Voigtlander Nokton 25mm F0.95 for m4/3

Kram · Joined: 06 Feb 2010 Posts: 1344 Location: Portland, OR

Superb!

So will this mount with adapter on Canon EOS 60D?

Fabian · Joined: 04 Dec 2011 Posts: 254

It's a Micro Four Thirds-lens, there are adapters for Sony NEX but the image circle isn't big enough to give a full image.

Laurentiu Cristofor · Joined: 23 Oct 2010 Posts: 524 Location: WA, USA

A couple more from the Maui Ocean Center aquarium, also taken wide open:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurentiucristofor/6597668853

http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurentiucristofor/6597668935

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas

Welp, I will actually use my fast lenses at all apertures, but when it comes to critical evaluation of them, I place a lot of emphasis on the way they perform wide open. Otherwise, what's the point in spending all that extra money for maybe 1 stop or 2? So a fast lens must perform wide open, imo, or else it simply isn't worth the money. And as a result, if I'm looking at photos taken by a fast lens, you can bet that I'll want to see how well it does wide open.

Regarding this Voigtlander, it appears to be one beaut of a lens, and relatively speaking, fairly cheap for its maximum aperture. I mean, compare it to the other ~ f/1 optics out there. The Canon 50mm f/0.95 rangefinder lens has asking prices in the $2500 price range these days. The Canon EF 50mm f/1.0 is upwards around $4500. And the Leitz Noctilux f/1 is only $7500 or so. So yeah, $1000 is cheap in retrospect. Too bad my wallet doesn't have enough padding. I'd enjoy having a 25mm with that sort of speed, but I have a car that needs repair . . .

Ach! And then I read just now it's a Micro 4/3 lens only. Grrr . . . what a let down. Well, except if you're shooting in that format, I guess. Then again, I guess with a lens like that, it's worth thinking about getting a u4/3 camera just to use with it. Hey, that sort of thing is done often, when the camera body is priced quite a bit lower than a lens that will fit it.

kds315* · Expire: 2021-03-09

I agree with your reasoning Michael, as I have a Kowa 1.1/38mm and a Meyer Videostigmat 1.0/38mm (both c-mount) and it is fun to shoot with them on my Lumix GH1/2. But well, would I invest into a Voigtlander Nokton f0.95/25mm? Guess not, as I'm neither a portrait guy nor available light shooter. I'm happy to do shots like that:

but instead of spending $$$$ for that lens, I'd rather invest into other glass.

dragom · Expire: 2013-12-24

The aquarium photos are very good.

FluffPuppy · Joined: 11 Dec 2011 Posts: 365

By the way, it's Voigtländer, not Voigtlander.

The ä is made by typing 228 while holding down the alt key.

Laurentiu Cristofor · Joined: 23 Oct 2010 Posts: 524 Location: WA, USA

kds315* · Expire: 2021-03-09

I always try to be nice to our friends abroad, that why I write it without "ä",
even if the German that I am revolts against writing it like that Very Happy

FluffPuppy · Joined: 11 Dec 2011 Posts: 365

kds315* · Expire: 2021-03-09

Wir sind alle nur Menschen udn die machen eben Fehler!

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas

FluffPuppy · Joined: 11 Dec 2011 Posts: 365

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas

It absolutely does not. If I type in "voigtlander" into google, it catches the lack of umlaut and still displays correct searches. It even catches common misspellings such as "voightlander."

kds315* · Expire: 2021-03-09

Yep, google got pretty "intelligent", quite helpful at times (typos etc.)

FluffPuppy · Joined: 11 Dec 2011 Posts: 365

Laurentiu Cristofor · Joined: 23 Oct 2010 Posts: 524 Location: WA, USA

I don't use diacritics by choice. For one thing, few people use them, so using them is more likely to cause issues with searches than not using them. But in the end, I simply find it pedantic to type them when I always use US keyboards (and no, I'm not a native English speaker - my native language also has its own diacritics that I never typed).

Here are a few more wide open aquarium shots:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurentiucristofor/6604844039

http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurentiucristofor/6604844103

http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurentiucristofor/6604844171

There are some artifacts of JPEG compression in the frogfish shots - I am aware of them, but I use JPEG compression instead of watermarking as my copy protection mechanism.

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas

Laurentiu, I must say that the saturation that lens provides is just stunning. Or did you crank up the saturation in post?

I've struggled with getting good aquarium shots using ambient light, relying on my DSLR's IS lens to handle slow speeds, but even with IS I found that, out of several photos, maybe one would have been acceptably sharp. Course, we're talking an f/3.5 optic and because my DSLR's ISO performance is so poor, the most I'll crank it up to is 200 if I want a clean, sharp photo.

