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Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott, and I'm here today to give you my standard review of the new Lowa 35 millimeter F0.95
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That's right, larger than F1, F0.95, and it's under their new Argus Premium brand
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Now, if you want a deeper dive into this lens and all that it entails, I recommend that you take a look at my definitive review, which you can access here
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Today, however, I'm going to give you a quicker, more to the point overview of this lens, and so you can determine whether or not it's a lens that you might be interested in for yourself
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If you're unfamiliar with Lawa, this is a brand out of China that has been making a lot of very creative and beautifully made lenses from the very beginning
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and they had previously released a 33mm F0.95 Argus lens for APSC
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But this is taking that concept a whole step further because it takes a lot more engineering chops to pull off a huge maximum aperture lens
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like this on a full frame platform, which is what they are doing
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And so it's being released in Canon RF, which I'm reviewing here
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Sony, FE, and then Nikon Z or Z as well. And so it is a lens, obviously, that is
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designed for a certain type of photographer. The reality is that not every photographer needs a lens with such a huge maximum aperture
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There are only certain applications where that is useful. That tiny depth of field is only useful under certain conditions
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And there are some engineering challenges optically that are going to be inherent in such a lens
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if you don't make it the size of a barrel. And they have managed to make this lens a very reasonably sized
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It is basically about the same size as the... actually a tiny bit smaller than my Canon 35 millimeter F1.4 L Mark 2
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It's also about 5 grams lighter. And so overall it is a reasonably sized lens for having a huge maximum aperture In fact in this case it is over a stop about a stop and a quarter a larger maximum
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aperture than what that Canon 35 millimeter lens is. And so, you know, to make it moderately sized and to keep the weight down, now this lens does
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have heft to it, but Lawa lenses typically do because they're all metal, really high-grade construction
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that in many ways reminds me of classic Zice lenses in the way that they are built
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And thankfully, that applies even to a beautifully, beautifully damped. It just glides along, buttery smooth, the manual focus ring
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This is a manual everything lens. And so you have manual focus, manual aperture, and unfortunately no electronics here
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And that's the one area that I really think that it's time for Lawa to move forward a little bit
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Enabling some of that electronic communication just on modern mirrorless bodies does give certain benefits
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You know, for one thing, it helps, you know, a camera with in-body image stabilization
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to know the focal length and to adjust accordingly. It means that you're going to get more of your XF information
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that is transmitted back to your, you know, into your files and thus into your editing software
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which might make it easier to apply a profile or to find files from a certain lens if you're looking in your catalog
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There's just a lot of benefits there, and I would love to see them tackle that. But what is certainly true is that everything that is here is gorgeous
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It is just beautifully made. It has a kind of a satin, black
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anodice finish to it. And then it has an aperture ring that gives you the dual approach to it
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You can either click it or declick it. And so it moves along very, very nicely. The detents
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the clicks are not super strong. You can definitely feel them. And, you know, if you're in the
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declicked mode, or excuse me, the clicked mode, and no problem finding your aperture
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but it's just a little bit less obvious than what it is on some other aperture rings
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And if you're wanting to do for video purposes, or you just like a declicked aperture, you can
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declick that and so you can rack right through it. So obviously this is a lens that is going to have
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some appeal for people that do video with that gorgeous manual focus ring that by the way has a great nice long focus throw that allows you to have precision without going to an extreme And at the same time being able to declick that apture
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is going to give you some creative options. Even more so that's going to give you creative options
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however, is that huge maximum aperture that lets in a tremendous amount of light. So this can be
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a very intriguing lens for those of you that shoot in very dim environments, maybe in clubs
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or venues for music where the lighting is low. having a huge maximum aperture is going to bring a lot of benefit
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Understand, however, that whenever you engineer with such a huge maximum aperture
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there are some certain challenges that come. So, in this case, the sweet spot for this lens at F0.95 is right dead center in the frame
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where you actually have fairly usable sharpness and contrast, but very quickly, even towards the middle of the frame
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you're going to see a drop off quite swiftly in terms of that overall acuity
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the ability to render fine details. And as you move towards the frame, the edge of the frame
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that becomes even more pronounced. And so the mid frame is not going to get truly sharp
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you know, kind of like what the center is, until around F2
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And in the corners, it's going to take, you know, somewhere closer to F4 before you get sharpness across the frame
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However, at smaller apertures, this lens is extremely sharp all across the frame
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and delivers very crisp details, even on my 45 megapixel Canon Eon
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R5. And so it's a lens with somewhat of a dual or split personality, much like what I saw when I
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reviewed on Sony, the Voitlander Nocton 40mm, 40mm meter F1.2. And that lens also showed the same
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kind of profile that wide open images are a little bit kind of dreamy as the way that they're
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often described, but with beautiful, distinctive bouquet. But then if you stop the lens down, it
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starts to rapidly pick up contrast and then reaches a place where it is very, very sharp
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across the frame. The Argus 35 is just like that in its performance
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And so if you are a creative type, it means you can approach scenes
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with some options You can either render them in a more artsy kind of blooming kind of look dreamy look or you can stop down and get more of that modern bite
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and sharpness and contrast to your images. So for a certain type of photographer
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I think that this is going to be a very interesting lens, particularly when you consider that it retails
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at right about $900 US. And so obviously to have a full frame lens
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with the maximum aperture of F.0.95, and a beautiful build like this
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if you're comparing it to a Zice-type lens, that's a very nice price
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At the same time, it is going to be more expensive than what many photographers are going to want to invest
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in a lens like this that they might only use occasionally. And so I think that it's important for you to make a determination
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as to what kind of photographer you actually are or what kind of photography you actually want to do
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And if you want to do some of the things that I've described and take some of the shots that I've been showing
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in this review, then this is a lens that may have an appeal to you
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And certainly is fairly unique on these platforms for doing what it does
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And so it will unlock a lot of creative opportunities for you. But at the same time, the fact that it's manual everything means that for the mainstream
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it's not going to be a lens for them. But if you're one of those that maybe marches to the beat of your own drum
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and are a little bit less conventional, take a long look at the Lawa 35 millimeter of 0.95 Argus lens
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It is pretty unique, and if you use it right, pretty cool
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I'm Dustin Abbott, and if you look in the description down below, you can find linkage to my full text review
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You can also find linkage to an image gallery. Make sure to check out those photos. It gives you a sense of what the lens can do
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Beyond that, there's also linkage to follow me on social media, to become a patron, sign up for my newsletter
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purchase some of my merchandise, and of course, if you haven't already, please click that subscribe button right here on YouTube
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Thanks for watching. great day and let the light in
