The Monomagician

Introduction.

One of the most desirable lenses for many Leica rangefinder owners has been the 50mm Noctilux. This lens has seen several iterations since the introduction in 1968 of the original f1.2 version. The current version, with a maximum aperture of f0.95, retails at £6181! The reasons for the appeal of these lenses are the ability to take photographs in very low light levels, whilst minimising the risk of camera shake as well as a unique look brought about by the very wide aperture. The depth of field at f1.0 is miniscule and images taken wide-open have a dream-like quality due partly to certain lens aberrations.

Now, there is a newcomer to the f1 club: Voigtländer have recently introduced a 50mm f1.1 lens with a Leica M bayonet mount. It costs a rather more affordable £1092, though this is still a hefty price to pay for a single lens!

Having hankered after a Noctilux for several years, but been unable to afford either a new or second hand lens, I was rather pleasantly surprised when this lens was announced by Cosina in late spring 2009. I was even more pleasantly surprised to see a secondhand, mint example come up on the Internet rangefinder forum and following some financial jiggery-pokery, I was able to buy the lens for considerably less than the retail price.

Description

The Voigtländer 50mm f1.1 lens is a weighty piece of glass, weighing in at 428g. It comprises 7 lens elements in 6 groups.

The aperture ring, which is very smooth and has firm click stops, allows the user to select apertures in half-stop increments and runs from f1.1 to f16.

Focusing is via a thick, scalloped focusing ring. The scalloped surface makes it virtually impossible to confuse the focusing and aperture rings and offers an excellent feel. The focusing action is firm yet silky smooth. In fact it’s impossible to tell the difference between the Nokton and a more expensive Leica lens in this regard. The lens focuses from its closest distance of 1m to infinity in ¼ of a turn.

The lens comes with a fairly shallow threaded lens hood which screws directly into the 58mm filter thread on the lens body. One minor irritation I found with the lens was when I initially fitted a 58mm UV/IR filter, the hood would not engage fully with the screw threads on the filter and it would rattle annoyingly. Thankfully, there is a second set of threads inside the hood itself, which are meant for taking a lens cap. The rather brief instruction manual does warn against using these for a filter as there is a risk of vignetting, but as I am using the lens on a Leica M8 with a 1.3x cropped sensor, this is not an issue for me and the whole thing feels much more secure with the hood directly attached to the lens with the filter nestled safely inside.

Handling

The 50mm f1.1 Nokton handles very well on the Leica M8. Whilst the combination feels heavy, it actually weighs just 75g more than my wife’s Canon EOS350D with 17-85mm lens.

The size difference between the f1.1 lens on the left and f2 lens on the right is striking. In spite of its size and weight, the Nokton handles very well on the Leica M. A handgrip is a useful accessory, particularly with the larger lens.

One of the problems with using physically large lenses on rangefinder cameras is the lens body often blocks part of the viewfinder. The body of the Nokton f1.1 is visible within the frame lines, but it obscures less than 25% of the 50mm viewfinder frame on the M8.

The biggest challenge with any wide-aperture lens on a rangefinder camera is accurate focusing. With the tiny amount of depth of field available, getting the plane of focus where it’s wanted is not a straightforward task. However, it does become easier with practice. One tip I was given by an acquaintance on the Leica User Group was to focus roughly using the focusing ring then make fine adjustments by rocking one’s body backwards and forwards to get the focus absolutely spot on.

Accurate focusing is helped somewhat by using a viewfinder magnifier. I use a 1.25x magnifier and this makes a huge difference to focusing accuracy, though it does make it a little difficult to see the light meter LEDs at the bottom of the frame, especially when wearing spectacles.

Using the Nokton in anger.

My first opportunity to use the 50mm Nokton f1.1 came at the Fairford Steam Rally in August 2009. I knew this would be a ‘target rich’ environment which would be suited to the 65mm effective focal length that the cropped sensor of the M8 gives with this lens.

Wide-open performance

I was delighted with my hit rate when taking portraits of the showmen with their traction engines.  In some cases, I missed focus as the subject moved slightly! As it was sunny, the camera was frequently set with a shutter speed of 1/8000s at ISO 160! In fact it was sometimes necessary to stop the lens down to avoid overexposure. A two or three stop neutral density filter may be a useful accessory for this lens if there is a need to shoot wide-open in bright conditions.

Discussing engines. This shot demonstrates the bokeh of the Nokton f1.1 when shot wide-open. The shutter speed was 1/6000 at ISO 160!

At f1.1, the lens is really in its element. The plane of focus is sharp and depth of field at 1.5 – 2m is no more than a few cm. The out of focus areas are rendered very smoothly and the bokeh of the lens is, to my eyes, very nice indeed.

Showman. Another shot taken at f1.1. The subject is very nicely isolated from the background.

Stopped down

Stopped down, this lens is very sharp and has an almost clinical look to it. Its character is very different to the 50mm f2 Summicron that I normally use, but the end results are very satisfactory.

The "Burrell Road Locomotive. This was taken at about f5.6. I have made an A2 print of this shot, and it's sharp from centre to edge.

Traction engines in the showground. This shot demonstrates the usefulness of the 50mm f1.1 Nokton as a general-purpose 50mm lens. The picture was taken at f8. At a 100% view in Lightroon, the name plates on the tractor and traction engines at the edges of the frames are clearly visible.

Conclusion

In my opinion, the Voigtländer 50mm Nokton f1.1 lens is well made and the results from the lens both wide-open and stopped down are excellent, although the effects obtained by shooting at or around f1 are not to everybody’s taste. This is a lens that requires a bit of work to get the very best from it. Wide-open, the hit rate can be variable depending on how accurately you focus and whether the subject keeps still, but in the right hands it is capable of producing first rate results.

I would love to try the lens out on a full-frame Leica M9, but that will have to wait for quite a long while…

At less than 1/5 of the cost of the Leica f0.95 Noctilux, it represents excellent value for money.