COSINA ANNOUNCES 18MM F/2.8 LENS FOR FUJIFILM X-MOUNT

New manual-focus Voigtländer optic is aimed at street and travel shooters

Cosina has announced the new Voigtländer Color-Skopar 18mm f/2.8 Aspherical manual-focus lens for Fujifilm X-mount cameras. Cosina says it “implements an optical system optimized for the image sensor of Fujifilm X system cameras” such as the X-T5 and X-S20.

This all-metal pancake lens measures just 23.5mm from the lens mount and weighs just 115g, making it extremely lightweight and compact. This is to be expected of a pancake lens, but in this instance the tiny form houses many key features that should make this an exceptionally capable lens for street and travel photography.

Comprising seven elements in five groups and 10 aperture blades, the lens offers a maximum aperture of f/2.8, with the 10 blades allowing the aperture to become more spherical, enabling natural out-of-focus areas that render smoothly rounded bokeh.

The 18mm focal length is the equivalent of 28mm on full-frame, a favorite among landscape, street, and travel photographers, as it enables capture of a wide scene.

Other noteworthy features include a minimum focusing distance of just 0.17m, a focus ring lever for precise adjustments, and electronic contacts for information communication between lens and body. This last point is not a feature on all manual-focus lenses, but is a useful inclusion. As long as the camera in use has updated firmware, Cosina says it will be able to detect “Exif data, focus check, shooting distance linked display, and certain models also support in-body image stabilization”.

The Voigtländer Color-Skopar 18mm f/2.8 Aspherical will be available in February, priced at around £475 / $600.