Voigtlaender Nokton 50mm f1.1
And there it was, the annoucement, for a super fast 50mm lens with a pricetag I can afford. So the next moment I had time I placed a pre order, the first one in my life for this lens. When I first open the box I was surprised how big this lens is. It is just pure amazing glass in a metal wrapping.
The lens built is as good as it gets. An all metal case, smooth focusing ring with all aroudn gripable area, so no stupid knob, and a nice aperture ring which has ripples all around, so you never need to search for a place to grab. The lens also comes with a lenshood attached to it which just goes about 1cm to the front, also full metal. There would be an extra hood available, but this is not really necessary.
The first shots I did were of course on the Epson R-D1s and I soon realized that this lens is not easy to focus wide open. f1.1 is really ultra fast and the area in focus is more than thin. Furthermore I saw some slight glow on white bright areas on the Epson, something I did not find when I shot with film. Probably the best is to underexpose 1/3 stop anyway.
On the Epson R-D1s this lens looks good, but only on a full frame film, or sensor, now with the M9 out, it really shows what awesome lens it is. While you do not have the typical Noktilux bokeh swhirl style, you have a very slight vignetting that adds an amazing touch to the whole picture.
But of course the most important thing is the bokeh, and the bokeh is wonderful smooth, nice, but also feels cold and constructed. With lenses desgined on computers and made by computers there is just no way you get this amazing swhirl like bokeh. The only lenses I can produce this are old lenses, made 30 years or more ago.
This should of course not change the fact, that this lens is just amazing in all ways. If focused spot on it is absolutely sharp wide open, with no visible softness, not even on digital sensors. Besides a bit of glow on bright white areas during daylight I could not find any strong purple fringing on a digital sensor. On film I couldn’t find any technical problems at all.
So, but how is the soul of this lens? It works perfect with all the slide, negative and black and white films I tried. It produces strong colors with Velvia, and can do very flat colors with cheap negative film like the Ferrana Solaris line.
If you are out for an ultra fast 50mm lens, and you have no way of spending a fortune on a Leica lens and cannot find any other ultra fast lens, like the old Canon 50/f1.2 or 50/f0.95, then this lens is the way to go. It is just amazing and really wonderful that Cosina Japan produces those amazing lenses for prices a normal amature fotographers can afford without ripping a black hole in their bank account.
Verdict: STRONG BUY
