I bought the Voigtlander APO-LANTHAR 50mm F2 at Shinjuku Map Camera on his last trip back to Tokyo. Today, I’d like to show you some of the photos I’ve taken with this lens. When I take portraits for work, I usually use an autofocus lens, but this Voigtlander APO-LANTHAR 50mm F2 Aspherical lens is a manual focus lens, so I have to focus manually by turning the focus ring. The lens is a manual focus lens, so it’s necessary to focus manually by turning the focus ring. There are three main reasons why I bought a lens that can’t autofocus. I wanted to experience what Kocina claims is “the best performing lens in Voigtlander’s history”. I wanted to enjoy the experience of manual focus lenses, where you have to focus manually and carefully. I wanted a compact, lightweight 50 mm lens, designed exclusively for street photography. As for the first point, according to Koshina, the lens “employs an apochromatic design that minimizes axial chromatic aberration of RGB, the three primary colors of light, to near zero,” and it seems that axial and lateral chromatic aberrations are thoroughly suppressed. The photo above was taken from inside a car while driving around Yuigahama, focusing at infinity. As for point 2, I purchased this lens not for photographing people for work, but only for taking snapshots in the street, so I judged that there would be no problem even with manual focus. I also wanted to experience what I could never experience with … Continue reading A walk through Tokyo and Shonan with the APO-LANTHAR 50 mm F2