Obviously, this is just the sort of situation where a very fast lens like the Nokton shines.

Question -- are you using Live View to focus, or is your Olympus's focusing screen capable of accurate focusing with fast optics? Or does your camera have an electronic VF? Sorry, I'm not familiar with your camera. With my Canon and a lens set to apertures faster than about f/4 or so, manual focusing becomes guesswork. The faster the lens setting, the more the guesswork. Very aggravating because sometimes LV just isn't possible.

Fabian · Joined: 04 Dec 2011 Posts: 254

On this lens an EVF is almost mandatory, I have it coupled with the Olympus VF-2 while magnifying the view and that way focus is right about every time. To get that rate without the EVF is impossible, or you have to put a lot more time into it than I would want to.

But that's my experience, maybe others differ. Smile

It looks like this then:

Laurentiu Cristofor · Joined: 23 Oct 2010 Posts: 524 Location: WA, USA

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas

The focusing method you describe in your blog is one I've used for years. I call it "rocking" because I rock the focusing collar back and forth, in and out of focus in both directions, making the rocking arcs smaller each time until I feel I've nailed it. I developed this technique when I switched from focusing screens with focusing aids to plain matte screens with my SLRs back in the 1980s. I had several lenses with maximum apertures of f/4 and slower, and they just didn't work well with microprisms and split image circles. After a while one gets used to a plain matte screen. I've been using them for so long now that I prefer them and find the focusing aids to be distracting annoyances. Cool

My cheapo EOS DSLR has a penta-mirror. So Canon installs a brighter screen to make up for it. Problem with the stock screen though is it will not resolve correct focus at apertures wider than about f/4 and the wider the aperture, the more the error. Shooting with my 50mm f/1.4 wide open on my EOS is literally guesswork. If I want to nail focus with a fast lens wide open, I must use Live View. From what I understand, the 5D and 5D II don't have this problem. Perhaps because they have prisms and not mirrors.

Hey, like you, I enjoy using LV. Not only do I get to boost the magnification for precise focus, but the camera meters the scene more accurately with MF lenses when using LV. Plus, for slow shutter speeds, the mirror pre-releases, so there's a de facto mirror lock up going on. I bought a hood for my screen that actually resembles a waist-level finder so that it is easier to see it outdoors, and that's helped a lot. Something like a Hoodman would be even better, but I don't want to shell out that kind of money for a Hoodman. I've seen several DIY videos on the web, though, that shows how folks have built their own Hoodman-like viewers. I'll probably go this route.

Oh, and that last set of photos you took -- very nice. You nailed focus on the frogfish, but I especially like the last one of the jellyfish. Something very peaceful and serene about it. Just don't touch 'em. Smile

Laurentiu Cristofor · Joined: 23 Oct 2010 Posts: 524 Location: WA, USA

I got used to manually focus that way because I started with a rangefinder and that is how I was checking that the small image was perfectly overlapping the larger one. When I started using SLRs, I did the same thing and was happy with the results.

I use a pentamirror DSLR as well as pentaprism ones so I could compare them a bit - the pentamirror is not bad in good light, but in low light I have more trouble seeing small details, which is what I need to be able to do to focus accurately. It's not a huge difference, but every bit helps.

Also, with my Pentax SLRs, LiveView is not as smooth as on the Olympus Pen cameras, so I never really enjoyed using it - when zooming into images there is an annoying flicker - the Olympus cameras have a much smoother rendering of the scene. I used a Sony SLT A55 today and the LiveView implementation was somewhere in between - a bit smoother than for Pentax cameras, but still not as smooth as on the Olympus ones. I remember reading in the past some discussion saying that Olympus chose the sensor size and sensor technology to improve the performance of Live View. Here's an interesting quote that supports this - it's all I could find with a quick search:

"The Live MOS sensor, made by Panasonic, enables a true Live View mode, allowing image composition on the LCD, much like the common digicam most have grown used to (note that I don't say "just like the common digicam")."
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/E410/E410A.HTM

There's also some commentary here discussing the advantages of LiveView vs optical VF:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Four_Thirds_system#Advantages_of_electronic_viewfinder

fuzzywuzzy · Expire: 2013-11-30

Great aquarium shots.

Laurentiu Cristofor · Joined: 23 Oct 2010 Posts: 524 Location: WA, USA

Finally, I finished uploading my vacation shots and I can also share a portrait of my daughter:

f/0.95:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurentiucristofor/6692607963

Laurentiu Cristofor · Joined: 23 Oct 2010 Posts: 524 Location: WA, USA

The following samples can help give an idea of the resolution that the Nokton is capable of at borders, when stopped down:

A full frame shot:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurentiucristofor/6479683903

And a 100% crop from close to the left border:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurentiucristofor/6696696569