Sales Start Date: Mid October 2023

Recommended Retail Price: £2699 | €3,099 ROI

Nikon takes S-Line optical excellence to new heights with the NIKKOR Z 135mm f/1.8 S Plena. Stills to movies, this premium full-frame medium-telephoto lens delivers the ultimate in flawless bokeh. From fine-art photography to portraiture, high fashion, nature, and more, discerning photographers can create images of incredible depth and artistry.

The very character of Plena is all-round optical perfection. The wide Nikon Z mount has opened new possibilities for lens design, and Plena takes advantage of them all to deliver truly circular bokeh even in the furthest corners of the frame. Combined with the compression of the 135mm focal length, subject separation is truly striking. Even when shooting wide open against complex backgrounds or at close range, the finest details can be isolated with crystalline sharpness against the ethereal bokeh.

Plena boasts the highest overall rendering power of any S-Line lens as well as peripheral brightness that surpasses any other S-Line lens at f/1.8. Combined with its 11-blade rounded aperture and complex optical construction, aberrations are thoroughly countered: there’s no need to stop down to avoid vignetting. Even when shooting wide open, point light sources like stars or city lights are sharp, round, and clear, and backlit bokeh is free of sagittal coma and flare.

In addition, Plena’s fast, precise autofocus makes this fine-art S-Line prime lens exceptionally smooth to handle. Focus is quickly acquired at any focusing distance, and even at the widest aperture where the focal plane is thinner. Weighing just shy of a kilo and with customisable controls, Plena is also beautifully manageable whether shooting handheld or rigged.

Dirk Jasper, Product Manager, Nikon Europe says: “Nikon engineers have outdone themselves with Plena. Photographers who want to create flawless bokeh now have the perfect lens at their disposal. After Noct, this is only the second lens in Nikon’s history to be given its own name, which shows just how special it is. Coming from the Latin ‘plenus’, meaning to be ‘complete’ or ‘full’, it’s perfect for a lens that delivers bokeh as exquisite as this.”

Summary of key features: NIKKOR Z 135mm f/1.8 S Plena

Flawless bokeh: perfectly round circles of bokeh are visible even in the furthest corners of the frame. There’s no onion-ring or cat-eye bokeh, and no discernible colour fringing or vignetting.

Masterful optical design: 11 rounded aperture blades and an optical formula that consists of 16 elements in 14 groups combine to minimise diffraction and counter sagittal coma and spherical aberrations. Cutting-edge optics include Nikon’s SR glass and an aspherical lens element.

Exquisite rendering: whether shooting at f/1.8 or stopped down, images display pin-sharp in-focus details with smoothly graded background and foreground bokeh. Colour and contrast are exceptional, even around high-contrast edges.  

Abundant peripheral light even at f/1.8: brightness is perfectly even across the entire frame with no visible light fall-off at the edges, even when shooting wide open.

Superb anti-reflection and backlight control: Nikon’s exclusive Meso Amorphous Coat and ARNEO Coat counter glare and lens flare by eliminating incidental light coming from any direction.

Fast, meticulous autofocus: Plena acquires focus quickly and quietly at all focusing distances: from close range to infinity. The minimum focus distance is just 0.82 m.

Premium S-Line build: shaped for perfect balance, constructed entirely from tough yet lightweight metal, and engraved with the Plena name.

Effortless handling: two L-fn buttons are perfectly placed for horizontal and vertical shooting. The large, knurled focus ring actuates smoothly with just the right amount of torque.

Location ready: extensive sealing around the joints and buttons, and a rubber gasket on the lens mount, keep dust, dirt, and moisture at bay.¹

Accepts 82 mm filters: the NIKKOR Z 135mm f/1.8 S Plena accepts the same wide range of 82 mm screw-on filters as S-Line f/1.2 lenses.

https://www.nikon.co.uk/en_GB

The post Announcing The Nikkor Z 135mm F/1.8 S Plena: The Perfect Bokeh Lens appeared first on The Society of Photographers | International Photography Organisation.

FUJIFILM Corporation announces the launch of the “FUJINON Lens XF8mmF3.5 R WR” (XF8mmF3.5 R WR) on June 29, 2023. The lens joins the line-up of XF lenses, interchangeable lenses for the X Series of lightweight and compact mirrorless digital cameras, renowned for their outstanding image quality based on Fujifilm’s proprietary color reproduction technology.

