US-based company Noktor has announced the HyperPrime 50mm ƒ0.95 lens for Micro Four Thirds cameras. And if you were wondering, that's fast. The lens is completely manual, meaning you have to turn collars on the lens to set both aperture and focus. The 50mm focal length is effectively doubled by the M4/3 sensor to the equivalent of 100mm on a full-frame camera.
ƒ0.95 is an incredibly big hole in the lens. It's more than a stop faster than ƒ1.4, which means it lets in twice as much light. And with that wide aperture comes a seriously shallow depth of field. Focus on a subject's pupil, for example, and not only will their nose be out-of-focus but so will the edge of the eye itself.
The Noktor, which will cost $750 and go on sale in April, is a near clone of a TV lens from Senko (according to DP Review, it is almost the same as the Senko 50mm ƒ0.95 C-mount CCTV lens). That lens costs around the same.
What we really love is that companies like Noktor are making these niche products available for M4/3 cameras. It seems that someone, somewhere decided that M4/3 owners are an experimental bunch and are happy to buy more unusual gear to play with. We approve.
HyperPrime 50mm f/0.95 [Noktor via DP Review]
