NiSi Working On 75mm f/0.95 ‘NOCT-Master’ Lens, Will Nikon Sue?

One year ago, cine lens and photo accessory brand NiSi revealed that it was working on a 75mm f/0.95 manual focus lens for stills shooters. Now, recently leaked images of the lens reveal that it may be called the “NOCT-master,” potentially setting up a trademark dispute between NiSi and Nikon. [Update: NiSi is refuting this report. See update below.]

In case you’ve not been keeping up with the news, Nikon is expected to officially release the NIKKOR Z 58mm f/0.95 S Noct lens tomorrow, for a rumored price tag of $8,000. But this isn’t the first Nikon “Noct” lens: the Noct brand first appeared in the 1970s with Nikon’s 58mm f/1.2 lens that’s still being bought, sold, and rehoused for cinema use to this day.

Which is why it would be surprising for NiSi to release the Rumiere APO 75mm f/0.95 manual focusing lens under the moniker “NOCT-master,” as these leaked images acquired by Sony Alpha Rumors seem to suggest:

Even the font used for “Master” looks similar to Nikon’s “Noct” font … and it’s yellow:

Maybe the NOCT-Master branding was just a tongue-in-cheek piece of text that was added to the early prototypes, but the leaked images sure do seem final to us.

No word yet on pricing, availability, or even a launch date, but we’ll keep an eye out—when this lens does launch, it’ll probably undercut Nikon’s 58mm Noct by a good margin, and it just might spark a legal battle as well.

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Update on 10/14/19: NiSi says it is not developing this lens. The company says it did try developing a 75mm f/0.95 but ended up stopping work on it. The lens in this leak was reportedly created by the designer directly without the company’s involvement.