Voigtlander 50mm 1.1 - ITS HERE...!

One of the girls just brought me the much anticipated box from CameraQuest.com, containing my new Nockton 50mm 1.1   Review, more pictures and the first test shots after the link.

The standard black NOKTON box, sorry but this did not involve a numbered collectors edition cigar humidor made from rare woods. 

Inside there is a two page instruction manual, not that I actually stopped to read it first. But while I was loading the pictures to TypePad, I figured it seemed like a good idea to take a ever so brief look so I would know what I was talking about.  Interestingly, the Manual warns NOT to attach filters between the lens-hood and the lens, instead there is a filter tread inside the lens-hood.  BTW filter size 58mm. Hmm off to Samy's Camera to see if they have a 58mm B+W UV-IR in stock.

There it is... 428 grams of goodness (well hopefully further testing will show if its for real)  for what it is worth the old Leica Noctilux 50mm 1.0 weights in a 630 grams.

My personal taste in designer glass is not really for the nobbies on the NOKTON, and I prefer the narrow rifling groves on other lenses, but hey, taste can't be discussed, in reality, the nobbies turns out to provide great grip and traction, I suspect this is a great thing as there clearly is a lot of barrel to focus here.    

The lens focuses surprisingly easy, the resistance to turning is very light, feels like maybe 1/2 to 2/3 of the load of my 75lux.  This surprised me because so many modern lenses are rather heavy on the turn, and also because the lens itself naturally have a VERY large coil to turn for the focus, due to the fact that the lens have a huge diameter of almost 7cm.

This is one seriously big window.  I was shooting downstairs in low mixed light from the window and indoor lighting and had no problems with the shutter speed at all.   Seen from the rear the glass is exactly as big as I can imagine it possible to fit into the M mount.

* The lens fit and work perfectly on my M6 and M8, however just like the Noctilux it is to big for the Leica CL and cover the rangefinder window almost entirely,  it is actually possible to focus it with a little good will, I would NOT recommend this lens for a CL or CLE user.

Actually, the iPhone do not do the lens justice, it make it look far too fat. 

Turns out my iPhone is pretty good at photographing through the viewfinder on the M, so here it is, with and without the lens shade,  I took one look and removed the shade, and will be waiting for the cutout upgrade which is said to be out next month. so at this point my lens will travle naked with only the UV-IR filter from Adorama to protect the lens.

Like all the new lenses from Voigtlander and Zeiss, the 50mm 1.1 NOKTON have the recessed grove all the way around on the lens mount, because of the grove it is easy to 6 bit code the lens with a sharpie.  I visited http://www.digital-leica.com/lens_codes/ for the noct code 011111 and used my laser cut 6bit M code template to place the black dots accurate.y.

First shot, grapped on of the friendly girls in the office for a quick test.. very low light, and YES it does exactly what I had hoped. the background is roughly 5 feet away and I am about 5 feet from her.  So far Im liking the look of the Nokton 50mm de-focus.

DANG.. Samy's and Calument don't have the UV-IR in stock..

PRELIM conclusions... well that's kind of impossible at this point, and I am planning to post a series of shots giving a better idea of the lens, along with RAW files so you can judge for yourself, give me a few days, but here are a few thoughts.

1. The lens is sharp where focused in all the shots I have done so far. (failure to focus falls on me)

2. The De-focus rendering is pleasant enough.

3.  Lighter than expected - to be exact 428 grams vs the old Noctilux at 630 grams.

     I suspect the weight difference is partially related to Voigtlander using much less exotic glass.

4. There probably is no doubt the lens is on the soft side wide open.

Voigtlander 50mm 1.1 Leica 50mm 1.0    HEXANON 50mm 1.2

Price    $ 1100 new $ 4000 ebay

Design      6 groups 7 elements 6 groups 7 elements

Diagraph 10 blades

aperature  1.1 to 16 1.0 to 16

Filter 58mm 60mm ?

