help me decide, Nokton 50/1.5 or Canon 50/1.2

[Chad]

I want to get a nice 50mm and I think I've narrowed it down to either the Nokton 50mm f/1.5 or Canon 50mm f/1.2. Very different natured lenses from what I've read. I like the idea of being able to do night shots; on the other hand a new, unmolested, warrantied, ASPH lens for a reasonable price sounds great. I'm torn......

What would you choose?


Chad

 

[ferider]

The correct RFF answer would be: .... both.

They are very different; it depends on what you want to use them for, and how they go together
with your kit.

If you need a general purpose fast 50 for av. light, streed, landscape, etc, the Nokton. If you mainly do portraits, the Canon.
The Canon is much heavier than the Nokton. But, from what I read, it would fit well together in character with your 35/1.5.
The half stop is much less important than the signature, IMO.

Sorry, cann't help more.

Roland.

 

[jlw]

I own both:

-- If you want images that look very sharp and crisp, the Nokton is a much better choice. It produces extremely detailed images with good "microcontrast" for crisp rendering of fine textures. It's still plenty fast enough for most low-light picture-taking.

-- If you want images with more "atmosphere," you might like the Canon better. At wide apertures its image signature shows points of detail with a fairly sharp central core, surrounded by a soft halo. This produces an image that still looks reasonably detailed, but has a slightly "pearly" quality. The halo and the pearly effect diminish as you stop down the lens, but even at medium apertures it's less contrasty than the Nokton and not quite as sharp.

-- If you want something midway between the bite of the Nokton and the pearly glow of the Canon 50/1.2, you might want to look around for a 50/1.4 Canon lens. It's sharper and less flarey than the 50/1.2, pretty close to the Nokton in terms of image detail -- but its images have lower contrast and this gives it more of a "period-correct" look than the Nokton's.

Note that if you use the Canon lens on something other than a Canon camera body, you may need to have the "collimation shim" in the lens adjusted if you want absolutely perfect focusing accuracy at close distances. Canon seems to have calibrated their camera bodies and lenses with a slightly different set of assumptions about film curl etc. than other makers, such as Leica. So with a focus-accuracy-intensive lens such as the 50/1.2, a lens that focuses perfectly close-up on a Canon body may be slightly "off" on a Leica or other body.

 

[ferider]

Completely agree with jlw. On reasonably sized pictures the 50/1.4 behaves like a single-coated
Nokton ... but its smaller and heavier built. And then there is the Canon 50/1.5, very compact,
a great Sonnar ....

I'm not helping, I know ...

PS:

- pictures of the 50/1.2:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/86731438@N00/pool/tags/Canon50mmf1.2LTM

- pictures of the 50/1.4:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/86731438@N00/pool/tags/Canon50mmf1.4LTM

- pictures of the 50/1.5 (just one, at the moment):

http://www.flickr.com/groups/86731438@N00/pool/tags/Canon50mmf1.5LTM

- pictures of the Nokton:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/86731438@N00/pool/tags/VoigtlanderNokton50mmf1.5

PPS: jlw, please joing the M-mount group and add some pictures !

 

[iml]

jlw has summed up the differences well. I have both and use them for different things.

The Canon 1.2 is an excellent low-light and indoor lens, it has a softness and, dare I say it, a "glow" 🙂 at f4 and wider that is very attractive. One example (M6, Tri-X):

On the other hand, it's not nearly so good in bright sunshine, where it tends to very low contrast and some loss of detail, IME. (Bear in mind that these are old lenses, however, and I suspect there's a lot of sample variation between individual examples depending on state of repair etc.)

The Nokton is a very sharp, much less characterful lens, but is probably the better all-rounder in normal lighting. Not too contrasty and excellent micro detail. I use it nowadays whenever I'm shooting outside in sunlight. I still prefer the Canon's low-light performance, however.

A Nokton shot (M6, Tri-X):

If you can't afford both at the moment, I'd start with the Nokton. I started with the Canon and felt for quite a while that it wasn't quite a good enough all-rounder to be my only 50mm, especially as that's my main focal length.

Ian

 

[Chad]

I appreciate the guidance. Its nice to look through the photo albums to see what I can expect from a lens (with practice). The Canon 50/1.4 is very tempting also. JLW, would the opposite be true with regard to needing a collimation shim with the Nokton on a Canon 7? Beautiful pictures Ian, this would be my only 50mm for a while (save for some crummy FSU lenses).


Chad

 

[kbg32]

Go for the Nokton. It is a fantastic lens.

 

[Nokton48]

I, too, have both of the lenses.

I use mine for different purposes. Both are good and useful enough to keep.

 

[Terao]

I own both:

Nokton: lighter, sharper, better contrast, faster focus, great value, light aperture click stops, min aperture f/16, aspherical

Canon 50 f/1.2: soft, glows, heavy, long focus throw, heavy aperture click stops, feels like its been hewn from a single chunk of glass and metal, lower contrast, min aperture f/22, utter lens porn


I think I'll probably sell the Nokton to partially fund its wider faster brother...

Just love using a 50yo lens on a digital rangefinder (R-D1), even with the crop. Its the sum of its imperfections. Rather like a certain lens from Solms that costs 10 times as much...

 

[Chad]

I think I'll probably sell the Nokton to partially fund its wider faster brother...

Are you considering the 40/1.4 or the 35/1.2?


Well, ended up buying a silver Nokton from a RFF member. Got it in the mail today. Totally sexy lens, although maybe the Canon 50/1.2 has it beat on that front.....


Chad

 

[Terao]

Agree about the silver version of the Nokton, very sexy 🙂

Already have the 40 so looking at the 35...

I haven't used the 40 that much recently and now that I'm confident using the Canon (I was mollycoddling it because it was such a mint example) a 35 makes a lot of sense, with the 21mm Skopar at the wide end (although that is under threat from the fast Zeiss 21 for interiors now). I think I may also sell my 12mm, its just too wide for my tastes now...

Such is the world of rangefinders 🙂