Thread: Voigtlander 50mm f/1.1 Nokton

Originally Posted by serhan

I don't know too much about bowing but they were the slowest activity show in the festival:) I think the eye level should be easier, but then they are not too far from their target. When they took their time, I practiced my manual focus shooting:) It is not a Noctilux on nex, eg 75mm 1.9, but I am waiting for Sony full frame to use it more, but then the dof might be even harder for fast shooting, maybe it might be easier to focus on a m9...

Focusing on the M9 is difficult too. At least for me. Razor thin DOF combined with possible back focus and inherent rangefinder inaccuracy. My best photos during the short period I used the Nokton were shot at around 2.8 (if I remember correctly).

Mine is taped wide open. I have no issues focusing it but I needed to calibrate both my M9s because of this lens (and the 135 which is just as picky). But doing so made other so much easier to focus all my lenses. A perfectly calibrated rangefinder is wonderful but it only has to be minutely out to be really frustrating.

Gordon

Received the lens while at work today.

I took a couple of quick snapshots - what I noticed was it was a tad on the soft side when wide open. BUT I must say that seems to be more or less on par with my non-L Canon DSLR lenses at their sharpest. I should probably do a proper comparison.

The Nokton started to sharpen up from f/2-2.8 onwards, and it was bitingly sharp from around f/4-5.6.

Corner-to-corner sharpness actually isn't too bad at all apertures, it's definitely better than my Voigtlander 35mm f/1.4 where the corners are visibly not as sharp as the middle of the lens.

But anyway I took a few more snapshots after work while I was waiting to catch the bus home. These are not untouched JPGs straight out of the camera but are post-processed in the way I'd normally do it, because I am going to post-process my photos by default anyway and that's what matters to me.

Note also I didn't have a UV/IR filter so some blacks may look purple.

Wide open:


I think this might have been at f/2.8 but I'm not sure, the shallow depth of field looks like it's wider than f/2.8:


I was trying to aim for the guy in the foreground but he was walking too fast so I went for the two guys behind him instead and just managed to get into focus:


This photo was taken through the grimy bus window so there is a funky distorted effect with natural vignetting from the edge of the window:


If anyone wants me to take proper straight-out-of-camera shots for pixel-peeping purposes at various apertures, let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Thanks a LOT James. Full frame images should be hidden away on a separate part of the website so the rest of us can't see them.

Whatcha mean?

because now I want one

Be strong, man! Be strong of heart and wallet!

(Can't say the same for myself although if you noticed near the start of this thread, I've been wanting this lens for almost a year now.)

Originally Posted by TraamisVOS

Be strong, man! Be strong of heart and wallet!

No problem. I've been known to stretch my budget from time to time, but never to break it.

Congrats for your new lens and I love the effect of that shot through the bus window :)