[Leica] Wanted: Noctilux

[mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner)]

On 12/1/06 10:17 PM, "David Keenan" <ausdlk@gmail.com> typed:

> Save a mucho $$$ to buy gifts and get a 35mm Nokton f/1.2 instead.
> 
> It's a sweet (no so little) lens.
> 
> Dave.


http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/lenses/noctilux.shtml


Maybe he's already got an exquisite 35mm ASPH Summilux 1.4 and doesn't not
want another fast wide angle lens? Or the legendary 35 aspherical which a
Belgian friend of mine, Dominique was using the whole time I was hanging out
with him in Wetzlar.
Maybe he has a preference for Leica products especially the more legendary
ones? A Reason why he got his Leica body in the first place?

Its an issue of "why not get the 35mm Nokton f/1.2 instead or the 35
aspherical or ASPH" not instead of the 50mm Noctilux.
Comparing the 50 against a 35 is apples and pears. Dancing and architecture.


Maybe he's seen examples of shots done with the Noctilux time and time again
on the lug and elsewise and wants to get shots which look like that.

Much of it is its low light shooting power the other is its ability to
isolate subjects and that is really inadvertently the main reason it seems
to be used. At least you'd get that impression based on the dozen people who
post shots done with it on the lug over the past decade I've paid attention.
I showed mine at a LHSA meeting slide show. Projected with Leica glass.

When you shoot a wide angle lens having no DOF is not an obvious choice.
You DO want DOF you're getting everything how much of it do you want out of
focus?
Its a hard concept to grasp and work with highly selective DOF with a wide
angle view.

A 50 on the other hand which really is a short tele as much as a long normal
paired with ultra high lens speed gives you the ability to pick things out
and isolate them. Front to back and sideways. As shown on the lug and
anywhere time and time again.
Not seem much shots with the 35 1.2 Nokton you got some?

The lens shade is so nice it makes the not so great looking lens look really
bad in comparison. Looks like a Vivitar serious 1 from the 1970s. I'm not
going to spend close to a grand for stuff which looks like junk.

One hopes that like many of us on the LUG when we're looking at a real
financial transaction in getting such a lens we'd given it some real thought
and would not just buy a much more mass market Cosina wide angle with
"Voigtl?nder Germany" written all over it.
What's wrong with being Asian?
Both Nikon and Canon make excellent glass which is gorgeous to behold. Great
design inside and out. No curve balls.


This review by Erwin might talk one out of it.
About the worse review I've seen him write on any lens.
http://www.imx.nl/photosite/japan/voigt1235.html


Out of context of course at the begging of one paragraph he makes this point
you'd have to read the whole thing.
" At full aperture (1:1.2) overall contrast is quite low, in fact lower than
I have seen in the last ten years. "
" Stopping down to 1.4 hardly brings any improvement and even at 1:2 we see
the same performance as at 1.2."
Read it.

For a lens twice the size as the Leica 35 aspherical or ASPH 1.4's.


The legendary Aspherical 35 Summilux, the one made before all the modem
cheaper ASPH's (not spelling out the whole word) came out deserves more than
to be compared to clunker like this. Twice the size for a half a stop.
Probably less then a half a stop.





Mark Rabiner
New York, NY
40?47'59.79"N   
73?57'32.37"W

http://rabinergroup.com/