Mike Kobal made that very nice video with the GH1 and the [shoplink 15659]Nokton 25mm[/shoplink] (Source: mikekobal.com): “The aperture was set to 1.4 for all clips, ISO to 100. I like the results, the Nokton lives up to the hype, it is very sharp at 1.4 (except for the extreme corners).” He also posted one more “night” video taken with aperture set at f/0.95(Click here).
He also posted a nice set of images on flickr:
“My impression of this lens so far:
@0.95 slightly soft in the center and in the corners, but sharpens up nicely in ps, extreme corners are very soft, very usable overall.
@1.4 very sharp in the center and in the corners, extreme corners are still soft.
@2.0 extremely sharp in the center and in the corners, extreme corners are still soft.
The built quality is excellent, the focusing ring is fantastic, very well dampened and it is very easy to pull focus during video takes.”
Thanks Mike for your nice work!!!
If you have some luck you can find the Voigtländer Nokton 25mm f/0.95 on eBay ([shoplink 15659]Click here to see current auctions[/shoplink]).
14 Responses
sharp, good contrast, beautiful colors, great bokeh and transition between focus and out of focus… looks very nice!
Great work!
too bad he shows no footage at f0.95
after all, thats one of the main reasons gettin such lens….
Pretty much useless that wide for anything but special effects shots with video work. Shallow DOF fetish is so 2008.
thank you very much, Jonathan, Bu and Ulli. Ulli, the night clips are shot at 0.95
link below and on the front page of this site
http://www.mikekobal.com/blog/?p=803
Nice. Try adjusting the white balance though!
Ok, I would love to see some stills now!
Every video I see with this lens is soft, where do you see the sharpness?
I’m not really convinced…..
Mine arrived last week while I was o/s first chance to try it will be tonight…
Mike thanks for the link, i take my hastly spoken words back!
40 seconds or so into the clip, the direct sunlight causes ghosts… one some of the frames you can actually *see into the lens* and count the different glass elements.
my angenieux displays similar artifacts as well.
@Jonathan, havn’t seen this on any other of my lenses…have you except for the angenieux?
purple spheres are quite common, i’ve seen them on many lenses. normally they have soft borders and may go unnoticed. with the angenieux the effect is quite pronounced (car headlights that hit the lens directly would creat diagonally opposed orbs in the sky).
‘seeing into the lens’ in the sense of being able to see the different elements (or is it like two mirrors reflecting each other) is something i’ve never encountered before.
i don’t have a naturalistic ‘thing’ so this kind of stuff never bothered me (if it’s pretty i’m all for it), though i can see how this could create problems for others.
It’s quite common and unavoidable if shot directly into the sun like shown in the clip. Though a higher quality glass could deal with it better than a low quality one and using a lens hood helps tremendously (and always keep the sun off center, not that you really should shoot directly into the sun for that long like the guy did in the clip @ f1.4 even… *gasps*). But it all boils down to bokeh quality. If you like that bokeh, then I guess it’s the lens for you….
By the way, whoever said “shallow DOF fetish is so 2008” is really funny. :-p It’s how you use it. Super shallow DOF has been around for a long long time…. It’s not a fashion statement (though we’ve all seen quite a bit of abuse…, maybe that’s what s/he meant by fetish… :-/).
flares are of course unavoidable, but the nokton and angenieux f/0.95 (could be the same with other super bright lenses) have a very distinct behavior in this regard.
film and video shots having parts of the image washed with direct light are an ancient tradition as well, like subject isolation by narrow dof.