New Voigtländer Nokton 1.2/55 SL IIs with Nikon F mount: First assessment and comparison to Nikkor 1.2/50

Positive news from Voigtländer for Nikon users: They are further extending the SL II lens line. Now with a new Nokton 1.2/55 SL IIs:


And here is already a first assessment and comparison to the former Nikkor 1.2/50 made by Grays of Westminster (a quite famous camera shop in London which is completely focussed on Nikon only):

Pricing? Well, if you have to ask...

Donald Qualls said:

Pricing? Well, if you have to ask...

Click to expand...

For you in the US:

Less than I expected, but more than I'm likely to pay anytime soon...

Good news. I have their 40mm f/2 and it's a gem.

Will there be a huge difference between this and the already available Nokton 58mm f/1.4 at f/1.4 and above?

If this is a lens in the vein of the Noctilux & Noct-Nikkor and corrected for sagittal comma flare then the price is very reasonable. With the Nokton at $900 and Noctiluxen going for $8,000 and Noct-Nikkors at $3,500 (used), I'd say the Nokton has an edge. However, the Voigtlander web site says nothing of comma correction and this may be yet another 50/1.2 lens among many.

JParker said:

Positive news from Voigtländer for Nikon users: They are further extending the SL II lens line. Now with a new Nokton 1.2/55 SL IIs:

55 mm / 1:1.2 Nokton SLll-S - Voigtländer

www.voigtlaender.de

And here is already a first assessment and comparison to the former Nikkor 1.2/50 made by Grays of Westminster (a quite famous camera shop in London which is completely focussed on Nikon only):

Click to expand...

Thank you very much for the info!
I have missed that introduction and announcement by Voigtländer.

Nicholas Lindan said:

If this is a lens in the vein of the Noctilux & Noct-Nikkor and corrected for sagittal comma flare then the price is very reasonable. With the Nokton at $900 and Noctiluxen going for $8,000 and Noct-Nikkors at $3,500 (used), I'd say the Nokton has an edge. However, the Voigtlander web site says nothing of comma correction and this may be yet another 50/1.2 lens among many.

Click to expand...

I don't think it is corrected for minimal coma flare, because then it would be certainly much more expensive.

It is really very good to see that Voigtländer / Cosina is extending the programme of the Nikon F-mount SLII-S line.
And I think their approach to this market is interesting and right:
On the one side we have the absolutely outstanding Zeiss Milvus ZF.2 (and Zeiss Otus) manual focus lenses for the F-mount: Optical and mechanical masterpieces with perfect quality (my Zeiss lenses surpass even my best Nikkors really significantly, a very noticable difference).
But this optical and mechanical perfection comes at a price (there is no free lunch in life ): Higher prices and more weight.

And on the other side Voigtländer / Cosina is offering in comparison manual lenses with lower - but still very good - optical and mechanical quality. But at lower prices and with more compact designs.
So the interesting questions are:
1) Will they further expand the line with e.g. a 2.8/24 and 2.8/20?
2) Will they expand the concept of a very compact, high-quality APO lens with lower max. aperture like their recent 2.8/90 APO-Skopar?
3) Or will they 'copy' their M-mount offerings 2.0/50 APO and 2.0/35 APO for the SLII-S line?

Best regards,
Henning