Laowa Argus 45mm f/0.95 FF (Nikon Z)

Published testing places it in the same class as the Argus 35mm: a soft, glowing look wide open that clears up quickly when stopped down, and a centre that is already usable for portraits at f/0.95. Its 15-blade aperture and gentle focus fall-off give smooth backgrounds, and Laowa's own MTF data shows good centre contrast with weaker sagittal performance towards the corners at full aperture.

The trade-offs common to this design are colour fringing on high-contrast edges at f/0.95, strong vignetting wide open, and size and weight close to autofocus f/1.2 lenses. Without contacts, there is no EXIF, and the focal length must be entered by hand for in-body VR.

Owners buy it as an affordable route to the f/0.95 look on Nikon Z, well below the cost of Nikon's 58mm f/0.95 Noct, mainly for portraits, low-light events and video. The long, smooth focus ring and the declicked aperture are well liked.

Recurring complaints are the weight, the 0.5m minimum focus distance, missing EXIF data, and the difficulty of nailing focus wide open without magnification.