The New Thypoch Ksana 35mm f/2 Aims for Vintage Character in a Modern Package

Thypoch has announced the Ksana 35mm f/2 ASPH, a compact M-mount lens that blends modern optical design with a more vintage-inspired style. It’s designed around the familiar 35mm focal length, which is a popular choice for street, documentary, travel, and everyday shooting thanks to its natural field of view.

While the lens is built with contemporary optical elements, Thypoch has also pulled in a strong retro influence, both in its handling and in how it renders light and colour. The result is a small, fully manual lens that aims to sit somewhere between classic rangefinder glass and more modern corrected optics, depending on how and where you use it.

Compact 35mm for everyday shooting

Physically, the Ksana is very much designed as a carry-all-day lens. It weighs 198.6g and measures just 27mm from back to front, making it small enough to keep mounted on a camera without feeling front-heavy or intrusive.

That compact size pairs with the 35mm focal length, which continues to be one of the most versatile options for general photography. It’s wide enough for environmental context, but still controlled enough for portraits and tighter compositions, especially in street and documentary work.

1980s-inspired rendering with Epoch Coating 84’

One of the defining characteristics of this lens is Thypoch’s Epoch Coating 84’. Rather than aiming for a clinically neutral modern look, the coating is designed to echo the behaviour of some 1980s-era optics.

In practice, that means a tendency towards warmer colour response and a more characterful flare signature, including gold and purple tinting in high-contrast light. The intention is more about a specific visual mood associated with film-era lenses than technical neutrality.

Brass construction and handling

The Ksana 35mm is built around a solid brass body, giving it a more traditional, mechanical feel compared to lightweight modern composites. It’s available in black or silver finish.

The black version has a semi-gloss, oil-based coating that mimics older manual focus lenses, while the silver version offers a more classic bare-metal look suited to matching silver-bodied cameras.

Both versions include a crescent-shaped focus tab for tactile control. There’s also a defined resistance point at 0.7m on the focusing ring, acting as a physical reference for the rangefinder focusing limit.

Optical design and close focusing

Inside the lens is an 8-element in 5-group optical design, which includes:

• 1 aspherical element
• 1 extra-low dispersion element
• 2 high refractive index elements

This combination is intended to control aberrations while maintaining contrast and edge definition across the frame. The lens opens up to f/2 at its widest aperture, giving it decent low-light capability for its size, and it focuses down to 0.5m, allowing for relatively close framing compared to many traditional M-mount 35mm designs.

Pricing and availability

The Thypoch Ksana 35mm f/2 ASPH is available now through the official store and authorised dealers, in both black and silver finishes, with or without a lens hood. With the lens hood, it’s priced at $649, and without it costs $599.

---