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Voigtlander lenses
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  • @Alexauwa
    Here is how the f0.95 25mm Nokton compares to the Panasonic 20mm pancake if both are shot at f16. Also, they were both shot at 1/160 second, minimum ISO on the GH2 with the same manual white balance.

    I tried to frame the two pretty similarly in terms of the Menage sign, so the distance is different.

    The Panasonic is the sharper picture (the one without the guy walking through it). I don't think anyone really buys a Nokton in order to shoot at f16, but if you were going to be shooting in bright daylight without a neutral density filter, you might only only want it for a soft focus effect.
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  • Since the last one was from stills, here are two frames of Nokton video. They are from the same sequence, shot within a second of each other at ISO 1250, 1/50 at 24H factory settings (back in June).

    The darker one is at f2.8, the lighter one at f0.95. This may help give you an idea of the bokeh, CA, sharpness, etc.

    I tried to pick one of the sharper frames from the sequence for each aperture and the focus point did not change between them (though the content definitely did).
    f0.95 s 1 over 50 0008.png
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    f2.8 s 1 over 50 0001.png
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  • Nokton 25 ,at 2.8-4, somewhere in this area diaphragm.

    image
  • I shot this music video entirely with the Voigtlander 25mm, It's a superb lens. Focus feels so smooth. Lens very Robust. Great DOF. Such a fast lens!
  • At wide open aperture it is soft, in some cases it is very useful:)
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  • @beeldlab I like how relaxed, effortless and authentic you made that video. So many shooters these days go too aggressive or contrived on a music video, even with relaxing music like that.

    But this music video really feels like it follows the music. So kudos from the peanut gallery. :)
  • Thanks a lot for the great examples.

    @thepalalias So the trick is to use ND filters in order to bring back sharpness?

    Did any one ever tried the Voigtlander 50 mm F1.1?
  • @Alexauwa

    I used ND filters more to get the depth of field I wanted than the sharpness.

    If I find time, I'll use my 24-70mm L series at 24mm with the filter and give you an update.

    I haven't used a Voigtlander 50mm f1.1 and I didn't try using ND filters on the Nokton f0.95 specifically, since I didn't have a step-up ring at the time I rented it and my ND filters were all 77mm.

    However, based on my experience with other lenses, I would say that using an ND filter works well as long as a couple criteria are met. (Feel free to skip all this if you've already used ND filters much because there isn't much new I have to offer, just the basics. :)

    1) Lens length. A 25mm lens like the Nokton should work fine with a variety of ND filters, but with wide-angle or telephoto the situation gets a lot dicier. I wouldn't use the vari-ND on my 100-400mm L series lens I have because the loss of resolution is very noticeable, especially towards the telephoto end.

    2) There is variation among filter brands but it doesn't always scale with price. Several users said they got similar performance between two similar ND filters marketed under the Lightcraft and Polaroid brands, even though the former was twice the price of the latter.

    3) Some users say they have gotten much better performance out of fixed ND filters as opposed to variable ones. The downside is convenience as compared to a Vari-ND (and you'll see how much stacking you get into in a moment).

    You'll want to think about how much light you'll have in most of your shots before you buy an ND: at last check, B&H (as one example) had over 100 ND filters listed for a 52mm thread (which is the size you'd want if you were getting it just for the Nokton instead of sharing with larger lenses). If I wanted to maintain the exposure in the f16 shot but shoot it at 1/50 instead of 1/160 to get a 180 degree shutter at 24 or 25 fps, then I would need my filters to get my exposure -1 2/3 stops.

    I could get that by putting on a polarizer without reaching for an ND. But if I wanted to shoot at f5.6, then I would need my exposure a further -3 stops. So in total, that would be a reduction of -5 2/3 (with -6 stops generally being more practical to acquire).

    A common ND filter might be indicated as ND8, ND8X or 0.9 ND and only reduce by two stops of light, so you would need to stack two of them. But here you'd be better off getting a 6-stop filter (variously called "ND64", "ND64x" or "1.8 ND") because less stacking means less chance of vignetting. Those seem to be starting at around $50 these days. Spring for multi-coated if offered at the strength you need as you will have to add and remove these filters pretty frequently.

    Many variable ND filters will give you 6 stops or more of light reduction on the heavy end and they let you quickly dial in the amount you need without constantly swapping filters. That's why I went with one for my video work.

    If you want a vari-ND and spend a lot of money, the word is that you should go with the Heliopan and not the Singh. I was cheap when I got my first one and when with the Polaroid Vari-ND (which was about a tenth of the price of the Heliopan). There are a lot of advantages that the Heliopan has, so in this case the price difference for the Heliopan would be justified if you could afford it.

