Venus Launches Ultra-Wide 15mm Close-Up Lens

2025.05.15

Just now, Venus Optics launched a new addition to their ever-growing collection of manual lenses. The branch has been producing lenses for more mounts than any other brand and specializes in high-powered macro lens, zero-distortion lenses among several unique offerings.

Today Venus Optics announced the Laowa 15mm F/4.5 Macro 0.5X, an ultra-wide prime lens with Full-Frame coverage. This tiny macro lens capture an extremely wide 110° field-of-view. Its dim maximum aperture allows it to be make very compact compared to most extremely wide lenses. It is less than 5cm long and only as wide as any mount it is compatible with. At 308g, it is among the lightest Full-Frame lenses as well.

The new Laowa 15mm F/4.5 has a minimum focusing distance of just 13cm, giving it an exceptionally high 0.5X magnification for such a wide lens. This is not quite a macro lens, as Venus would like some to believe, yet will be quite usable for capturing close-up detail. This lens supports 62mm screw-on filters and comes with a petal-type lens hood.

As with most Venus Optics lenses, this is a Manual Focus only lens. However, it comes in six mounts and allows electronic aperture control on three of them. With electronic aperture control, the Laowa 15mm F/4.5 is available for Sony E, Nikon Z and Canon EF mounts. For Nikon F, Canon RF and Leica L mounts, it will be a manual-only lens. This is one of the few lenses lately build for both mirrorless and DSLR mounts.

The Laowa 15mm F/4.5 is available immediately for $400 USD directly from the manufacturer site.

• Lens