Cosina has now officially announced the Voigtlander Nokton 75mm f/1.5 for Canon RF mount. The lens won’t become available until next month, but its announcement caught my interest. Mostly because it communicates electronically with the camera.
This isn’t the first Cosina lens that communicates with Canon RF cameras. The company’s Nokton 50mm f/1.0 Aspherical for Canon RF (buy here) also sports electronic contacts. But there are very few 3rd party lenses that do.
Voigtlander Nokton 75mm f/1.5 – Fast Telephoto
The lens makes for a potentially ideal portrait lens and is one of several lenses recently teased to go on display at CP+ 2024. There wasn’t a lot of information available about it at the time of the teaser, but now the press release has gone out.
At 75mm, it’s an ideal length on either full-frame or APS-C bodies for shooting portraits. And that wide f/1.5 aperture is going to produce a shallow depth of field on cameras with either sized sensor. It’s also wide enough that you can use it in fairly dimly lit conditions. Ideal for evening street portraits.
Designed for Canon RF
Cosina says that the Voigtlander 75mm f/1.5 was designed specifically for Canon RF cameras. It’s optimised for the size of its full-frame sensors using the Canon RF mount.
It’s a manual focus lens, but it features electrical contacts on the mount. This allows the lens and camera to communicate with each other. So, the name of the lens you used to take a photo is stored in the EXIF data, and perhaps focus distance and other information.
It also feeds data back to the camera in real-time for things like IBIS. Ultimately, it’s a good thing that should improve your photography and video. At least on paper.
It’s one of very few third-party Canon RF mount lenses on the market that features electronic communication with the camera. So, it will be interesting to see how well it performs in the real world upon release.
Voigtlander Nokton 75mm f/1.5 Specs
Focal length75mm
FormatFull-Frame
MountCanon RF
FocusManual Focus
OpticsUnspecified
Angle of viewUnspecified
Max aperturef/1.5
Min aperturef/32
Aperture blades12
Minimum shooting distance70cm
Filter size58mm
DimensionsUnspecified
Weight515-530g
Price and Availability
The Voigtlander Nokton 75mm f/1.5 is expected to become available starting in April, although it’s unclear where. At the moment, only a Japanese price has been announced. In Japan, it will cost 135,000 yen, which is around $900.