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Archive 2023Cosina Voigtländer Nokton Vintage Line 28/1.5 VM lenses announced today
p.15 #1Cosina Voigtländer Nokton Vintage Line 28/1.5 VM lenses announced today
rscheffler wrote:
IDK. Zeiss pricing for the US market has been quite inflated compared to Japan (though have not checked recently). Maybe it's old stock that was made years ago, and if it sells, it's a bonus for them.
It's not like they have put any effort into the ZM line since 2014 when the 35/1.4 was released.
The little I used the ZM 28, it seemed to have the expected 'Zeiss pop' but not necessarily great across frame performance at wider apertures.
Juha Kannisto wrote:
In Japan the ZM lenses have pretty much stayed at the same prices as they always were. 28/2.8 can be bought as new for 79K yen:
https://www.mapcamera.com/search?keyword=Zeiss%2028mm%20f2.8&igngkeyword=1
I think Cosina is still producing those that have not been discontinued in small runs periodically as they sometimes run out of stock in Japanese stores and always come back later.
On the other hand Zeiss Loxia and Batis lenses went up in price in Japan a few times and are quite expensive nowadays while used copies can be bought much cheaper.
It appears Cosina makes the ZM and Otus/Milvus lines, as that's what they have on their website. And those Zeiss lenses are considerably lower priced in Japan. Someone else (Tamron?) makes the other Zeiss lines. It's possible whoever makes those raised the price they charge Zeiss as demand, and therefore production volume, for those lenses wanes amid increased competition from other 3rd parties and Sony's much deeper native mount options.
It would be interesting to know if Cosina is distributing the Zeiss lenses they make directly to the Japanese domestic market, while Zeiss handles rest-of-world sales, which could account for additional markup. Or maybe Zeiss feels some markets will tolerate much higher prices (most probably wouldn't bother to price shop internationally). IMO it's pretty unusual nowadays to see such price disparity for this type of product, and it's been this way for a while.
IDK. Zeiss pricing for the US market has been quite inflated compared to Japan (though have not checked recently). Maybe it's old stock that was made years ago, and if it sells, it's a bonus for them.
It's not like they have put any effort into the ZM line since 2014 when the 35/1.4 was released.The little I used the ZM 28, it seemed to have the expected 'Zeiss pop' but not necessarily great across frame performance at wider apertures.
Juha Kannisto wrote:
In Japan the ZM lenses have pretty much stayed at the same prices as they always were. 28/2.8 can be bought as new for 79K yen:
https://www.mapcamera.com/search?keyword=Zeiss%2028mm%20f2.8&igngkeyword=1
I think Cosina is still producing those that have not been discontinued in small runs periodically as they sometimes run out of stock in Japanese stores and always come back later.
On the other hand Zeiss Loxia and Batis lenses went up in price in Japan a few times and are quite expensive nowadays while used copies can be bought much cheaper.
It appears Cosina makes the ZM and Otus/Milvus lines, as that's what they have on their website. And those Zeiss lenses are considerably lower priced in Japan. Someone else (Tamron?) makes the other Zeiss lines. It's possible whoever makes those raised the price they charge Zeiss as demand, and therefore production volume, for those lenses wanes amid increased competition from other 3rd parties and Sony's much deeper native mount options.
It would be interesting to know if Cosina is distributing the Zeiss lenses they make directly to the Japanese domestic market, while Zeiss handles rest-of-world sales, which could account for additional markup. Or maybe Zeiss feels some markets will tolerate much higher prices (most probably wouldn't bother to price shop internationally). IMO it's pretty unusual nowadays to see such price disparity for this type of product, and it's been this way for a while.
Jan 26, 2024 at 09:36 PM
p.15 #2Cosina Voigtländer Nokton Vintage Line 28/1.5 VM lenses announced today
rscheffler wrote:
It's not like they have put any effort into the ZM line since 2014 when the 35/1.4 was released.
The little I used the ZM 28, it seemed to have the expected 'Zeiss pop' but not necessarily great across frame performance at wider apertures.
https://www.mapcamera.com/search?keyword=Zeiss%2028mm%20f2.8&igngkeyword=1
I think Cosina is still producing those that have not been discontinued in small runs periodically as they sometimes run out of stock in Japanese stores and always come back later.
On the other hand Zeiss Loxia and Batis lenses went up in price in Japan a few times and are quite expensive nowadays while used copies can be bought much cheaper.It appears Cosina makes the ZM and Otus/Milvus lines, as that's what they have on their website. And those Zeiss lenses are considerably lower priced in Japan. Someone else (Tamron?) makes the other Zeiss lines. It's possible whoever makes those raised the price they charge Zeiss as demand, and therefore production volume, for those lenses wanes amid increased competition from other 3rd parties and Sony's much deeper native mount options.
It would be interesting to know if Cosina is distributing the Zeiss lenses they make directly to the Japanese domestic market, while Zeiss handles rest-of-world sales, which could account for...Show more →
Yes, Cosina produces the ZM, Otus, Milvus and Zeiss Classic lines and is also the distributor of those lines in Japan market. Cosina is not the Japan distributor of Loxia and Batis lines and after-market support of those 2 lines used to be handled by Zeiss Japan but they offloaded it to Kenko Tokina in recent years. I also suppose Tamron makes the Batis lenses but not sure who makes the Loxia lenses (I suspect it's not Cosina).
rscheffler wrote
IDK. Zeiss pricing for the US market has been quite inflated compared to Japan (though have not checked recently). Maybe it's old stock that was made years ago, and if it sells, it's a bonus for them. It's not like they have put any effort into the ZM line since 2014 when the 35/1.4 was released.The little I used the ZM 28, it seemed to have the expected 'Zeiss pop' but not necessarily great across frame performance at wider apertures.
Juha Kannisto wrote
In Japan the ZM lenses have pretty much stayed at the same prices as they always were. 28/2.8 can be bought as new for 79K yen:https://www.mapcamera.com/search?keyword=Zeiss%2028mm%20f2.8&igngkeyword=1
I think Cosina is still producing those that have not been discontinued in small runs periodically as they sometimes run out of stock in Japanese stores and always come back later.
On the other hand Zeiss Loxia and Batis lenses went up in price in Japan a few times and are quite expensive nowadays while used copies can be bought much cheaper.
It would be interesting to know if Cosina is distributing the Zeiss lenses they make directly to the Japanese domestic market, while Zeiss handles rest-of-world sales, which could account for...Show more →
Yes, Cosina produces the ZM, Otus, Milvus and Zeiss Classic lines and is also the distributor of those lines in Japan market. Cosina is not the Japan distributor of Loxia and Batis lines and after-market support of those 2 lines used to be handled by Zeiss Japan but they offloaded it to Kenko Tokina in recent years. I also suppose Tamron makes the Batis lenses but not sure who makes the Loxia lenses (I suspect it's not Cosina).
Jan 26, 2024 at 10:17 PM