Battle of the Noktons

[sychan]

Okay, well, I stayed at home today and instead of resting all day, I rested part of the day and then got into lens geeking. So, here are some comparisons of these 4 noktons:

Original Prominent Nokton 50/1.5
ASPH Nokton 50 50/1.5
MC Nokton 50/1.4
ASPH Nokton 35/1.2

I tested them at F1.4/F1.5 at 1/250, F2 at 1/125 and F2.8 at 1/60 against a seriously backlit subject. Shot from a tripod, but still subject to the vagaries of changing daylight, repositioning for different lenses and human focus error.

I was curious about veiling flare, sharpness and overall color balance. A few people had asked about the various modern Noktons, and to be honest, so was I. The photos are labelled.

I actually tested a bunch of other lenses as well against the same scene, and uploaded the full resolution jpegs to my photo.net folder (they have a handy dandy multiple file upload utility). But I resized the files and put the 100% resolution insets for this thread here on rangefinder forum.

Anyway, have fun. Pixel peeping... 😉

This first series of 3 is the original prominent Nokton.

 

[sychan]

New asph nokton 50

New asph nokton 50

Here's the asph nokton 50/1.5

 

[sychan]

An nokton 35/1.2

An nokton 35/1.2

Here's the Nokton 35/1.2

 

[sychan]

And finally the MC Nokton 40/1.4

And finally the MC Nokton 40/1.4

And the mighty-mite, the MC Nokton 40/1.4

 

[sychan]

That's it folks! I'm tired of lens testing! Check out the photo.net folders if you want to see the full rez stuff. I shot these photos under intentionally nasty conditions to see how the lenses would stack up.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Interesting results. Thanks for the images! The 40 1.4 images cement my impressions of it, though. I'm very intrigued by the images from the other three lenses.

 

[Todd.Hanz]

Good stuff, thanks for posting!

Todd

 

[wrenhunter]

Sychan, thanks again. I just received a 50 Nokton in the mail (thanks Chris 🙂 ) so I'm very interested in your tests. I must say that the 40 Nokton looks pretty good, too.

 

[Dougg]

In this test, it seems to me all three of the modern Noktons look really good, and noticeably better than the original in contrast, sharpness, and bokeh. Interesting test!

 

[wrenhunter]

In this test, it seems to me all three of the modern Noktons look really good, and noticeably better than the original in contrast, sharpness, and bokeh. Interesting test!

Really? My impression is that the original Nokton has nicer bokeh, but the moderns win on sharpness. In fact, I am wondering if a lens being a bit "softer" goes hand-in-hand with more attractive bokeh?

 

[sychan]

The pictures I posted don't really show the difference in sharpness very well - when I get a chance I repost them with a 2 stop push for the inset region (there is a LOT of detail in there). The difference in sharpness for the modern noktons vs. the original nokton is readily apparent. All things considered, the Nokton 35/1.2 renders the best image, imo - it has the best bokeh (including the older nokton), a color rendition that I really like and is no less sharp than any of the other noktons.

I really like the overall look of the older nokton, in terms of its colors, the overall handling of contrast, etc... but the bokeh at wide open is definitely bright ring bokeh - which is not considered to be very good.

 

[sychan]

Bumping it up since I've updated the images to be larger, and with the inset area pushed 2 stops.

Its pretty clear that the original Nokton has veiling flare that is wiping out detail and contrast on the figurine. That being said, it isn't clear to me if the difference in brightness between ASPH Nokton 50 and the 35 and 40 is due to the difference between F1.5 and F1.4 (and then being pushed 2 stops) or lighting changes or if the lens just doesn't have as much light transmission.

Anyway, hope that helps!