The XF8mmF3.5 R WR is a prime lens with the focal length of 8mm (equivalent to 12mm in the 35mm film format), the widest among the lineup of Fujifilm’s XF lenses. It is a perfect choice for capturing expansive wilderness that spreads out in front of you, or bringing out the background broadly to add a dynamic touch to a subject. The lens’s compact design enhances its portability, bringing the world of ultra-wide angle (UWA) photography to everyday use.

The XF8mmF3.5 R WR is an UWA lens, consisting of 12 lens elements, including three aspherical elements and two ED elements, in nine groups. It has the diagonal viewing angle of 121 degrees and boasts exceptional image-resolving performance with edge-to-edge clarity. The lens captures every intricate detail of a subject, covered in its characteristically wide field of view, including tree branches and leaves in expansive wilderness or ornamental details at a majestic cathedral. It also measures just 52.8mm long and weighs 215g despite being an UWA lens with the focal length of 8mm. The resulting portability means users can not only enjoy typical UWA applications such as landscape and architecture photography, but also take it out for a wide range of situations including as an everyday walkaround lens or for travel snapshots. The versatile filter thread size of 62mm facilitates the use of a variety of filters to broaden the scope of image production.

The XF8mmF3.5 R WR joins Fujifilm’s extensive lineup of a total of 42 interchangeable lenses to cover a broad range of photographic genres, offering users the joy of photography with the X Series of APS-C digital cameras.

1. Product features

(1) Widest-angle prime lens in the lineup of Fujifilm’s XF lenses

• XF8mmF3.5 R WR offers a focal length of 8mm (equivalent to 12mm in the 35mm film format), the widest angle in Fujifilm’s XF lens lineup. It covers the viewing angle of 121 degrees diagonally for UWA photography. This makes it an ideal choice for expansive wilderness photography and shooting situations involving a subject with high information volume.
• The lens consists of 12 lens elements, including three aspherical elements and two ED elements, in nine groups, thereby controlling lens distortion, spherical aberration and astigmatism to deliver advanced image-resolving performance. The lens captures every intricate detail of a subject, covered in its characteristically wide field of view, including tree branches and leaves in expansive wilderness or ornamental details at a majestic cathedral or temple. As a wide-angle lens, which typically has greater-than-normal depth-of-field, its aperture can be stopped down to facilitate pan-focusing^*1.
• The lens uses the Inner Focus system, which drives compact and lightweight elements in the middle of the barrel. The wide-angle lens’s characteristically short travel distance for the focusing group of elements has boosted the focusing speed to as fast as 0.02 seconds^*2, which is particularly useful in dynamic sports photography, taking advantage of the UWA field of view.

• *1 Photography where everything in the image, from the foreground to the background, is in focus
• *2 Using an internal measurement method compliant with the CIPA Guidelines, when mounted on the mirrorless digital camera “FUJIFILM X-T4” with Phase Detection AF activated and the High Performance Mode turned ON

(2) Compact design that brings the world of UWA to day-to-day use

• The compact lens measures just 52.8mm and weighs 215g. The effective positioning of the aspherical and ED elements has reduced the size and weight of this UWA lens, defying the typically large form factor of UWA lenses.
• Placing distortion-controlling aspherical elements at the front has kept the filter thread size to the versatile 62mm, facilitating the use of a variety of filters to enable long-exposure photography and landscape photography, a popular genre that takes advantage of UWA’s field of view.

(3) Dust- and weather-resistant and capable of operating in temperatures as low as -10 degree Celsius

• The lens barrel is weather-sealed at 10 locations to achieve dust- and weather-resistance and capability of operating in temperatures as low as -10 degree Celsius. The front lens element is applied with fluorine coating to repel water and offer protection against stains. This means users can enjoy the lens with peace of mind to take photos in all shooting conditions including snapshots in daily life, travel photography and outdoor photography in light rain or in dusty places.

For full details see Fujifilm website

The post Fujifilm Launches ”FUJINON Lens XF8mmF3.5 R WR” appeared first on The Society of Photographers | International Photography Organisation.