Just recently you could read here that Meyer Optik will release the Trioplan f2,8/100mm for Fuji X-in October. Well, it seems that Meyer Optik (translation) plans to release even more X-mount lenses, and there will a super-fast Nocturnus 35mm F0.95 coming as early as May 2015. It’s a manual focus only lens, made in Germany with a 5 year warranty and cost €1999!
NOTE that the lens costs 1999 Euro and at closer look seems to have the same specs of the already existing and 3 times cheaper Chinese Zy Optics 35mmf /0.95 lens. So is this just a rebranded Mitakon, as Mattia Ghidelli says in the comments?
thanks for the link, Simon
Google Translated SPECS & FEATURES:
Technical Specifications:
Light intensity and focal length: f0,95; 35 mm
Lens construction: 10 elements in 7 modules
Number of diaphragm blades: 10
Closest focusing distance: 0.3 m
Angle of view: 46 ° (APS-C)
Weight: 680g
Expected for APS-C sensors
Features:
Extraordinary light intensity
Ideal for low-key and available-light shooting
Minimal chromatic aberration
Balanced Bokeh
Almost silent aperture and focus adjustment
Also ideal for video applications
Precise and high-quality workmanship
Data:
RRP: 1999 €
Article Number (EAN)
Connector Micro Four Thirds: 4260377170911
Connection Sony E: 4260377170928
Connection Fuji X: 4260377170935
Release Date: May 2015
35 Responses
The translation is a bit off, it should be “Designed for APS-C” not “Expected for APS-C”
I think it’s not so difficult developing a lens with such a big aperture, but is an optical challenge to make it with better than mediocre IQ. Correct me if I’m wrong, but until now all of the super aperture lenses released by third parties came short in the thing that matters most: acceptable IQ wide open and excellent IQ stopped down…
No. Designing a fast lens isn’t trivial, even in these days of giant glass catalogs and computer aided design. But it is true that the average lens quality is phenomenal compared to the days of pencil, paper, and slide rule.
This new German lens has the exact same specs and look as the SPEEDMASTER 35mm f0.95 of Zhongyi released in 2013 (see below), just wonder how the two compare.
With the rate at which the high ISO performance of cameras is improving, you do have to stop and ask yourself: why am I spending significantly more on a fast lens than a camera with a newer sensor with better low light performance would cost me?
I’m not saying nobody needs the miniscule DOF of a lens like this, but I suspect they are a very tiny minority. If you just want to shoot available light at night, f1.4 and a usable ISO 3200 will get you there with room to spare. (Unless perhaps you are trying to document telescope star parties or ninja training camps.)
Hence, calling all these fast lenses Noct-whatever is pretty disingenuous marketing.
Yes and no. Cutting edge high ISO camera of yesteryear is a loser, while f/0.95 lens gonna be f/0.95 on a new body, with the new sensor, giving even more low light advantage. It’s called future proof, you know.
However, 50mm equivalent is rather silly focal length for a “nocto” lens: you can get away with missed focus and soft microcontrast shooting film, but digital is much more demanding. I think the sweet spot would be between 17 and 35mm equivalent focal lengths, making for a really nice dark reception/party lens.
This particular Meyer, I think, is supposed to be a short portrait lens… and its gonna fail. But not as miserably as Ibelux 🙂
“Cutting edge high ISO camera of yesteryear is a loser” …only if the high ISO performance is inadequate for your own personal needs
“while f/0.95 lens gonna be f/0.95 on a new body”
…and the same is true of an f/1.4 lens. If f/1.4 is enough for your personal needs, old body or new body, then f/0.95 is overkill.
I agree that lenses are less likely to obsolesce than digital camera bodies, and I have long been an advocate of spending more on lenses as they are longer-term investments. But overkill is overkill…the best lenses to invest in are the ones that meet your needs without unnecessarily exceeding them.
We could simply as Fuji to develop a fast 35mm XF prime with AF, LMO, CA control etc.
I hope the updated 35 will be least 1.2, for the “gimme small” guys there will be the f2 version and loads of used 1.4s will be on sale soon anyway
The Mitakon 35 0,95 are cheaper (only 600€)
I am not familiar with lenses but I would like to ask why the Mitakon one and this new lenses have the exact same design and specifications? Are they following the same blueprint or is one copying the other?
Hi,
I am curious, and hopefully it will be up to their promise that it is Made in Germany and therefore of high optical and build quality.
Let’s see.
However, I commit that I prefer AF-lenses.
Daniel
If only it was a Lenny Kravitz addition.
*edition
More X-mount lenses? Go Meyer!
LensPorn!
