It seems there’s another new player in lens town. At least, the manual focus section of it. There have been a lot of different brands popping up over the last few years in the small, fast, manual focus lens market. Does it have room for one more?

Thypoch, a Chinese lens manufacturer, made its debut at Photophia Hamburg 2023. During the event, the company released the Simera 28m f/1.4 and 35mm f/1.4 manual focus lenses for Leica M mount.

Who is Thypoch?

According to the company, Thypoch is an emerging China-based manufacturer of manual mirrorless lenses. They say they differ from other companies in their “Thy-photography” approach, to explore all of the ways photographers can create self-expression with their cameras.

Consisting of “Thy” and “epoch”, Thypoch values the distinguished golden age each one creates solely for themselves. Each click of the shutter reflects and makes up an irreplaceable fragment of memory in their life. To start with, the first series, Simera (meaning “Today” in Greek) bears the profound pursuit of recording fleeting moments of the present day.

It sounds like Thypoch is trying to transcend the traditional ultra-low-budget market that many Chinese brands, such as TTArtisan, 7Artisans, and Pergear, have dominated. It seems that they’re trying to target a more refined, low-budget photographer.

After all, those who spend several grand on a camera also want to save a little money on their expanding lens collection, too.

Thypoch Simera 28mm f/1.4 & 35mm f/1.4

Thypoch hasn’t revealed the complete specs for both the Simera 28mm f/1.4 and 35mm f/1.4 lenses yet. They have provided some key features, which the two lenses presumably share, although the full specs appear to still be on the way.

Whether this is simply because they don’t want to publish them yet or they’re still subject to change before the lens ships, is unclear, although they do say the lenses will be on sale soon. The company hasn’t published a lot yet, though, to be fair.

At the time of writing, they have no website. They have an Instagram account with a handful of images, a Facebook page set up in July, a Facebook group set up in August, and a YouTube channel with no videos on it.

Update: There is now a Typhoch website where you can learn more about the company and its upcoming lenses. The specs for the lenses have now also been released, they are listed below.

Anyway, here’s the information they have given us.

• A large aperture of f/1.4
• Clicked and de-clicked aperture modes
• Minimum focus distance of 0.45 (35mm) and 0.4 (28mm) metres
• Rangefinder focus invalidation alert (0.7m)
• Automatic depth-of-field indicator
• Vintage look to match Leica aesthetics
• 49m filter thread

That last one tells you they’re trying to target the budget Leica shooters rather than general mirrorless users who want to adapt lenses to their system. Leica M can be adapted to Leica L, Canon RF, Micro Four Thirds, Sony E, Cano EF-M, Fuji X and Nikon Z mounts quite easily, but such users don’t appear to be Thypoch’s market.

Thypoch Simera 28mm& 35mm f/1.4 Specs

	28mm f/1.4	35mm f/1.4
Focal length	28mm	35mm
Mount	Leica M	Leica M
Aperture	f/1.4-16	f/1.4-16
Aperture blades	14	14
Image Circle	43.2mm (FF)	43.2mm (FF)
Optics	11 Elements in 7 Groups	9 Elements in 5 Groups
Flange distance	28.8mm	28.8mm
Hood	Simera Hood	Simera Hood
Angle of view	75º	64º
Focus	Manual Focus	Manual Focus
Minimum focus distance	40cm	45cm
Filter Diameter	49mm	49mm
Dimensions	54 x 55mm (without hood)	54 x 50.5m (without hood)
Weight	330g	352.2g

Price and Availability

The new Thypoch Simera lenses will be available in an aluminium alloy body with either a black or silver finish. Each lens includes a hood and will cost $699, “with a box included” – whether that means some kind of transport/storage box or the cardboard box, I’m not sure.

The press release says to keep an eye on the Thypoch website for info, but as there doesn’t seem to be a Thypoch website available yet, I suspect Instagram may be the best way to find out what’s going on.

Update September 27th: This article has been updated to include the lens specifications and a link to the Typhoch website.