best lens for low light photos

[occitanista]

Hello

I 'm thinking of buying a M6 pretty soon. But I still don't know what lens to buy with it as I intend to take photos in low light situations. What would be the best value for the money? What do you think of the Voigtlander 28 1.9 ?

Thanks a lot for your help
Occitanista

 

[photo4ls]

Low Light

Low Light

I have a friend that has gotten very good results w/the
VC 40 f1.4 lens. Sorry I don't know about the 28.

 

[thomasw_]

What do you shoot? Any focal length other than the 28? With 2,8cm focal length, you have f2 or f1,9 as the only 'speedy' choices. There are more options if you look at 35s or 50s.

 

[furcafe]

I would begin with a determination of what focal length you want to shoot with. If 28mm is your choice, then, yes, the Cosina Voigtlander 28/1.9 Ultron is an excellent choice.

Hello

I 'm thinking of buying a M6 pretty soon. But I still don't know what lens to buy with it as I intend to take photos in low light situations. What would be the best value for the money? What do you think of the Voigtlander 28 1.9 ?

Thanks a lot for your help
Occitanista

 

[Roger Hicks]

Anything too wide will be slow, but equally, you can get away with longer shutter speeds: I have hand-held a 15mm lens at 1/8 second and more.

Anything too fast will give negligible depth of field, though if you shoot at more than about 3m/10 feet this may not worry you so much. The longer the lens, the bigger the problem at a given aperture.

How important are weight and bulk to you? A 1,5/50 C-Sonnar is objectively inferior to a 50/1.5 Nokton (I have both) but the C-Sonnar is a lot smaller. The 50/1 Noctilux is vast. So is the 35/1.2 Nokton.

How much do you care about sharpness, contrast and price? The Canon 50/1.2 (which many will no doubt recommend to you) is a good deal less sharp and contrasty than a Noctilux.

I have been happy with a 35/1.4 Summilux pre-aspheric; my wife has been happy with a 28/1.9 Ultron. But we also use 50mm (f/1,5, f/1.2, f/1).

In other words, there are a lot of trade-offs, and only you can decide which ones you want to make.

Cheers,

Roger

 

[89rzweig]

Anything too wide will be slow, but equally, you can get away with longer shutter speeds: I have hand-held a 15mm lens at 1/8 second and more.

Anything too fast will give negligible depth of field, though if you shoot at more than about 3m/10 feet this may not worry you so much. The longer the lens, the bigger the problem at a given aperture.

How important are weight and bulk to you? A 1,5/50 C-Sonnar is objectively inferior to a 50/1.5 Nokton (I have both) but the C-Sonnar is a lot smaller. The 50/1 Noctilux is vast. So is the 35/1.2 Nokton.

How much do you care about sharpness, contrast and price? The Canon 50/1.2 (which many will no doubt recommend to you) is a good deal less sharp and contrasty than a Noctilux.

I have been happy with a 35/1.4 Summilux pre-aspheric; my wife has been happy with a 28/1.9 Ultron. But we also use 50mm (f/1,5, f/1.2, f/1).

In other words, there are a lot of trade-offs, and only you can decide which ones you want to make.

Cheers,

Roger

It couldn't have been said better.

As for the 28/1.9, it is an excellent lens IHMO, especially for the price, but there are a couple of things that you have to keep in mind: first of all this lens is an example where marketing got materialised -- the difference between f/1.9 and f/2.0 is just negligible and probably within manufacturing tolerances anyway, so this Ultron is in fact 28/2 lens. Next thing that I found is that while the peroformace of the Ultron is not bad wide-open, it gets significantly better, when the lens is stopped down to f/2.8. This is the maximum aperture I always try to use and only when necessary I use the lens wide-open. Low light shooting with the Ultron shouldn't be a problem anyway, with a bit of concentration you can go as low as 1/15th without too much trouble.

 

[Austerby]

"What would be the best value for the money?"

The VC 40mm Nokton has perhaps the most cost-effective combination of diminutive size, fast speed and characterful image quailty and all within a useful focal length. A quick look at an on-line retailer shows it to be less expensive than the VC 28/1.9, 35/1.2, 35/1.7 and 50/1.5. Zeiss and Leica lenses of equivalent speed are a lot more expensive second-hand, let alone new. I don't know what other manufacturers lenses of the sub-f2 category go for, but they will be second-hand rather than new.


The 40mm Nokton has its strengths and weaknesses (and fans and detractors) and a quick search on Flickr and other sites will show them to you. All in all, it's a lot of lens for the money.

 

[occitanista]

Thank you all for responding so quickly. I am not totally set on a 28 mm. 35 or 50 could also be an option. I'd like a lens which could enable me to shoot in low light situations and which could be the most multi-purpose lens. (portraits and street scenes).
Thanks for your suggestions.