    Anyway, my main complaint after getting the Polaroid was that it got dirty really easily and vignetted the edges of my 10-22mm EF-S lens. I didn't mind the color shift. I didn't do a lot of sharpness comparison tests at 25mm range - just the extremes, mainly. It won't help you with sharpness at the telephoto end, no matter what apertures you're dealing with (and this is true of many vari-ND filters, though I can't speak for all of them).
  • @Alexauwa I almost forgot, if you're shopping for an ND filter, you want to make sure to pay the most attention to reviews that compare a filter to similar ones by other competitors that the reviewer has actually personally used. Reviews without a reference point won't do much good if you're trying to pick one, though they can give an impression of what the overall experience of using such a filter might be like.
  • @Alexauwa Here's the vignetting issue I mentioned on a 10mm wide angle lens. This shoot back in May used the 77mm Polaroid Vari-ND at a strong setting to get the exposure time down to 1/4 second at f11. The Vari-ND was placed on top of the UV filter, before I realized I needed to remove the UV filter to reduce this kind of problem.
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  • I just sold my Nokton 40 1.4 (Leica M)and buy a Nokton 50 1.5 (LTM) to have the same ergonomics as the .95. I'm very happy with it so far, in some review people complains about the harshness of the bokeh, but I personaly like it. It cost me an extra 100€, but I think that if you're patient (which I'm not), you can find them at about the same price (300 USD).

    I also bought an FD 35 f2, it's nice too and focus closer, but I think I will not use it very often. 25 covers 70% of my needs, and the 50 is great for close portraits.
  • @thepalalias would you be able to put of comparison shots of both the VC and Panny f2.0? I think most people are looking to shoot with these fast lenses at wide apertures and at f16, it doesn't really speak to most people even though I was somewhat shocked to see the VC do so poorly.
  • I think I have some comparisons in the work from the last couple days. Let me check.
  • Not the ideal for what you might be looking for, but here's two pictures shot more wide open. Unfortunately, I don't remember how wide open the Nokton was - just that it was f1.7 or wider. The 20mm pancake is at f1.7.
    _1640004 Pansonic 20mm Pancake f1.7.JPG
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    _1640005 25mm Nokton at either f0.95 or f1.7 - I did not write it down.JPG
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  • Also not ideal (because this wasn't the main thing I was shooting at that point and I was paying more attention getting the timelapse setup), but here's 2-shots at f2.8 (which is one of the ideal apertures for the Nokton according to some MTF charts).

    From left to right: Notkon 25mm f2.8, and Panasonic 20mm at f2.8.

    Both were focused on the AT&T symbol manually.
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    _1640011 20mm Pancake.JPG
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  • @thepalalias thanks for putting up more pictures. The VC does seem to edge out the Panny at the wider apertures. It's good to know this because at f16, it's actually horrible! :@
  • @tinyrobot Yeah, from f1.4 to f5.6, and especially f2.8 to f4.0, you get a lot more out of this lens.

    Here's another imperfect (but potentially useful) aperture comparison series just for the Nokton, in one stop intervals starting at f0.95. The focusing is screwed up in several of them (handheld, macro, not paying enough attention, etc.) but I didn't shoot much in the way of comparisons so I'm putting up what I did.
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  • thanks for keep posting samples!

    @thepalalias Should F16 be the sharpest apature if there is enough light?
  • @Alexauwa No, just deepest depth of field. In terms of whole stops, the sharpest are f2.8 and f4.0. Sorry - my examples so far don't do a great job of demonstrating that. :)
  • @Alexauwa F13 and F16 are best avoided in terms of sharpness. Here's another example that's more tightly focused. These tiny crops are taken from the bottom edge, near the center.

    This time, starting with the F8.0 and continuing to F16.

    The last picture is the full shot at f4.0.
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  • @thepalalias great to have your examples to have a look at. Thanks for support mate!
  • @thepalalias

    have you tried shooting the Nokton with an ND fader? Not the easiest thing to do cos the glass is generally 1/2 a stop brighter. I tried it wide open at 0.95, but stopped down using the ND. Images were soft soft soft
  • You realize that shooting at .95 gives you about 1.2 ft of acceptable depth of field for objects 10 feet away? EVERYTHING else will be soft.
  • @kazuo I haven't compared the relative ND fader strength on different lenses because it's too easy for the fader to get adjusted while switching and I find the marks on some of them to be unreliable indicators.

    Generally, when I was shooting f0.95 with the Nokton there were two possibilities. 1) It was low light and I didn't want any kind of ND on the lens or 2) I wanted a bit of a softer look.

    By the time that lens hits f2.8, it's definitely sharp. So that's what I would use if I wanted a sharper look with a [edited] shallower DOF, even if I had to adjust the camera placement slightly. :)