The inventive people over at Cosina never stop working and thinking up new stuff, it seems. At CP+, the big Japanese photo show, the company just unveiled a new superfast lens for Micro Four Thirds, and another fast normal lens for M-mount. As always with Cosina, both lenses come totally unexpected, with no rumors about their future appearance spread through the interwebs beforehand. There also isn’t much information available yet, except for product pictures over at DC Watch. Of course you are curious now what these two new lenses are, right? Well, head past the break to find out!
UPDATE 02/01/13 — Officially announced in Germany, see below.
Voigtländer Nokton 42.5mm f0.95
Yes, you read that right. Lens #1 from Cosina is another superfast Nokton lens for Micro Four Thirds. The third installment of Voigtländer’s f0.95 series, after the 25mm and the 17.5mm, comes with an equivalent focal length of 85mm, which designates it as a portrait lens. After Olympus’ 45mm f1.8, this is the second dedicated portrait lens for the Micro Four Thirds system. However, at f0.95, you will be able to achieve much shallower depth of field than with the Olympus lens. Think of eyes in focus, but nose and ears totally blurred away …
Voigtländer Nokton 50mm f1.5 VM
Lens #2 is a classic, and one that many Leicanians have been asking for in M-mount. Its predecessor, the original Nokton 50/1.5 Aspherical, came in M39 mount, so it had to be used with an adapter on M-mount bodies. The new version is now in M-mount, so no more adapter will be needed. On the downside, you won’t be able to use it on a screw mount body …
The Nokton 50/1.5 Aspherical is somewhat a legend because it combined excellent image quality with a very affordable price. Let’s hope the new VM version keeps the old optical formula and, above all, the old price tag.
Originally, the Nokton 50/1.5 was made for the Prominent series of cameras back when Voigtländer was still a German company. In the 50ies, they made a limited run of these lenses converted to M39 mount (leftmost in the picture above, for details see here.) The body design of the new Nokton 50/1.5 VM seems to copy that of this rare M39 lens. From what it appears like in the pictures, the new Nokton VM will come in both black and silver — with the latter being another hommage to its classic forefather.
Pricing and availability of both the new Voigtländer Nokton lenses are unknown as of publishing this article. We will let you know as soon as any information becomes available.
UPDATE 02/01/13 — The lenses have been officially announced in Germany, and photoscala has published details on their specs and availability. Both lenses are expected to be available by Summer 2013. Retail prices will be disclosed by then.
Tech Specs on the Nokton 50mm f1.5 VM
| Focal length | 50 mm |
| Max. aperture | 1:1,5 |
| Min. aperture | F 16 |
| Optical formula |
6 elements in 5 groups |
| Angle of view | 46° |
| Aperture blades | 10 |
| Diameter | 53,8 mm |
| Filter size | 49 mm |
| Length | 45,7 mm |
| Mount | M-Mount |
Tech Specs on the Nokton 42.5mm f0.95 for MFT
| Focal length | 42,5 mm |
| Max. aperture | 1:0,95 |
| Min. aperture | F 16 |
| Optical formula | 11 elements in 8 groups |
| Angle of view | 30,5 ° |
| Aperture blades | 10 |
| Min. focus distance | 0,23 m |
| Diameter | 64,3 mm |
| Filter size | 58 mm |
| Length | 74,6 mm |
| Mount | MFT |
Please Support The Phoblographer
We love to bring you guys the latest and greatest news and gear related stuff. However, we can’t keep doing that unless we have your continued support. If you would like to purchase any of the items mentioned, please do so by clicking our links first and then purchasing the items as we then get a small portion of the sale to help run the website.
