Leica:

Leica Lenses (English) from leica camera on Vimeo.

This won’t be a review – just a short intro / initial thoughts. For a quick conclusion – I believe this lens, coupled with the G3 with its improved sensor and EVF, is a big part of the reason why I’m now going to invest in M43rds as my primary system for digital. The specifics of that topic are for another day but as far as the Nokton go, I love it. It doesn’t have as much character as the Switar 26mm (still the finest portrait lens I’ve ever used on any system), is not as small or practical as the Panasonic 20mm f1.7 and doesn’t provide as shallow a depth of field as the actual Noctilux 50mm f0.95 (when mounted on a Leica)… Instead, it is a blend of all three of these lenses in a package that is affordable (compared to the Leica), practical (compared to the Switar) and allows you to push the photographic boundaries (compared to the Panasonic). This lens, mounted on a G3 (or any M43rds) is a serious, serious piece of gear.

In terms of sharpness, it’s v good. Not superb as soem of the dedicated M43rds primes when shooting wide open, but given the sorts of images that wide open at f0.95 produces, you can’t really tell the differnece in a practical sense. This is something you don’t see from lens charts – there you’ll see lens resolution numbers but when you consider what a portrait (for example) looks like at f0.95, so much of it is out of focus (by design) that it’s the difference on sharpness that your eyes see, not the absolute sharpness. This of course is only true to an extent so you still need the lens to be very good / excellent, which it is. Here’s an example;

(straight out of the camera, f0.95, 1/120s, ISO 200)

Stopping down brings it into ultra sharp territitory if you want a more classic image such as a landscape / architecture / etc.

(straight out of the camera, f5ish, 1/1000s, ISO 160)

Its biggest weakness optically is some heavy purple fringing when shooting wide open into high contrast areas. The lens had to make some tradeoffs when it was built from either a size or cost perspective and this was probably it. The CA can be fixed by either stopping down, fixing in post or converting to BW. Bokeh is beautifully smooth. Not so creamy that you’d mistake it for a Leica Noctilux but on par with some of the more expensive L’s I’ve used for my Canon EOS series for example.

(f0.95 processed in CS4)

Physically the lens is beautiful. Focus operation is smooth and accurate, it’s minimum focusing distance is surprisingly close and it has a beautifully solid feel. I think it’s best suited when mounted on a camera like the GH2 or G2 / G3 due to its slightly heavier weight and their handgrips, but it’ll be fine on any M43rds camera. I am able to focus the camera by using just the LCD, but I prefer to use MF assist on the G3 to focus confirm. An interesting conversation to be had is around the depth of field. Due to the cropped sensor of M43rds, the Nokon 25mm f0.95 gives an equivalent field of view of a 50mm f1.9 (on a full frame camera). I mention this mostly to underscore the fact that the while it has the same lens specs as the Noctilux, it won’t produce the same ultrarazor thin depth of field images. So the interesting part is that while this puts the system at a disadvantage from a shallow DOF perspective (compared to larger format cameras), when shooting in really low light (when you actually need a speed of f0.95), you actually get a little depth of field than you normally would, in situations where focusing is the hardest, so I consider that to be an advantage. Here’s an example shot at IS 2500 in near darkness. This shot would have been harder to focus had it been a ‘true’ f0.95 depth of field.

(straight out of the camera, f0.95, 1/120s, ISO 2500)

(straight out of the camera, f0.95, 1/120s, ISO 1250)

One thing to note is that the G3 has a max focusing speed of 1/4000s. To shoot in good light at f0.95, you’ll likely exceed the max shutter speed. So you’ll need to either stop down or buy a ND filter. I recommend B+W. An interesting option is that you can buy a filter that fits either the lens directly, or the hood that comes with it. By coincidence, I own a 64x ND filter that happened to fit the hood and I personally prefer that option.

I was able to get the most out of this lens for almost any subject. However in a world where convenience is valued, remember that this is a manual focus lens and that may be the biggest consideration if you’re thinking about getting one, but I’ve so far used it successfully for portraits, street photography, landscape / architecture and everything in between. Only had it a week so far but I will always remember the day that the Nokton turned my G3 from a compact system into a serious cotender.

Adorama currently has the Nokton in stock. You can buy it here.

I’ve provided some high res samples for download on my portfolio site. You can access clicking on the below image.

I just bought a Panasonic G3 and put this on it today. I have Akuri to thank for talking me out of selling it – so glad now as I forgot what a unique look it has. Looking at these test shots below (ISO 1600 under regular tungsten lighting), i’d never guess this is with a small sensor camera.

This lens is full of strange quirks that can make it quite impractical for lots of types of photography, but for portraits and creative situations there’s nothing like it.

Here’s what these two look like when mated;

I recently received this email and figured it would be more useful to answer it here;

“Lawrence,

I have a question about a lens that you reviewed. I noticed that you didn’t post any blog since July 2010. Hence, I am sending an email to you instead of posting on your blog.

