Available immediately in Canon, Nikon and Pentax mounts, the Voigtländer 90mm / F3.5 SLII lens is an updated version of a previous manual focus design launched at the start of the 2000s. The new version has a similar optical formula, but with a redesigned, lighter body with rubber focus grip, and smaller screw-on hood. As previously, the lens has six elements in five groups. (The Voigtländer Germany website, run by German distributor RINGFOTO GmbH & Co. ALFO Marketing KG, does describe seven elements in five groups, but we believe this includes the bundled close-up lens, as the Cosina Japan website still refers to the original optical formula.)

The barrel diameter is essentially unchanged, but the length has dropped from 57.6mm to 48.2mm. The weight has also been trimmed by a fair margin, from 390g to 320g. (All figures are for the Nikon Ai-S mount version of the lens.)

Along with the lens itself, Cosina is including a 52mm threaded close-up lens that reduces focusing distance to as close as 32cm, allowing a maximum magnification of 1:1.8. Minimum focusing distance without this lens in place is 50cm, for a maximum magnification of 1:3.5.

European pricing for the Voigtländer 90mm / F3.5 SLII APO-Lanthar lens is set at €549, approximately equivalent to US$690 (ignoring exchange rate fluctuations, taxes and duties.)

UPDATED 2010-05-22 16:30ET: IR reader Chris Lilley, who owns the original SL APO-Lanthar lens, dropped us an email to correct our information on the original lens. Apologies for the errors, which were based on a misunderstanding of Cosina's historic Voigtländer lens models...