Sony gets exclusive Voigtländer 50mm f/2 APO-Lanthar 20th anniversary lens

Sony gets exclusive Voigtländer 50mm f/2 APO-Lanthar 20th anniversary lens
(Image credit: SonyAlphaRumors / Voigtländer)

What did you get for your 20th birthday – a special piece of jewelry? A car? A hangover? Well, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its Voigtländer Classic line, the manufacturer is releasing the Voigtländer 50mm f/2 APO-Lanthar lens exclusively for Sony E-mount cameras.

"The name APO-Lanthar is only awarded for particularly powerful lenses in the Voigtländer range," said the company in a translated release (tip of the hat to photoscala). 

• Read more: Best Sony lenses

"And with the new APO-Lanthar 50 mm F2.0 we are talking about a real masterpiece! The development goal was to provide the highest level of imaging performance without compromising on design. For this purpose almost all technically possible registers were drawn to ensure this top performance."

This sure-to-be stunning manual focus lens has eight groups and ten elements, including two aspheric and five with anomalous partial dispersion. Voigtländer also brags about an "integrated floating-focus system and an optical calculation that reduces chromatic aberrations to near zero ensure outstanding performance".

The Voigtländer 50mm f/2 APO-Lanthar 20th anniversary lens is exclusively for the Sony E-mount

The Voigtländer 50mm f/2 APO-Lanthar 20th anniversary lens is exclusively for the Sony E-mount (Image credit: photoscala / Voigtländer)

The Voigtländer 50mm f/2 APO-Lanthar has 12 aperture blades that possess "a special shape" (though that special shape seems to be "circular"), to create pleasing bokeh balls from light sources. The manual aperture ring clicks in 1/3-stop steps to its f/16 minimum, but it can be switched to clickless for video wok. 

The otherwise all-manual lens features electrical contacts, which means that settings can be captured in your EXIF data, and it's equipped with a distance encoder that makes it compatible with Sony's 5-axis image stabilization.

Weighing in at 364g and measuring 62.6mm in length, the optic has a 49mm filter thread and a minimum focusing distance of 45cm.

No release date or price has been confirmed, but Voigtländer glass doesn't come cheap so you might want to funnel off some of your Christmas budget if you've got your heart set on one.  

Read more: 

Voigtländer Nokton 21mm F1.4 Aspherical lens for Sony E-mount
The best Sony lenses in 2019: find the right one for your camera
The best Sony cameras in 2019

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James Artaius
Editor

The editor of Digital Camera World, James has 21 years experience as a journalist and started working in the photographic industry in 2014 (as an assistant to Damian McGillicuddy, who succeeded David Bailey as Principal Photographer for Olympus). In this time he shot for clients like Aston Martin Racing, Elinchrom and L'Oréal, in addition to shooting campaigns and product testing for Olympus, and providing training for professionals. This has led him to being a go-to expert for camera and lens reviews, photo and lighting tutorials, as well as industry news, rumors and analysis for publications like Digital Camera MagazinePhotoPlus: The Canon MagazineN-Photo: The Nikon MagazineDigital Photographer and Professional Imagemaker, as well as hosting workshops and talks at The Photography Show. He also serves as a judge for the Red Bull Illume Photo Contest. An Olympus and Canon shooter, he has a wealth of knowledge on cameras of all makes – and a fondness for vintage lenses and instant cameras.