My question is based on your lens review http://lawrenceripsher.com/blog/2009/12/switar-26mm-f1-1-f1-1-review.html

The review is detailed and excellent. In that review, you have some landscape photos, for example

My question is:

The lens has wide aperture f1.1. Is it possible to shoot landscape photos at f1.1? Or you have to stop down the aperture? If you need to stop down, at what aperture are those photos possible? EXIF data to those photos don’t contain the information about aperture – hence I am asking this question.”

So the answer to this is that the Switar f1.1, like several C-mount lenses which I’ve tried, when paired with a micro four thirds sensor they experience vignetting when shooting (where the corners darken). This is fairly typical for all fast lenses. However, unlike regular lenses, when you stop down with a C-mount (e.g. set the aperture to f/4), the vignetting actually gets worse / darker. So when shooting with the Switar, I tend to shoot wide open (or close to) for landscapes. There are other issues, such as the circular effect etc which I also write about in the review (http://lawrenceripsher.com/blog/2009/12/switar-26mm-f1-1-f1-1-review.html). So while all this is possible, i generally don’t recommend them as a classic landscape lens, unless you like that look (which can look awesome in some situations but it won’t ever time) or want to crop to a square format (e.g. 1:1). Hope this helps

Funny. Sort of.

Anyway… i’m still way behind on all your work but a weekend of relaxing and photography should get me back in the mood. Here’s Rio.

Fuji Neopan 100 Acros in Xtol (first time i’m trying this combo)

Last night was the first time I mounted it on a Canon (5D Mark II) and thought I’d test a Zuiko lens characteristic of close focusing…

Attack of the sea monster.

http://fujifilm.jp/information/articlead_0029.html

I think the net is that Neopan 100 Acros in 120 will only be available in packs of 5 and Neopan 400 is effectively discontinued. can’t seem to get a straight answer on whether it’ll be continued in other countries somehow. anyway, unpleasant news as this is my favourite BW.

I posted this originally over in lost in focus, looking for suggestions as I was about to go on a trip to yellowstone that weekend ! you can read suggestions there.

BTW – am going back and rereading a previous post on this topic http://www.lostinfocus.org/?p=3859

So naturally, the first shot I ever took with the Pentax 67ii was with a somewhat slow shutter speed. With a 50mm lens, you should in theory be able to handhold sharp at 1/50s – although I can usually go a stop or two slower. So given the 105mm f/2.4 lens on the Pentax gives an equivalent angle of view, anything at 1/50s and below should be considered good. Here was my first test – shot in Seattle’s public library.

(BTW you can expect some strange looks when you fire the 67ii in a quiet space like a library, it sounds like a canon going off – relatively speaking :)

This was shot at 1/30s. The focal point was on the right hand edge of the image (it was shot in f/2.4 so any softness in the left part of the image is just OOF).

First glance this looks v good. To get a closer look I scanned this negative at 3600 dpi, creating a 50 megapixel(ish) sized image. I then resized down to about 21MP and cropped at 100%. Here’s the result (taken from the upper right hand part of the image):

This looks great – no signs of ghostinng, double images, blur, etc. I was v pleased (and somewhat relieved) when I saw this. Again, this was just me standing in the middle of a library pointing the camera upwards. The image quality looked great too – note that this is wide open and was scanned with a budget Canoscan 8800F scanner (I have a V700 from Epson on order which will show the true potential of MF). Relatively speaking this is as sharp as the Hasselblad 80mm f/2.8 planar I have.

I continued to play around with shutter speeds later in the day – getting usable sharpness all the way down to 1/6s in some cases… Finding this out – even though it’s just preliminary – makes me think that mirror bounce issues only occur at the very long end of the lens spectrum. I’ll post more on this topic later as I get more info.

If I had to summarise the reason for choosing this system over others (including my own Hasselblad 500 CM), it’ d be because the Pentax 67 / 6×7 system has the fastest lenses of any medium format system (at least from what I was able to readily find). The normal 105mm f/1.4 lens I purchases is roughly equivalent to a 50mm f/1.2 on a 35mm system, but with a 4x sized negative. It was a tough decision though – my concern with the camera being reports that it is extremely difficult to get sharp shots handheld. The reviews I read all warned against this – but people I know (and respect) who actually have the camera believe it’s overblown. I decided to give it a shot and the camera and lens arrived yesterday.

I shot a roll of test film today which I developed tonight. I’ll post a little more on the reported mirror bounce = blurry shots but so far, I’m not finding that to be a problem. I have a really nice sharp shot with the 105mm at a speed of 1/30s so if that is representative then I’m unconcerned. Here was my favourite shot from the 10 frames the 120 film gave me.

Pentax 67ii + Pentax 67 105mm f/2.4 on Fujifilm Neopan 100 Acros