Argus Full Frame 35mm f/0.95 Launches, Good Rendering, Poor Sharpness, as Expected

Laowa salted a good any copies of this lens for the past few weeks with YouTubers and other influencers. Those reviews all launched this morning at the end of an embargo, and this is a consolidation of the main take-aways: It’s not sharp, but OK in the center.

The less-expected news is that the rendering is quite beautiful. The bokeh is good, although cats-eyed when shot very open, but the transitions between in-focus and foreground and background layers has a very smooth quality.

The depth of field offered at f/0.95 aperture is thin enough at times so as to not be practical. Close-ups of faces will show eyelashes obviously out of focus if pupils are in focus.

The MTF chart shows decent center that would count as adequately sharp 10 years ago, but corners that are a bit hopeless. Not that corners are much of a concern in most use cases for a lense like this.