Have You seen the new 35/1.4 Nokton?

infrequent said:
comparing these two shots, i can hardly tell the difference (apart from the differing focal lengths):

35/1.4 classic nokton
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sotome/2281197057/sizes/l/

50/1.5 zeiss sonnar
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sotome/2281987520/sizes/l/

either way looking forward to tom's testing results!
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Hmmm, the Nokton looks marginally sharper to me but at the expense of the hard-edged bokeh that affects the 40mm Nokton. The Zeiss looks to trade a minute degree of sharpness for much smoother OOF areas.

I'm still reserving judgement 'til I see some shots with this lens at its full angle of vision on film, but it's looking like the hard-edged bokeh from the 40mm is carried over in this one. The comparisons with Tom's 'lux are gonna be mighty interesting.
 
Ok, Tom was just downloading the first roll shot with the 35f1.4 SC on to Flickr.
Yesterdays weather screwed up the testing as it was very sunny and bright - but at least we know now what the lens will do in high contrast! Later today I will download the stuff from the Summilux 35 and the Nokton 40f1.4 SC. But right now the sun is out again and I also have to go and get a haircut (the latter according to Tuulikki).
 
Looks to me to perform every similarly to the 40mm Nokton, which I guess is no great suprise. Colour balance, contrast, flare control and light fall-off wide open all echo the 40. This is good for me as I use my 40mm as a 35mm on my M6 - the framelines fit almost perfectly. This somewhat eliminates the temptation to pick up the 35mm Nokton!

For those who feel that the bokeh is harsh, if it behaves like the 40mm, it will clean up noticeably by f/2 and be quite attractive by f/2.8, IMO.

40mm Nokton at f/2:

24516137_d519df6a51.jpg
 
Ok, looking at the shots Tom has loaded into his flickr so far and the other shots posted on flickr from the new Nokton, it seems fair to say it is a nice sharp lens. I like the tones and rendering I see from it. Tom has the SC version and he comments on his test shots that is handles flare well.

Compared to the SC 40 Nokton and his Pre Asph Summilux it seems the SC 35 Nokton has less contrast, the 40 the most Summilux in the middle. All there are very sharp, to my eye, probably becuase of the lower contrast, I prefer the images from the 35s over the 40.

I can't wait to see Tom's shots from wider apertures. The others on flickr seem to be a little squirrelly in the bokeh area. A direct comparison to the Summilux will add some perspective to this performance.
 
Let me be the first to say that I'm a bit underwhelmed from what I've seen so far. But most of those images found on Flickr are too small to say anything. But the large ones (taken with a digital, I think) look rather "harsh". Now, I'm not saying that it's not worth the money, but I'm glad I didn't put down the deposit on this one.
 
ZebGoesZeiss said:
Let me be the first to say that I'm a bit underwhelmed from what I've seen so far. But most of those images found on Flickr are too small to say anything.
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I second your opinion about the size of the images: they are simply too small to judge sharpness and most other parameters. I will wait, probably we will see real world hi-res examples soon.
 
Well I've had mine for a couple of days and can say that it is similar to the 40 f1.4 I also own.

The Bokeh is similar to the 40, but I would say wide open it is not as harsh as the 40 is. Also, similar to the 40, the 35 really sharpens up at f2 upwards, as does the bokeh.

If I could hazard a guess, it seems the 35 doesn't experiance the doubling up of thick lines that the 40 seems to do wide open. IF you've taken a picture with chair's out of focus etc, you'll know what I'm talking about.

And now onto the most important part, I've got a few samples, most wide open of the new 35 f1.4.

Most of the shots are fairly droll or unsharp, but they've been included for all those curious to see how the bokeh looks. I'll put some samples up when I got street shooting, so for now all you'll have to deal with is people shots wide open. Just open the link below, the shots are tagged 35 & also Epson.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/timjpower


PS: If someone is willing to host RAWS/Hi res JPEGS I'll be happy to send them too them to host. I just don't have anywhere that lets me upload hi res unfortunatley.

Enjoy!

-Tim
 
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rover said:
I think the 1.2 has few competitors optically, but it is not without its issues regarding size and cost. All are trade offs.
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That may be true, but to me what matters is - results. Size and cost I can deal with. Plus, cost is not that much different really - $300 extra for a far better lens is nothing to me. But to me Ultron looks much better as well. ANd it's cheaper. It still is a bit larger, but not much. I really don't see the point of this new Nokton as it seems so similar to 40/1.4. But I'll give it a benefit of a doubt as it's a new lens and we may yet see some better results. However, so far, everything points to it being similar to 40/1.4.
Just my opinion.
 
Last night I decided that I wanted to see how well the 35mmf1.4 SC did under street conditions. We took a walk along 4th Avenue, a busy shopping area clsoe to us and I shot a couple of rools with the 35/1.4 SC and also with my Summilux 35 pre-asph.
I have posted some of these shots on our Flickr site

http://flickr.com/photos/rapidwinder/

and some more "regular" light ones this morning. Impressive performance at f1.4! Very little flare and good sharpness even at 1.4-2. Some "smearing" of out of focus spotlights, very similar to the pre-asph Summilux 35.
Contrast, at least on the SC is kind off middle off the road, less "spikes" than the 40f1.4 SC/MC but a bit more than with the Summilux 35.
 
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