After recently having discontinued their very high-esteemed and popular Nokton 35mm f/1.2 Aspherical M-mount lens, Voigtländer announced that they were working on a successor which was to be released in the second half of 2011. On this year’s CP+ in Japan, the new Nokton 35mm f/1.2 Aspherical II was officially presented.

Picture courtesy of Cosina/Voigtländer

According to photoscala.de, the new version is much more compact than the original Nokton 35/1.2. This is probably due to an overhaul of the optical formula, which was needed because the glass of the aspherical lens element was no longer obtainable. The new version also focuses closer, to .5m instead of .75m. A retail price has not yet been announced, but I reckon it will be about the same price as the old version (~ $ 1200/€ 900).