Now that I am testing the Noktor 50mm f/0.95 lens I wish to own the Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1
Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1
Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1
Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1
Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1
Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1
Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1
Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1
Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1
Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1
to make a comparison. The Voigtländer is only half a stop slower but covers the whole fullframe sensor (It is an M-mount lens -> you can use it on the Leica M9!). But unlike the Noktor you need a M-mount to MicroFourThirds adapter and the lens itself costs $400 more than the Noktor ($1.149 ar BHphoto). So I googled around an this is what I found:
– Steve Huff wrote a complete Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1 Lens review
– E-PL1 + Voigtländer 50mm f/1.1 test on pen-and-tell.blogspot.com
– Image samples on flickr
– Olympus E-P1 + Noktor on e-p1.net
– Olympus E-P2 + Noktor on flickr
Check out the price on Ebay: Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1
Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1
Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1
Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1
Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1
Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1
Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1
Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1
Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1
Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1
Do you have any experience with the Voigtländer lens? Let us know what you think!
7 Responses
Funny! Yesterday I made decission to buy this lovely lens for $880 (new from local seller) and today you write about it… It will be great companion for my E-P2! During my deciding process, I’ve made this (http://goo.gl/klQm) gallery with Voigtländers on E-Px… 🙂
Thanks Lukas!
The lens looks awesome on zour E-P2 😉
I happened to do a night shoot on this recently too. Here is the link: http://www.davidchuaphotography.com/2010/04/17/epl1nightshoo/
I bought one of these when I missed out on the Noktor. It’s a big, solid, heavy lens, I was surprised how heavy. I’m using it on my GF1 with an adapter. I’m enjoying using it and I’m getting some nice results from it…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/acute-distress/tags/nokton/
It’s very soft at 1.1 but sharpens up at 1.4. All of my shots on Flickr are 1.4 or smaller.
I love this lens on my GF1 !!
http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=46355903@N00&q=%22voigtlander+nokton+50mm%22&m=text
The Voigtlander is an excellent lens. I use mine a lot on both my Epson R-D 1 and my Lumix G1.
One important difference vs. other ultra-speed lenses is that its imaging “signature” is much more conventional than most — its full-aperture images don’t have the “hazy” look that I see in the Noktor samples or from photos with older ultra-speed designs such as the Canon 50/0.95 (which I own) or the Angenieux (based on samples I’ve seen online.) This means it may NOT be so good if you’re looking for dreamy, atmospheric images… but IS good for low-light documentary shooting etc.
Minor drawbacks:
— At full aperture, it’s slightly more difficult to focus accurately on a Micro Four Thirds camera than a slower lens would be… the edges aren’t quite as contrasty as with, say, the 50/1.5 Nokton, so it doesn’t snap into focus quite as crisply. You’ll need to use the manual-focus assist feature a bit more often than you would with the 50/1.5 Nokton or similar slower lens.
— I’ve noticed that bright highlights in the background of images shot at f/1.1 can take on a somewhat hard-edged, ring-shaped appearance, rather than being smooth blurs. Objects in front of the main subject, on the other hand, blur out very smoothly. For optical reasons you can only have smooth blurring (“bokeh”) either in front of the focus plane OR behind it, but not both… smooth background blur is better for portraits, but smooth foreground blur is good for documentary shooting where you want objects between the subject and the camera to be unobtrusive. So, I suspect the Nokton was designed deliberately for “documentary blur” rather than “portrait blur.”
Comparison article on my blog: http://ranger9.net/?p=425
Gallery with lots of photos made with this lens on the Lumix G1, mostly at full aperture:
http://ranger9.net/?page_id=278&album=8
(The gallery also includes some shots made with a 12.5/1.9 Cosmicar, but those will be easy to spot because of the heavily vignetted corners! I think I shot all the others with the Nokton.)
voigtlander lenses are pretty phenomenal. I use it on my m4/3 a lot but here’s an example on the m9 wide open: http://www.flickr.com/photos/yunheisapunk/4398235061/sizes/l/