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David Babsky (at Stevehuffphoto.com) posted a new Voigtländer Nokton 25mm f/0.95 review: “It’s useful for “pulling focus” (manually adjusting the focus) when shooting VIDEO on an m4/3 camera, and for shooting m4/3 video in (almost) darkness and up very close.“..”It MAY be just what you need, but it depends on what you like to shoot. Soft, contextualised portraits? Great! Harsh nitty gritty? No. Close-up sharp details? Yes, but only at f2.8 or smaller. The world in sharp focus? ..No: no point in paying extra for that 0.95 aperture.”
Cameraquest has a new status update:
I’ve shipped over half of February’s 25/.95 to customers. The remaining .95’s are delayed by customs. I hope to start shipping the remaining .95’s by Saturday February 26th or Monday February 28th. The shipment is indeed SOLD OUT. The NEXT PRODUCTION RUN will be in April.
43rumors reader H.Hackbarth posted a full size sample on Flickr taken with the GH2 + Nokton.
There is a comparison between the Leica 25mmf1.4 vs. Voigtlander 25mmf0.95 at thaidphoto.com
The only place where you can find the the Nokotn is on [shoplink 15659 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink]. But in most cases you have to pay more than the original price!
23 Responses
I’m disappointed. I would have hoped for so much more from Voigtländer.
Don’t worry. It’s a great lens, the best one for m4/3. He reviewed it as a macro at full aperture… No comment.
At normal distances it is a bit soft wide open and the captures have a nice “classic” look. But when you stop it down to f2.8-5.6 it becomes the sharpest m4/3 lens.
I would find it difficult to say from this review whether the lens is “good” or “bad”.
I know it sounds kind of stereotyped, but to me, photography is more than the question whether a lens is soft wide open or whether you can get almost similar results for 1/2 of the price or whatever.
Personally, I find the lens quite intriguing because it has character, and it lets me do things I couldn’t do otherwise, at least not on m43 🙂
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephubik/sets/72157626181515608/
I would take this ‘review’ with a grain of salt. Check out what lenstip and luminous landscape wrote about the Nokton.
I think lenstip’s review holds more water.
The Nokton starts at f0.95 and is sharpest at f2.8
Other lenses start at *wherever they start* and are sharpest at f8
It is faster. The sharp point is faster, and the maximum apateure is faster.
David Babsky is a retard if he thinks that the Nokton should be sharpest at wide open.
I wouldn’t use this language, but it is obvious he knows very little about lens testing and review. The samples he publishes don’t look so good and are much worse than what I’ve learned to expect from this lens – wide open or closed down a little bit. I would be tempted to say it has to do with lack of skills and not a bad copy.
Lenstip has a lens testing methodology that is published on site, conducts measurements and covers an extensive amount of topics when reviewing a lens. I agree with you – their reviews do hold more water.
I really don’t know what he was testing…. Whether he was testing the lenses or whether the lens fits his bill….
First he compared PL 20mm f1.7 with Voightlander Nokton 25mm f0.95. Focal length differences aside, he chose to shoot his hand…. A moving subject to show depth of field….
Then he demonstrated how various lenses make a portrait effective or not. Is this a lecture on portraiture theory or a test of lens? Not everyone wants such a tight portrait crop, by the way. There are different schools of thoughts. Some may find such close crop that cuts off top of the head and bottom of the chin very annoying. Not all portraits benefit from that way of shooting.
It’s more than 50% wrong translation (completely wrong, difference meaning), you guys still understand?
I had the Nokton for four days now. However, I decided to return it. As I am not into video, it didn’t have such a great benefit for me. Eventhough I have to say, that the fastness is a great benefit on M4/3. Anyway, I just didn’t seem to rationalize such a great expenditure into one lens, which is quite heavy, and only MF and IS TERRIBLY HARD TO FOCUS! (when you shoot something more distant than 2 meters, as the focus range on the ring between 1m-2m and infinity is maybe 1.5cm compared to the 0.17m-1m is distributed in the 3/4 of the focusing barrel). Instead i bought a new NEX 3, which is about 100g lighter than my EP1, has probably 5x better sensor, a better crop factor, so I get more of the MF lenses I planned to buy and already have, faster shutter speeds, GREAT ISO 1600 shots and usable 3200s…. And much much more. Sorry, M4/3 IBIS is a great thing, but I am not willing to compensate the shitty sensor through 900 euro worth MF noktons… The new NEX cost me 316 euros, and with it a MARVELLOUS FAST AF LENS, which gives me 24mm equivalent. The last week was full of dilemmas and thinking, however I love my EP1, the image quality just don’t compare to the NEX!!!
