the video: untracked milky way, aurora, meteor showers, video etc. Not sure why you'd disagree with those use cases.

Link to RAWS pls? I want to see the stars at full screen