Cosina has announced the new Heliar Classic 50mm F1.5 lens for Leica M-mount cameras.
The lens contains six elements in three groups and is aimed at photographers seeking a more old-fashioned look to their images, Cosina said.
The lens is the latest in a clutch of recent lens releases by the Japanese company for Leica M-mount cameras.
“The lens configuration is based on the Heliar type with six elements in three groups,” Cosina said, “achieving a large aperture of F1.5.
“In pursuit of a classical image that modern lenses do not have, we have adopted an optical design that intentionally expresses various aberrations.”
Cosina said a “single coating finish on the lens gives an extremely unique aperture-opening depiction. This tendency is reduced by narrowing down the aperture, and from the aperture F4, the performance is equivalent to that of other Voigtlander VM mount 50mm lenses.”
The lens takes 49mm filters and weighs just 225g, measuring just 41.9mm and 56.5mm in diameter. The all-metal focusing ring evokes the look of classic rangefinder lenses, and Cosina said the lens can be focused down to 50cm (20 in).
Scheduled for release in September, Cosina said the lens’s recommended retail price was ¥90,000, which converts to around $825 or £600.
You can see a gallery of images taken on the new lens below, provided by Cosina.
I'm a New Zealander who has been living in London since the mid-1990s, shooting film seriously since the year 2000. Kosmo Foto was launched in 2012 and has since become a film brand, with the release of my first films Kosmo Foto Mono 35mm (2017) and Kosmo Foto Mono 120 (2019).
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