Venus Optics has announced another new Laowa lens this week, and it’s yet another first-of-its-kind optic. The Laowa Acris 35mm f/2.8 1x Macro APO is the world’s first full-frame, AF-equipped 35mm lens with 1:1 macro reproduction.

Available in an autofocus variant for Sony E, Nikon Z, and Canon EF cameras, the lens also comes in a manual-focus version for Canon RF and L-Mount. Macro is certainly a genre of photography conducive to a manual focus experience, although photographers will find the autofocus version more versatile overall.

The Laowa Acris 35mm f/2.8, Laowa’s first Acris series lens, gets its name from a Latin root word, acer, which means “sharp” or “keen.”

“A lens series built for photographers who demand nothing less than absolute quality — especially crafted for the world of macro photography, where every micron matters,” Laowa says.

Laowa is no stranger to macro lenses with a wide field of view, having made popular lenses like the 25mm f/2.8 2.5-5x Ultra Macro, a 15mm f/4 ultra-wide macro lens, and numerous wide-angle probe lenses. While 35mm is a bit less wide than these, it is still much wider than typical macro lenses, which often have standard or mid-telephoto focal lengths.

While longer macro lenses offer advantages in working distance, a wide-angle macro lens delivers a different look and can capture close-up shots with more environmental context. As Laowa’s example photos show, you can get sharp macro shots of small critters that show their surroundings, which is much harder with a 90mm or 105mm macro lens.

Other full-frame macro lenses are on the market, including the Canon RF 35mm f/1.8 IS STM and Laowa’s 35mm f/2.8 Zero-D Tilt-Shift Macro, but both top out at 1:2 reproduction, which makes them “half macro” lenses.

Laowa’s new Acris 35mm f/2.8 1x Macro APO includes 13 elements across 10 groups. It includes a single ED element and one piece of ultra-high-refraction glass. The autofocus version has a nine-bladed aperture, while, oddly, the manual focus version has 13 aperture blades.

Either way, Laowa promises “smooth” bokeh and “soft, creamy” backgrounds. The bokeh is on full display in the real-world sample shots featured throughout this article.

The lens also promises corner-to-corner sharpness across the frame, even when shooting wide open, and the samples seem to support that promise. Laowa lenses are often quite sharp, so this is not particularly surprising.

The “APO” in the name stands for apochromatic, a marketing term used to describe a lens with minimal chromatic aberration and color fringing. There is really no established industry standard for what level of performance meets the “APO” designation, and companies can use the term whenever they want. However, Laowa at least promises “clean” images and says red, green, and blue wavelengths of light meet at the same spot on the focal plane. If that’s true, then yes, chromatic aberrations will be virtually eliminated.

The lens weighs between 530 and 570 grams (18.7 to 20 ounces) depending on the selected mount and accepts 72mm filters. It is a weather-resistant design with sealing at the mount and near the control rings on the barrel. It’s also an internally focusing macro lens, meaning the lens length doesn’t change with focus distance.

Pricing and Availability

The Laowa Arcis 35mm f/2.8 1x Macro APO is available now for $449. The price is the same whether the photographer chooses the autofocus version for E, Z, and EF mounts or the manual-focus version for RF and L-Mount. As of this writing, it isn’t listed on B&H yet, but it should be available there soon.

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Image creditsVenus Optics. Individual photographers are credited in the image captions.