New Laowa 15mm f/4.5 0.5x Macro Lens Gives Your Close-Ups a Much Wider Background

May 15, 2025

Jeremy Gray

Venus Optics has announced the Laowa 15mm f/4.5 0.5x Wide Angle Macro lens for full-frame cameras. The wide-angle macro lens promises to enable photographers to capture dynamic close-up shots with a distinct, wide field of view.

“The combination of wide perspective and macro capability provides creators with a whole new world of opportunity for creative shots,” Laowa explains.

The company promises excellent distortion control, which should make the lens more flexible and enable it to be used for various genres, including landscape and architectural photography.

A wide-angle camera lens with a hood is placed on a glossy black surface, reflecting parts of the lens and its markings.

Laowa also notes the lens’s compact, lightweight design. The lens is 48 millimeters (1.9 inches) long and weighs just over 300 grams (less than 0.7 pounds). The Laowa 15mm f/4.5 0.5x Macro lens has a 62mm filter thread.

Despite its small size, the lens has a surprisingly high number of elements. The Laowa 15mm f/4.5 0.5x Wide Angle Macro has 16 elements arranged across 11 groups. It also features specialty lenses, including two aspherical elements, three HR elements, and a trio of ED elements. The lens has a five-bladed aperture, which means it delivers 10-point sunstars.

A camera lens with a silver metal mount and visible electronic contacts is lying on its side on a shiny black surface, reflecting the lens and its engraved markings.

The star of the show is the lens’s close-focusing capabilities. Its minimum focusing distance is 129 millimeters (5.1 inches), resulting in, as its name suggests, a 0.5x maximum magnification ratio. Macro photographers also care about working distance, which is 36 millimeters (1.4 inches) in this case.

Laowa is no stranger to wide-angle macro lenses. Although it is about a decade old now and relatively large, Laowa’s 15mm f/4 1:1 lens remains a popular choice for specialty macro photography. The company is also known for its macro probe lenses, which are much slower but feature an unusual, lengthy tubular design.

As for its new 15mm f/4.5 0.5x lens, while it may not offer the 1:1 reproduction of its f/4 sibling, it will still allow photographers and videographers to get impressive close-up shots of small subjects while including more of the background and environment. A wide-angle macro lens definitely delivers a look impossible to achieve with traditional longer macro lenses.

The Laowa 15mm f/4.5 0.5x Wide Angle Macro is a manual focus lens. However, it is not necessarily a fully manual lens — it depends on the lens mount. The Sony E, Nikon Z, and Canon EF versions support automatic aperture control. However, the Nikon F, Canon RF, and L-Mount versions do not, they are manual aperture only.

Sample Images

A large butterfly with brown wings marked with white spots rests on a tree trunk, while a black beetle clings nearby. Green foliage and another tree are visible in the background.

View looking upward through a spiral staircase with ornate blue railing, forming a circular pattern that draws the eye to a skylight at the top center, allowing natural light to illuminate the stairs.

A person in a yellow jacket sits on large rocks near a towering rock formation, with the sun shining behind them and a clear blue sky overhead.

A tall, rocky outcrop rises against a clear blue sky, framed by dense green foliage and grasses in the foreground. Sunlight highlights the rock and vegetation, creating a natural, serene scene.

A large black butterfly with white spots and a black beetle are perched on the rough bark of a tree trunk in a forest, with green foliage in the background.

A small frog peeks over the edge of a large, green leaf with brown spots, surrounded by lush greenery. The frog’s eyes and front foot are visible as it appears to be hiding.

A bright green vine snake with a pointed snout and patterned scales coils around thin brown branches against a solid black background.

Two toads are mating on a rocky, damp surface. The smaller male toad is on top of the larger female, with rocks and a dry leaf nearby in their natural habitat.

Two large, brown-patterned moths with eye-like markings on their wings are resting close together on the rough bark of a tree, surrounded by blurred green foliage in the background.

Close-up of a butterfly with spread wings perched on the dark center of a vibrant red flower, surrounded by its delicate petals and stamens.

Clear water splashes upward in the foreground, creating a splash crown effect, with a tall, cascading waterfall flowing over rocky cliffs and lush greenery in the background under a blue sky.

A delicate white woodland flower with thin, pink veins grows from a mossy tree trunk, surrounded by clover-like green leaves. Sunlight softly illuminates the background, creating a peaceful forest scene.

Narrow cobblestone alleyway between tall buildings, lit by the soft glow of sunset reflected on the wet stones, with an arched passage overhead and a cloudy sky in the background.

A close-up of a vibrant dragonfly resting on a green blade of grass, with its wings and body glistening in the sunlight, surrounded by blurred green foliage in the background.

Pricing and Availability

The Laowa 15mm f/4.5 0.5x Wide Angle Macro lens is available now for $399 through Venus Optics and authorized retailers. Again, the lens comes in Sony E, Nikon Z, and Canon EF mounts with automatic aperture control and Nikon F, Canon RF, and L-Mount with manual apertures.

 Image credits: Venus Optics / Laowa