Classic Nokton 40mm/1.4

I think your points about the DOF and the focusing accuracy are good ones, but there are many many examples of very good shots in our galleries by folks who have overcome these problems and captured great images. Also, as your subject moves farther away from you, the DOF and focusing issues lessen. How many of your shots are of the "in your face" variety? I guess I have two questions regarding this lens, is it sharper than the 35 Ultron at f2.0? How many more shots will I be able to get at f1.4? Again, with such a low buy-in, it may be worth just giving it a shot to have some fun. Hey, popped on an R3a, it will give you a Canonet 14, with a better brighter viewfinder/rangefinder, faster shutter, and new car smell.
 
"Everybody says you need large apertures for low light, but how do you focus when you can't see the RF double image properly?"

Heard it Before!

But how do I hit the target when I can't even see through the lens?

PVDHAAR Trust Your Feelings! Let Yourself go! Ignore the Distance Scale and DOF Indicators! Use the Superimposed Rangefinder, it is a sophisticated instrument built with the utmost precision designed to operate in low-light conditions!


Canon 7 with 50mm F0.95, Most Wide-Open
 
First shot that I ever took with this lens, Canon 7 body bought separately from Karen N.

Focus on the Nose.

Closest Focus and F0.95
 
I tend to agree that the 1.x apertures are pretty useless in low light conditons for the reasons mentioned. However, I find them far from useless in so many other situations. If a f1.4 lens performs well at wide open, I personally can find may uses for its very shallow depth of field. Brian showed one very good example in the image above.

I spent almost $3k on a 300mm f2.8 lens just so that I could shoot with a DOF that was a mere sliver in size. In fact, I rarely ever shoot that lens at anything but f2.8 or f4. Being able to isolate your content that well is a major draw to me for the wide apertures.

But I must say, I've not used a real fast lens on a rangefinder yet. I've seen so many others do it very successfully, so I feel its just a matter or practice on my part, or buying the same majic dust they sprinkle on their lens before those magic shots :)

Here is a good example of why I love longer lenses with very fast apertures, or any lens with fast apertures for that matter. Worth their weight in gold :)
 
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Brian, you need a new scanner! Whatever you have now, it`s not good enough to show sharpness.... All your images looks soft.

Get a good filmscanner and show us what a f/0.95 lens can do! :)
 
Ouch! I hate to say, but posting decimated JPEG's can give you an idea of wether or not I can focus a camera, the Bokeh, contrast, etc, but to give an idea of sharpness of a lens requires a few Megabytes.

Agree about flatbed scanners, my 3170 is no exception. I use it as it was under $200 and can do 12 negatives at once. My Mom has a bookmark to my gallery.

The single pass flatbed scanners and film scanners also do not do justice to film. I have an OLD Microtek 1850 which uses a color wheel to do 3 passes for color and one pass for B&W. It is very slow, at 10 minutes per scan.

As for the sharpness of the Canon 50mm F0.95, I put it about the same as the Canonet 40mm f1.7 lens. Considering that it is almost 2 stops faster, no complaints here! It also illuminates the entire negative, without much in the way of vignetting.
 
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Brian, you are so right about the scans and jpgs. For example, this image is nothing interesting, and says nothing for the sharpness and or digital capabilities fo the camera that took it.
 
This one however, helps somewhat. Its a very small crop from the same original shown above.

Even so, it still doesn't show you what the image looks like in person. Something we just have to live with until sending around 20mb images is commonplace, and takes less than a second or two to load :)

They are both from the same original file. The larger one compressed soft in JPG, but the smaller crop shows what sharpness was there. Even so, zooming in on the original file without any compression shows even further sharpness than this one below. With any compression, we are loosing a lot of sharpness that is there in the originals.
 
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nice, stephen...so...tell us the details!!! What did you use to make and scan? Who is she? What's her phone number? ;)
 
Pherdinand said:
nice, stephen...so...tell us the details!!! What did you use to make and scan? Who is she? What's her phone number? ;)
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Her name is Mellisa. She is waiting for your phone call at 617-555-1212. She lives in the Netherlands.

Actually, I don't know who she is. These were sample images of the Phase One P25 digital back for medium format cameras. It was taken on a Mamiya 645 AFD with 35mm 2.8 and 80mm 2.8 lenses. The Phase One P25 is built using the Kodak 22mp full frame 6x6 sensor. The image size was about 70mb for the samples above.

It was posted to show the differences in a compressed jpeg vs a smaller crop from the same original. I would suggest that if we want to compare two lenses, we have a better chance if we scan them at high resolution, zoom in to 100%, then take a small crop from that area for comparison sake. Its still not the best way, but its better then trying to compare the entire image which will so significant softness overall.

I can come up with some reasonable specs for size, resolution, etc, to use in a comparison situation if anyone cares. At least well get a better idea on a lens sharpness than using the whole image.

I am blown away with the quality of a 22megapixel digital image. I can't see taking a similar crop from a 35mm negative and retaining that level of sharpness and quality as shown above. Seems that digital has surpassed 35mm film resolution if you use a 22megapixel medium format back. However, the ante to the poker table is about $20K. How many years before the same equipment is available at $3k based on the present rate? I may be going all digital by that time!

I've got a 50mm 1.5 Nokton coming. I'd be glad to shoot some images, scan then and use them for comparison against other lenses. In fact, I'd do that with any of the lenses I have. Maybe a new tread for lens comparisons with some looses guidelines to keep the samples apples to apples. Yes, no?
 
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Got a 40 'cron already- it's away for a CLA to sort out a seized up aperture ring; but I couldn't justify another 40mm. The VC might turn out to be a better all-round choice for those considering a 40mm "standard" - extra stop; regular filter size; nice size.
 
Stephen, if I understand you correctly, I agree and have actually posted several such example pairs in my Gallery here, shot with my "new" 2.5/50mm Color Skopar, and scanned at 2000x3000 pixels.
 
I'm thinking about buying the Nokton 40mm 1,4 and have one question:
What's the difference between SC (singlecoated) and MC (multicoated)?
 
Rogrund said:
Welcome to the forum, igy! You have an impressive count of posts... :D

You can read about the different versions here.
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thanks alot for the fast response and the link... i'm already drooling :D

and yeah... it was actually my first post. no idea what the high number of posts intends to say about me :D
 
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