Cosina says Voigtländer Nokton 42.5mm F0.95 will be available in August

Cosina has announced that its Voigtländer Nokton 42.5mm F0.95 will be available in August, and and will be priced at ¥123,900 in Japan. This ultra-fast short telephoto ‘portrait’ lens is for Micro Four Thirds cameras only, and will offer similar photographic characteristics to an 85mm F1.9 lens on full frame in terms of angle of view, depth of field control, and background blur. It has a 10-bladed diaphragm, and features manual focus and aperture operation – the latter can be made clickless for movie recording.

via digitalcamera.jp

Voigtlander Nokton 42.5mm F0.95 specifications

Voigtlander Nokton 42.5mm F0.95

Comments

Well, having just acquired and started to use my first VC lens, I say carry on. These lenses are not for everyone, and the useless comparisons to the 35mm film size will continue forever. What I know is that these lenses are made to a very high standard, they are excellent mechanical lenses and if you are into things where auto-focus is either not necessary or a hindrance, then this is a lens to consider if you shoot on the m43 platform. The comments always seem to reflect some strange notion that each and every lens needs to meet each and everyone’s unique un-achievable desires.

Since this is the 3rd VC lens purpose built for the m43 platform, they must be happy with sales and the users who actually have these lenses do seem to want more of them.

It’s great for the speed freaks. This brings comparable to 85mm f1.8 DoF capability. Now we need a 12mm f0.95 and 67.5mm f0.95

Like Sigma another manufacturer who “gets it” when it comes to designing high quality optics for sub 35mm format cameos

I wished to own “a mirrorless systme camera” M 4/3 was first interest, then it becoming NEX… but when I check DxO´s ratings, I am confused.

According to them , all these lenses avaliable on mirrorles cam´s are ordinary or trash.

Can you just say that this is a 42.5 mm m43 lens. The target audience knows what the photographic characteristics in terms of angle of view, depth of field control, and background blur are for them. Let each standard stand on its own.

No.

Then everyone will ask for its FF field of view like they do when they DONT put that stuff. Dont be getting them yelled at.

agreed.

I’m thankful that DPR made the DOF calculation for me. I’m not a MFT shooter, but it’s nice to know what’s available.

I know it’s still a f0.95 lens in terms of light gathering possibilities, so there’s no reason to get defensive about FF conversions.

whatever focal length is really irrelavent, the angle of view is. “85mm equivalent” is nothing more than an expression of AoV, which is same as we get by mounting an 85mm on 35mm format.

same thing for f-number, which has no photographic meaning by itself. by saying f/1.9 equivalent we mean a 45mm aperture at 85mm (equiv. AoV of course). all the rest are determined by the aperture, the first and most important is the light gethering capability.

that an f/0.95 lens mounted on 4/3″ has the same light gethering capability as an f/1.9 on 35mm format.

“I know it’s still a f0.95 lens in terms of light gathering”

To be more accurate, it’s f/0.95 in terms of light density. To know total light gathering, you need to put a sensor behind it. And since this lens presumably will only illuminate a 4/3 sensor, its full frame equivalent in terms of total light gathering is f/1.9 (2 x 0.95).

“for Micro Four Thirds cameras only” ah you mean those other mirrorless systems are doing so well including the ” canikon spoiler systems”….

with such shallow dof manual focusing is pretty useful – the camera doesn’t always know what you’re aiming for. getting it just wrong would things way off.

@Larnus
manual focus only, meaning focus is your responsibility not matter how shallow dof, but hey manual focus on Micro Four Thirds is a piece of cake 🙂

That’s 1,265.00 US Dollars, or 1,987.00 Euros or 6,421.00 Quid 😉

No Sony E-Mount? NEX users can’t catch a break.

Well, being designed for a µ4/3 image circle, it probably wouldn’t be much good on a NEX.

(Actually €958 or £820)

With my Lens Turbo PK-NEX adapter my full frame 85mm F`1.4 is equal to a 61mm F1.0 APS-C lens on my NEX cameras. BTW there are several E mount F0.95 lenses on ebay from 33.5mm to 50mm but with Metabones Speedbooster or Lens Turbo NEX E mount adapters full frame F1.4 lenses work like F1.0 APS-C lenses.
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2832/8941810155_51392273a8_k.jpg

24hrexposure

I think you missed the joke in the original post, that the UK price is always proportionately much higher than the US price!

Simply Awesome! an OMD-5 with this lens will be a sweet combo

Unfortunately, this lens only available with MF. Hard to get advantage for its fast aperture.

That’s what that big wide focus ring is for. Heaven forbid you should have to actually touch it.

With focus peeking it should be a breeze.

@rtogog Yes, as everyone knows,manually focusing fast aperture lenses is almost impossible, and therefore making such lenses without autofocus is a crime against humanity…

It would be a travesty to spoil a compact, elegant lens like this with an autofocus motor and the compromises to MF that optimizing the AF would entail.

CarVac, for those who love MF, the addition of AF wouldn’t mean much. For the other 99.9% of photographers, AF would be a very welcome addition. Full frame equivalents like Nikon’s 85mm f/1.8 AF-S G have AF and are only 14mm (little more than 0.5″) larger in diameter and no longer. This new lens isn’t all that compact and the price tag is even more bloated.

Panasonic are releasing an autofocus 42.5mm f1.2 so anyone who wants autofocus can use that one instead.