Annular lenses for acoustic shear wave imaging are investigated in this letter. Both theoretical analysis of the distribution of the focused acoustic field in Al2O3 and experimental results show that the longitudinal wave field in a solid will be seriously suppressed by a small absorbing disk at the center of the lens which does not significantly effect the shear wave field in the material. Internal material images are also presented showing that an annular lens is very suitable for obtaining a high quality shear wave image.