LLL 50mm f/1.2 ASPH "1966"

Slumgullion said:
Thanks! He's a very cooperative model!

I like the lens rendering as well.
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My father is also older and quite amenable to being photographed. These are great.

Thank you for these. The low contrast in the B&Ws doesn’t show it, but the colour ones have clear onion rings.

Tears said:
According to the bokeh of LLL "Noctilucent", it should be a lens a molded aspheric lens.
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The evidence supports that the aspherical element is moulded. It is the most efficient way to do it for an element this size in the 2020s.

Marty
 
Slumgullion said:
Very interesting indeed.

I know that the Noct-Nikkor was made for a long time…and it’s possible that the aspherical element was molded in later production runs, but Nikon claims that it was ground:

NIKKOR - The Thousand and One Nights No.16 | NIKKOR - The Thousand and One Nights | Nikon Consumer

imaging.nikon.com

And yet, in this image, a strong onion ring pattern is evident:


Similarly, the canon K35 lenses might have had molded lenses in later runs, but based on when they were produced, my guess is that they were hand polished:


The onion rings in the K35 18mm and 35mm are similar to what I’m seeing in the LLL ‘1966.’

So, perhaps it’s like you’re saying and the grinding medium is too coarse. If LLL continues to make this lens, I wonder if their technique will improve or they will have the aspherical elements made off-site.
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Over the last weeks I have spent most of my spare time looking at photos from the original Noct-Nikkors on the internet and in my archive. I am sceptical of the photos on Ken Rockwell’s site. Some Noct-Nikkor photos show slight ringing in the out-of-focus highlights, but not like those or that strongly. I can’t show mine because they are photos of other people’s children, but my early Ai Noct-Nikkor does not produce rings like those. It’s possible the aspherical lens element manufacturing method was changed, but . . .
 
The onion rings on digital look quite distracting to me. All the while they are hardly visible on film. A great showcase of why vintage (-style) lenses are best used with the medium they were designed for. Digital sensors are too telling in many cases, their sharpness and contrast hightlight flaws and distract from the beauty and character. I respect digital cameras but I love film. Hope they'll never stop making it.

Either way, nice photos. @Slumgullion


@Freakscene you always impress with your well-founded knowledge of optics and cameras. Always an interesting read.
 
lukx said:
The onion rings on digital look quite distracting to me. All the while they are hardly visible on film. A great showcase of why vintage (-style) lenses are best used with the medium they were designed for. Digital sensors are too telling in many cases, their sharpness and contrast hightlight flaws and distract from the beauty and character. I respect digital cameras but I love film. Hope they'll never stop making it.

Either way, nice photos. @Slumgullion


@Freakscene you always impress with your well-founded knowledge of optics and cameras. Always an interesting read.
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Contrast of digital sensors can easily be pulled back in post. Resolution artefacts are different. I love film but have got to a point where I can’t afford it in the sort of volume I’d like to use, can’t travel with it and don’t have time to work with it.

It is largely trivial to select a mask by luminance to cover specular highlights, remove anything not relevant, smooth the selection to remove the rings, feather the edges and then merge it back down. But who has time to do it on every photo with specular highlights, particularly when manufacturers could just polish their aspheres properly.

I’d make some photos to demonstrate but I don’t have a camera that takes the Noct-Nikkor at the moment. Therein lies my Zf weakness.

Glad to be of some assistance @lukx; I grew up in a lens swamp (see: Your thoughts on Nikkor 50/1.8 AI-S Japanese pancake version), and only waded out in my 20s. Thanks for your comment, the acknowledgement is greatly appreciated.
 
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Freakscene said:
The Leica reissue has a molded aspherical element and is close to the best that an implementation of this design can be. There is almost no wiggle in the mtf. I haven’t seen the LLL.
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Coming back to this, one thing digital photography has done is increase the resolution of which systems are capable and at which they are assessed. It occurs to me that the Noctilux f1.2 probably has some wiggle in the mtf at 50 and 75 lp/mm. But I doubt it matters much except in lens tests against more modern designs. My perennial concern about the obsession with resolution is that tonality has been forgotten as a concept. The 28 Summilux, for example, has extraordinary tonality; it separates close mid values almost like you used the clarity slider, but without using it. But the reviews only talk about resolution, distortion and evidence of aberrations.
 