 

[visiondr]

Simply think "fast and wide". Fast, for obvious reasons. Wide because it's easier to hand-hold a wide lens and get more stable results. From there, the field of lenses is wide open to interpretation.

 

[principe azul]

Best value?

There's always the 35/1.7. I have one I don't use since getting the 35/1.2 - been waiting to part-exchange the 1.7 on a new toy. But I did get the 1.7 specifically for its low-light ability and its resistance to flare.

The 1.2 does have the edge over the 1.7 for really low light or for shooting at night at 400 rather than 800+, but a lot of the difference is psychological: I didn't really need it, just wanted it...😉

edit ¦ While there's always a frisson with exotica like 1.0, 1.2 and 1.4, my first proper lens was a Nikkor 50/1.8 and perfectly doable at night. When I got a 35/1.4 to replace it, I gained over a stop's theoretical advantage (lens was 2/3 stop faster and didn't magnify as much) and it was a bonus, but really, f/2 with a 50, 35 or even a 28 is twice as fast as professional zooms out there. Speed is nice, and I don't think you can ever have too much, but it's not worth breaking the bank for.

Another thing to think about is how it complements other lenses, so my two main lenses are a 25/2.8 and a 35/1.2, which gives me an obvious daytime lens and a nice bit of evening wear 😎 but I can still shoot the faster lens during the day and the slower lens at night.

And one last thing is what you shoot and what you shoot it on. A lot of my pictures at one time were 1/15 at f/1.4 at ISO400. Gave acceptable motion to me if people were in shot where 1/8 wouldn't have cut it (or I'd have to change my aesthetic or my film).

 

[Roger Hicks]

Best value?

There's always the 35/1.7.

I have one and it's an excellent lens, objectively superior to my last-generation pre-aspheric 35/1.4 Summilux (less coma, for a start); but I went back to the Summilux simply because I prefer the handling (mainly, finger-spur focusing, not collar). The extra half stop is not really that important.

When I got the 35/1.2 I was expecting to want to keep it, and indeed, the performance was astonishing. But again, the handling of the old Summilux persuaded me not to ask them how much they'd want to let me keep the much bigger Nokton.

Unlike the 1,5/50 C-Sonnar, which is quite possibly my favourite general-purpose 50mm of all time. And (if I could afford it) I'd have tried to keep the 4/16-18-21 Tri-Elmar too.

If I didn't already have a 35, on the other hand, both the 35/1.7 and 35/1.2 would get much more serious consideration.

Cheers,

R.

 

[principe azul]

Hello Roger,

I got my 35/1.7 partly because I was agonising over Summicron versus Summilux and pre-asph versus aspheric - and partly because I couldn't afford them. I do actually prefer the handling of the Ultron, so, yes, a good point to consider. And I like the handling of the Nokton because it reminds me of my old Nikkor.

 

[89rzweig]

Thank you all for responding so quickly. I am not totally set on a 28 mm. 35 or 50 could also be an option. I'd like a lens which could enable me to shoot in low light situations and which could be the most multi-purpose lens. (portraits and street scenes).
Thanks for your suggestions.

Let's have some examples from my R-D1s:

* CV 12/5.6 UW Heliar @5.6 (EFL 18mm)
* CV 28/1.9 Ultron @2.8 (EFL 40mm)

 

[89rzweig]

Another examples from my R-D1s:

* FSU Jupiter-3 50/1.5 @2.0 or 2.8 (EFL 75mm)
* FSU Jupiter-9 85/2 @2.0 (EFL 135mm)

Now you should have an idea, how individual focal lenghts work in one particular low light scene. If you're not sure, then I'd suggest go for 50mm normal lens and because I'm biased towards Sonnars, I'd suggest Zeiss' 50/1.5 C-Sonnar.

 

[Nick De Marco]

I love the Nockton 35mm f1.2 and it's certainly my favourite for low light on an M8 for the following reasons:
1. Even if I could afford to put a huge Nocti on my lens, that is 50mm and on an M8 that is far too telephoto for me. I have just bought a used Canon 50mm f1.2 for an 8th of the price of the Nocti and that will do me.

2. Wider than 35mm it's very hard to find very fast lenses.

3. The Nockton is the fastest 35mm in the world.

4. I use it as f1.2. It's sharp and the bokeh looks great I think.

5. It's a quarter of the price of a Summilex and faster.

I would definitely recommend this lens for low light stuff

Edit - here is a shot (apologies posted elsewhere on the Steve McCurry thread) of Steve McCurry I took tonight with the Nockton f1.2 wide open. Everyone else had flash but I think this worked

 

[occitanista]

Thank you all for your help. I really appreciate.