Cheap! compared to other german brands, so first test then judge. 😉
Those announcement of the newly-founded Meyer Goerlitz seem really a joke to me for now, apart for the re-edition of the Trioplan we only saw chinese re-badged lenses with apparently NO improvements but with a double or triple MSRP (good luck with that..). They even haven’t bothered to change at least the external appearance of the lenses to give them an “historical Meyer feeling” (maybe with the exception of the Somnium). Given the trend so far, I’m not holding my breath for the new Trioplan, for sure it will be ridicously overpriced..
In my opinion the Meyer 35mm f0.95 will be only a rebranded Mitakon. At least the bodies seems to be almost identical.
Do Germans copy the Chinese? Or is it the other way around? I don’t get it.
They do not copy the Chinese, they buy from them and rebrand their lenses.
“NOTE that the lens costs 1999 Euro and at closer look seems to have the same specs of the already existing and 3 times cheaper Chinese Zy Optics 35mmf /0.95 lens (here one Bay). ”
And again, the link to “Chinese Zy Optics 35mmf /0.95 lens (here one Bay)” does not show any such lens.
There are plenty, just search “35mm 0.95” on ebay.
hm, true. It searches autmatically the lens on ebay, and so it depends if there are lenses on ebay or not. I’ve changed the link, though
Now your link is to Mitakon (not Zy Optics, even if they are the same), and for m43, not X-mount. Oh, well…
I’m sure I can get it right if I try a few more times 😉
There is an even cheaper alternative, a ~$90 speed booster with a ~$50 FD 50mm 1.4, becoming a 35mm 1.0, and that lens of made in Japan.
Any lens with focus and aperture rotating in the wrong direction is a no-go for me, especially if it is MF.
I don’t own an ILC from Fuji but if I did this would be a deal-breaker. It was hard enough adapting to Nikon’s counter-intuitive lens mount. Canon-style lenses make me go crazy.
There are more Meyer Zhongyi twins.
FIGMENTUM F2,0 35 M
http://www.meyer-optik-goerlitz.de/de/figmentum-f20-35mm/
vs
CREATOR 35mm f/2
http://www.zyoptics.net/product/mitakon-creator-35mm-f2/
http://www.syzygx.com/index.php/2014-07-29-08-30-03/2014-07-29-11-45-44.html
The Meyer-Optik Görlitz brand, which dates back to 1896, had disappeared in 1991, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dismantling of the VEB Carl Zeiss Jena Kombinat. It was resurrected in 2014 by Globell Deutschland, the subsidiary of a Koblenz-based publishing and software distribution group named net SE.
Globell are known for their high-end ‘Oberwerth’ camera bags and ‘Silvec’ wooden tripods. They also distribute the ‘Clik Elite’ backpacks. All their products are outsourced, they are a mere distribution company.
With the exception of the Trioplan, all the ‘Meyer-Optik Görlitz’ branded lenses sold by Globell Deutschland are third-party rebranded lenses:
– Their Nocturnus 35mm f/0.95 (€1,999) is a rebadged Zhongyi Mitakon 35mm f/0.95 ($680);
– Their Nocturnus 50mm f/0.95 (€1,999) is a rebadged Zhongyi Mitakon 50mm f/0.95 Speedmaster ($850);
– Their Figmentum 35mm f/2 (€599) is a rebadged Zhongyi Mitakon 35mm f/2 Creator ($199);
– Their Figmentum 85mm f/2 (€599) is a rebadged Zhongyi Mitakon 85mm f/2 Creator ($199);
– Their Somnium 85mm f/1.5 (€999) is a rebadged Helios-40-2 85mm f/1.5
(€265), a Russian lens from the USSR era which itself derives from Carl Zeiss Biotar 75mm f/1.5 (an optical formula patented in 1938).
Well, those who buy these lenses under the “Meyer Optik Görlitz” brand hopefully know what they are doing. Maybe Meyer Optik at least has a strong quality control and only sells selected lenses.
Nevertheless it sounds quite strange… I wouldn’t consider buying such a lens, a 100% extra in price seems quite hilarious.
Come to think of it, if you’re looking for a fair-trade, reasonably priced, sustainably sourced lens, you name it – this could be it. This is probably the price difference between a production line in Germany and in China. Between an assembly engineer who can take his wife and kids some place nice over weekend in a bmw, and a worker who can have lunch on the weekend. Reasonable price, really.
How about SLR magic lenses. Are they unique designs or just rebranded China lenses?
One can get a FD 50mm 1.4 lens made in Japan for ~$50 and a speed booster for ~$90 to make it a 35mm 1.0 for a total price tag of ~$150. The quality of this set up will be very close to these fast manual primes at a price several times cheaper.
Good point.