Freakscene said:
Coming back to this, one thing digital photography has done is increase the resolution of which systems are capable and at which they are assessed. It occurs to me that the Noctilux f1.2 probably has some wiggle in the mtf at 50 and 75 lp/mm. But I doubt it matters much except in lens tests against more modern designs. My perennial concern about the obsession with resolution is that tonality has been forgotten as a concept. The 28 Summilux, for example, has extraordinary tonality; it separates close mid values almost like you used the clarity slider, but without using it. But the reviews only talk about resolution, distortion and evidence of aberrations.
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Great point, but reviews of the Zeiss 35mm f/1.4 ZM often talk about its 'sparkle'...which as I perceive it (with my own copy) is the way in which it separates similar close mid values. At least that's what I fixate on. But yes, not enough talk about tones. I have a Sigma 35mm f/1.4 art. It's great to use on my F6. It's sharp with minimal distortion. The autofocus is fast. That being said, it delivers flat images that don't really pop. But, then again, I use it on film...which, it probably was not really designed for.
 
Slumgullion said:
Great point, but reviews of the Zeiss 35mm f/1.4 ZM often talk about its 'sparkle'...which as I perceive it (with my own copy) is the way in which it separates similar close mid values. At least that's what I fixate on. But yes, not enough talk about tones. I have a Sigma 35mm f/1.4 art. It's great to use on my F6. It's sharp with minimal distortion. The autofocus is fast. That being said, it delivers flat images that don't really pop. But, then again, I use it on film...which, it probably was not really designed for.
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I had a 35/1.4 Art on my old K1d. When it worked the combination could deliver brilliant images. Unfortunately, in the end, I couldn’t get the body to reliably focus anything I wanted it to and so it went. That was my last slr.

Still think the zf looks great, it largely takes away size from my (less expensive and paid for) S1r
 
Sonnar Brian said:
They are great pictures.
The onion rings- do surprise me. One of those optimization by-products that define a lens.
We need a new, cool name for these artifacts.

Contours D'Elegance.

I grant LLL unlimited use of the new, cool, play on words.
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The contours d’elegance were surprising to me, as well. I appreciate the desire of LLL to do everything in-house, but it might’ve been advisable to farm-out production to any of the optical companies that produce precision ground aspherical optics (with the very, very expensive aspherical grinding machines). Perhaps (most likely) they have good reasons for why they didn’t pursue that course of action.
 
Slumgullion said:
The weather wasn't very nice in January. Didn't shoot much film. Took a few snaps with the LLL 50mm f/1.2 '1966' on my A7RII last night.

Jenny by Jim Fischer, on Flickr

Jenny by Jim Fischer, on Flickr

Jenny by Jim Fischer, on Flickr
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The lady is beautiful, no to be rude, the lens is lousy judge by image/dollar. Actually, the $200 dollars 50mm f1.1 7 artisans out performed this lens in tern of bokeh
 
"The lady is beautiful, no to be rude, the lens is lousy judge by image/dollar. Actually, the $200 dollars 50mm f1.1 7 artisans out performed this lens in tern of bokeh"

Yes, but not in terms of sharpness. I would say that the onion-rings are hardly visible, they are in these examples absolutely not disturbing in my opinion, in fact, I like them, as a kind of character trait of the lens.
 
Erik van Straten said:
"The lady is beautiful, no to be rude, the lens is lousy judge by image/dollar. Actually, the $200 dollars 50mm f1.1 7 artisans out performed this lens in tern of bokeh"

Yes, but not in terms of sharpness. I would say that the onion-rings are hardly visible, they are in these examples absolutely not disturbing in my opinion, in fact, I like them, as a kind of character trait of the lens.
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There are no specular highlights in these photos; they won’t show onion rings. I like these photos very much too. The frequent subject of photos by @Slumgullion, I think her name is Jenny, is an extremely photogenic subject.
 
Freakscene said:
There are no specular highlights in these photos; they won’t show onion rings. I like these photos very much too. The frequent subject of photos by @Slumgullion, I think her name is Jenny, is an extremely photogenic subject.
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The two "flying saucers" near the left edge of the frame in the first two photos show onion rings, but I do not find them to be objectionable. I think that this lens has lovely rendering of out of focus areas
 
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