Pablo, this is the first time I see the Sony 16mm described as marvelous. To each his own, I guess 🙂
I know about the flaws of the glass. I read a lot about it. Anyway, as I didn’t inted the focal range of 24mm for serious shots, just for snapshot shooting from trips and outings, I don’t care very much about the cons of the glass very much, when I stop it down a few stops. I know, each shot from the Nokton looked great. It had its atmosphere, nice colors and the sharpness was breathtaking. But… 900 EURO… I know, it is Japan quality lens, It has a bit more lightgathering than f1.4… But… 900 Euro… The feel of the thing in the field… just probably did not convince me very much.
You can always go for the Leica 50mm f/0.95 for ONLY 9000 Euro if you prefer.
I love the Nokton and it’s by far the most exciting and serious lens for EVIL cameras shooters.
just want to add that i find the NEX cameras terrible in design, from astethic point of view 😉
I have been using the Nokton for 3 months now, and I must say it is VERY EASY to focus with GH2. Probably the EP1’s rear LCD is not the best for MF.
@Miklos, thats gently put, I found the EP1 really tough to use with a lens such as the nokton 1.1 I got a Zacuto VF which helped with mf but not 100%
I wait for my EP-2 plus VF-2 to arrive very soon, i guess it should be comparable with your gh2 regarding to mf use.
Try not to be absolutely charmed by this camera/lens combo as you watch this Philip Bloom video:
http://vimeo.com/17062701
oh yeah. i saw that vid. i fell in love with that lens at that time. i even managed to buy a new one, eventhough it was almost impossible… i know, the nexes are ugly. the n3 is plastic. the controls are stupid. lots of buttons are missing, and the only thing left to us, is only praying for some smart and relevant fw update… BUT! for me, image quality/price is priority…. I can tweak the colors from nex’s raws to look like from my belowed EP1, so I will gladly live with it…. and… DO YOU LIKE BLOWN HIGHLIGHTS? I don’t….
blown highlights can be a problem yes, but most of the time i can avoid it by choosing the right outdoor locations. Its also part of the game when having to deal with your camera limitations, when such situations occur. btw this can happen with any system, 4/3 just happens to be more sensitive in such scenarios. Fortunately, it doesn’t make me jump back to a larger sensor.
Well, the lens is certainly a terrific piece of technology. However, there are plenty of cheaper options for people looking for a fast, manual lens.
I prefer my Minolta lenses. Particularly, the MD 50mm f/1.2 and the MC 58mm f/1.2 provide excellent results. The advantage of getting one of those lenses versus the Voigtländer: you can adapt them either to FT or MFT, the focal length is longer (can of course be a disadvantage as well) and they are much cheaper to acquire. Actually, I think it’s easier to get 30 year old glas than the Voigtländer.
Tobi, massif respect!
I totally aggree with you. I bought a 58/1.2 Minolta, the legendary Noct Nikkor version, which I am very much looking forward to using on my EP1 and NEX3(when the adapters arrive) I will get 116mm on m4/3 and 87mm FOV on APSC. Besides that, I am waiting for the Samyang 35/1.4, if and when it comes out. Because on APSc it will give me for about 400 EUR 50mm equivallent and the speed of 1.4 SHARP. AND FIRST OF ALL!!! I WILL GET THE PICTURE WITHOUT DARK CORNERS ON APSC, UNLIKE FROM THE NOKTON… So I will have a more versatile glass, eventhough a half stop slower… versus the Nokton, when I get a sharper picture for it and for much less money too.
May only the Samyang come fast… and plenty… Not so scarce as the Nokton.
ok its 400 euros, but its as heavy(about which you complained) as the nokton, wouldn’t it be better if you considered a nokton 35 1.4 ? choice is always personal ofcourse, but except for the price tag, i don’t see the logic in the choice for the samyang, which is actually a HUGE lens,lol!
Hallo Uli.
Danke fuer den Vorschlag/Errinerung… I have reviewed the specifications of the lenses again, and it looks quite bad for the Samyang now :< I don't care so much about the dimensions, but that thing should weight 600 grams. Nokton 25 weighted 410g and the 35/1.4 version should have only 200grams. So it looks like I am so or so going to spend some cash on the Voigtlaender family in the end…. Anyway… I will wait a few days, weeks for the adapters and my two great Canon lenses I just managed to get via Ebay… 35/2 and 24/2… I am really curious about them…
It looks like a decent lens, but as far as sharpness, it won’t touch the 50mm f2.0 macro…especially considering the price.