Weight     428g 630g

lenght      57.2mm 62mm

diameter 69.6mm 69mm

Seriously, for what it does, for $1000 there is simply no comparative lens on the market for this amount of money, the NOKTON 50mm 1.1 is a brand new clean lens out of the box.  Last time I did see a used  Konica HEXANON 50mm 1.2 it was listed at close to $2000 on eBay,  and the cheapest Leica Noctilux I have seen run about $4000 on eBay.  So for the money, there is not really much to think about, however lenses is not all about economy and "bang for your buck", so give me a few days to put up some real pictures and we will see what this glass is good for. I am not delusional enough to think this will blow away any $5000 noctilux, but it might do what I want for a very agreeable amount of money.

Back to coding. notice the black dots start excatly at the point of the flange, this is easy, grab a black sharpie and simply paint everything from the point to the right black a little half way to the screw, done.

Nokton 50mm 1.1 wide open at about 6m this guy is stitting in a pool of light from a overhead spotlight.

This afternoon at the Los Angeles MOCA - Im so glad others also bring their M out in public.

From the garden f. 1.1 below a 100% crop of a bracket showing 1.1 5.6 and 16.  Notice the blooming around the highlights in all the shots but particularly at f. 1.1 wide open, this is definately a signature of ultra fast lenses.  

Last image for this post, another garden shot, focused at about 2m, I was interested to see the defocus of highlights, note the little circles on the bottom right corner.  I like the shape of the highlights quite a lot, they are not as pronounced "rings" as my Voigtlander 35mm 1.4 have, this is good.

Ahhh, maybe just one more image, the source file is tack sharp around the eyes and the front hair, as you can tell it defocuses quickly and smoothly.  this is very nice, image shown here have not been adjusted for contrast.

Tom aka Etruscello  posted his thoughts on the Voigtlander 50mm 1.1 on LUF, he is comparing it to his Noct. He feel the lens may have a bit of backfocus issue and posted very detailed instructions for dealing with this. Personally I have not noted a back focus issue with this lens, but I have also not done in depth testing for this. So far Tom is the only user I know about to make this observation, so at this point I will not say that it is a general problems for the 50mm 1.1, however I have no doubt that the lens will backfocus a bit with you stop down to 2.8, Im only saying that what I have seen is dead on wide open, and that is what I got the lens for anyway.

Big Louis demonstrating the lens in the Portobello Road market.

Some pictures with the Nokton 50mm 1.1 from Tokyo, shot on film and scanned.

Click for CameraQuest Nokton 50mm 1.1 page. For what it is worth, I have been buying from Stephen for a while and have only great experiences dealing with CameraQuest, as far as I am concerned he is highly recommended.

Comments

[Enrico]

Thank you Bo, very interesting report on this new lens.
The picture of the young guy at the LA MOCA is quite convincing, as well as the last garden picture whose bokeh is quite nice.
At 01.1, though, it is really soft, in my experience, the Hexanon Limited 50/1.2, that I had for some time, was quite more sharp when used wide open.

[DHM]

Recent versions of the f1.0 Noctilux take 60mm filters, but the very first version of the f1.0—produced between 1976 and 1978—takes 58mm filters (same as the earlier 50mm f1.2 Noctilux).

I had to special order the 58mm B+W UV/IR filter for my Series 1 Noct, and it took almost 4 months to arrive.

[Matt]

Hello,

Thank you for this review. Interesting to see the test shots. I agree, it is a bit soft - but I suppose that is to be expected with a lense as fast as this. Interestingly, I dug this up:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ngminchai/3672145197/

Which appears to show the Nokton to be only slightly softer than the Noctilux, and when zoomed out, even appears sharper!

Perhaps you received a bad copy? I would just like your opinion on this matter since I have not bought a Nokton yet, and am interested in this lense.

Thank you

[RJ]

Any updates on this? I'm also curious whether the B&W shot could have been sharper.

[Bo Lorentzen]

RJ, I think the focus on the B&W is on his far shoulder, the lens is tack sharp and very pleasant to work with, I have been using it regularly and have been very happy with the results, it is by nature a big less contrasty slower lenses, but this is easy to address in photoshop. (or printing by using harder paper)

Bo