Voigtländer lenses - any new releases for Sony e-mount expected?

Knut.
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Voigtländer lenses - any new releases for Sony e-mount expected?

I note that there are several nice Voigtländer lenses for Leica M-mount not yet released for Sony e-mount.

The following come to mind:
- 28mm f2.0 Ultron
- 50mm f1.0 Nokton
- 75mm f1,5 Nokton
- 75mm f1.9 Ultron
- 90mm f2.8 Apo Skopar

… just to name a few, I would be interested in.

As I understand they can all be adapted to Sony e-mount, even with proprietary Voigtländer adapters. But as I gather
- I will miss auto-magnification when turning the helicoid for focusing and
- I will miss 5-axis IBIS (only 3 axis IBIS is provided without distance information transfer from lens to Sony bodies).
- In addition the Leica/Sony sensor glas thickness difference is not accounted for, what may or may not be a problem.
(more likely a problem with wide angles).

Any idea if and more importantly when these lenses might come?
Voigtländer seems to be slightly less active in the e-mount sector the last 3 years. Any known reason for this?

Knut

Aug 08, 2023 at 02:13 PM

tsdevine
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Voigtländer lenses - any new releases for Sony e-mount expected?

No lens related EXIF (Lens name, aperture, etc), and to get the 3 axis stabilization you'll need to manually set the FL in the camera.

Aug 08, 2023 at 02:26 PM

freaklikeme
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Voigtländer lenses - any new releases for Sony e-mount expected?

I think it might be more "if" than "when" on some of those lenses. On the short teles, they may just rely on people's willingness to adapt, since the difference between native performance and performance on a thicker stack is subtle. And it seems like, if they were going to do the Ultron 28, we would've seen that when they were more invested in new e-mount lenses. The 50 seems like the strongest possibility there.

Right now, I think, however they divide work on their production lines, the ones responsible for Voigtlanders are focused on M, Z, and XF. M's their bread-and-butter and they need to make the deals with Nikon and Fuji pay off, so E's taking the back burner.

Aug 08, 2023 at 04:57 PM

philip_pj
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Voigtländer lenses - any new releases for Sony e-mount expected?

They appear to believe Sony E users only want longer than normal manual focus lenses for macro applications, as 50mm is the line in the sand they have not crossed. In the EVF world, they have recently changed horses mid-stream, leaping from Sony E mount to Nikon Z mount.

The rational course of action would be to produce a more satisfying set of lenses for Sony and Nikon but they are far from from rational in their business decisions at present. They have a history of this in the ZM and SLR mount lenses.

The 90mm f2.8 Apo-Skopar is sold in F mount, it's the exact same lens design as the one made in VM. What type of camera is best suited to manual focusing short telephotos? Maybe they need this information?

And in fact, each of their current lineups has just a handful of lenses - except for Leica M. Their notion is that Sony users can adapt the M lenses, it's a blanket recommendation here:

https://www.cosina.co.jp/voigtlander/en/vm-mount/

I don't know, one solution is maybe to buy four cameras: a Leica, a Sony, a Nikon Z and a D850. That will cover it nicely. Throw in a Canon RF to be sure. Member Juha Kannisto is the best source of what they are doing, below is a recent thread with his posts if you wish to contact him to get more bad news. ;-)

https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1819458/2#16311283

Aug 08, 2023 at 05:24 PM

Knut.
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Voigtländer lenses - any new releases for Sony e-mount expected?

tsdevine wrote:
No lens related EXIF (Lens name, aperture, etc), and to get the 3 axis stabilization you'll need to manually set the FL in the camera.

And the aperture ring turns in oposite direction to the Sony standard. Needs attention and might be annoying …

Aug 08, 2023 at 07:20 PM

Juha Kannisto
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Voigtländer lenses - any new releases for Sony e-mount expected?

I talked to Cosina staff at CP+ Camera trade event in February and tried to find out what was going on with their E-mount releases. They said that they have something new lined up for E-mount but it was not close enough to release to have been announced at CP+ timing. I got the understanding that something new could be announced/released by end of this year.

The reason for no new releases for E-mount that some of their staff told me was that they got so busy with all the new mounts (that they got licensing agreements for). I think they are trying to see how the newly supported mount lenses sell and figure out where they put their business priorities in the future. Their Fuji X-mount lenses have been selling very well in Japan in the last 2 years so I think that will be one of the high priorities going forward. Their Z-mount lenses don't seem to be selling as well as their corresponding E-mount and X-mount lenses have so far and for Canon RF something seems to be taking time with their first release (50/1) that was announced at CP+ but still doesn't have any known on-sale date.

Their latest release for E-mount as of now was 35/2 that went on-sale from April 9th, 2021. I don't really know why they have discontinued so many E-mount lenses especially this year (e.g. 35/1.2 SE, 40/1.2 SE, 50/1.2 SE and 21/3.5 as well as 12/5.6 that was discontinued much earlier).

Based on what they said at CP+ I believe they will still release more in E-mount but the pace seems to be so slow now and there's no telling what exactly they will release. I wouldn't count on getting the likes of 28/2, 75/1.5, 75/1.9, 90/2.8 but I think 50/1 might be in their plans for E-mount as well, at least they said it was being discussed/considered internally. I also think they might have something like 75/2 APO-Lanthar in their future roadmap since in E-mount 65/2, 50/2, 35/2 APO-Lanthars have been some of their very best-selling lenses.

Aug 08, 2023 at 08:23 PM

zugzwang2
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Voigtländer lenses - any new releases for Sony e-mount expected?

Juha Kannisto wrote:
I also think they might have something like 75/2 APO-Lanthar in their future roadmap since in E-mount 65/2, 50/2, 35/2 APO-Lanthars have been some of their very best-selling lenses.

That would be perfect.

Aug 08, 2023 at 09:13 PM

philip_pj
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Voigtländer lenses - any new releases for Sony e-mount expected?

Until late 2018, Nikon was a DSLR company selling AF lenses almost exclusively. Sony already had six years of a7 cameras under ther belt at that time. Nikon users are very loyal to their own lenses whereas Sony users are far more eclectic in their lens preferences.

None of it would matter if we had another MF maker in the niche CZ filled (albeit with increasing disinterest) as the years dragged by. It's a fair expectation that a committed Zeiss presence would by now have commissioned a set of Otus/Milvus level lenses for ALL EVF mounts they had access to. This century, with remarkable even-handedness, Zeiss commissioned comprehensive lens ranges for Canon, Nikon, Leica and were serious partners for Sony for over twenty years, for projects like RX, RX1, Touit and the early ZA lenses.

It matters because of the rapid progress of technology in the field. Cosina is unfortunately a 'Leica plus others' corporate, and it's sad to see the innovators (Sony) treated like second class citizens, except now they appear to be #4 in line. It's five times harder to make a new customer than it is to retain an existing customer, to cite a marketing maxim.

There has never been a modern Zeiss 75mm lens. A 75/2 sounds like yet another M mount knock-off, the FL of telephotos being very sensitive due to the M bodies' technical issues. 85mm and 100-105mm are the sweet spots for the mainstream brands, and are very well accepted by the market. It's a standard.

Aug 08, 2023 at 11:34 PM


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