Darren Chan recently attached his $6,500 Leica Noctilux 50mm f/1 lens to his Sony NEX-5 camera using an adapter in order to test out the unique combo. As you might expect, the combo is great for creamy bokeh and doing nighttime street photography in areas with low light.
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Some years ago Canon offered a f/1.0 version of its 50mm L lens. They’ve since stopped manufacturing lenses faster than f/1.2, and US-based company Noktor thinks there’s an opportunity for relatively affordable “hyperprime” lenses.

Today, it announced the Noktor HyperPrime 50mm f/0.95, a manual focus lens designed for Micro Four Thirds cameras. The $750 lens will begin shipping on April 15th, but the company is accepting preorders on their website. In addition to Micro Four Thirds, the company has a poll asking which mount it should design lenses for next.

Here’s a photograph shot with the lens showing its low light performance:

One of the problems with having such a large aperture is that the resulting depth-of-field is so shallow. The lens, being more than a stop faster than an f/1.4 lens, could be very difficult to focus correctly for shots were precision is needed. It was one of the complaints people had against the Canon 50mm f/1.0, though that lens was autofocus.

It’s interesting to see another lens company pop up for a specific type of lens, just like Lensbaby and its creative focus lenses.

P.S.: Various sources are saying the lens is almost identical to the Senko 50mm f/0.95 C-mount CCTV lens.