HU: Rare Hexanon

Sonnar2 said:
So I didn't get it, sorry. Maybe someone could explain it to me.
I haven't seen a lens diagram of both designs yet, probably there's no one published, but do any of the buyers care if they just got a re-designed - pretty good - SLR lens for that money.
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Frank –

The marketing aspect of 'Limited Editions' doesn't particularly interest me, although I certainly agree that it tends to increase the value of the lens to some degree. But to answer your question from a subjective, end-user perspective, I'd say this: It's analogous to an artist having a different type of brush to use, one which produces a slightly different look than other brushes.

Now, it may seem excessive to spend two or three thousand dollars for a 50mm lens which produces a slightly different look than another which one currently owns, but to that objection I'd add two points. First, the expense of lenses is obviously relative to one's financial position, but secondly, and more importantly, it is precisely (and ironically) the high demand for such limited edition lenses which make it possible to buy them, try them out, and re-sell them at little (or no) loss if one chooses.

Regards,

Tony C.
 
Tony C. said:
...the high demand for such limited edition lenses which make it possible to buy them, try them out, and re-sell them at little (or no) loss if one chooses....
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Hi Tony, don't get me wrong, I highly appreciate these lenses. If one needs a new 60/1.2 or (in my case) compact size 35/2 in LTM, why not buy them?

But the "reselling without loss" is common misbelieve IMHO. Except very few people beeing in business for long decades, with deep funds and more experienced than 95% of us, one cannot trade with cameras or lenses. As for the the 35/2 UC-Hexanons, now they make a sell-out for 860 USD. Just 1,000 made. Far less than the initial price, I guess. Someone has bought them all, stored them, tried to sell them at a higher prices, failed with it, and now sells cheaper.

I understand collectors/users buying one lens of any special kind, for any (at last irrational) reason. I.e. I already have some good screwmount 35mm' s of higher speed. I thought, it could be a little better than my good used Canon 35/2 and produce some better bokeh. Will it? Don't know. Will I ever see difference? Dito. And it has a similar formular than the Nikkor 35/1.8. Aha, technical reason, very good. Maybe I'm collector of design formulas. My website has the biggest collection of lens diagrams in the whole WWW. At least I know this is borderline to crazy - please don't tell my wife about it... 🙂

But making money? No. I have problems to consider any "limited edition" thing with a run more than, say 500, as "really rare". Zeiss 85/1.4 in Contarex mount was rare (200), but when they made them it was just odd: production of these huge, ugly, expensive cameras nobody wanted to buy was ceased, and common mounts were Rollei and Contax/Yashica. So you don't "need" this rare lens for the "unique look" (maybe!) of their pictures. This goes for much of the "rare" stuff. Really good products are sold in numbers 95% of the time...

If money making comes into account, there are people who don't buying one lens. If their pockets are deep enough they ask for ten - then, try to sell nine of them. But the market is already soaked with lenses. I bet 80% of these "limited ed." lenses are stored by people, or even worse, shops who cannot sell them without realizing a loss. So they keep them because it's hard for humans to realize a loss - hardest, a financial one...

Here in Germany more than 80% of shops have closed in the last 10 years. Most of them have had hundreds of cameras, lenses in their shelfs sitting for years, or decades. They don't sell them, but at the end closed the whole shop. Died for wrong believe in the market.

Where is most money going now? China. Will Chinese people ever collect mechanical cameras in big numbers? You can believe as you want, I don't. Not all at. American, Germans and Japanese collect cameras because they once made them. Part of our history. A grandfather-in-law of me was a worker at Deckel in Munich (leaf-shutters). Chinese people don't even like the Japanese as much, for good reasons in history. Maybe Chinese people will collect Mobile phones or plastic toys - after they all got homes, cars, and stuff to live.

Just my 2c.

cheers, Frank
 
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Sonnar2 said:
To be honest, I don't get it completely with all these Konica "Limited edition stuff".
As it is a small market niche, you can reach collectors best if a small series is called "limited edition". I.e. the UC-Hexanon 35/2 which limited (1,000 pieces) edition is available again on the new market, and this is common focus lenght/speed, and a desirable, good lens, not only for a small number of rich collectors but for users as well. So I wonder, where are all these (2,000 pieces) 50/1.2 gone ? And all these 60/1.2? (another "limited series" as well!)
All guys who are bored because "everybody" still has a Noctilux, or a Canon 50/1.2 which cost less than 1/10 of it in a like-new condition?
Of course, all of them nicely made, but so big and heavy! 62mm filter for a RF standard lens, uff! (OK a Canon 50/0.95 has 72mm but it's the fastest 35mm lens in the world anyway)
So I didn't get it, sorry. Maybe someone could explain it to me.
I haven't seen a lens diagram of both designs yet, probably there's no one published, but do any of the buyers care if they just got a re-designed - pretty good - SLR lens for that money.
Who knows...

Cheers, Frank
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Frank,
I read and re-read your post here and I don't really understand what is it that you are asking and want to be explained to you?
Why some of these lenses considered to be rare? (which I think you answered in your post - it's hard to find Hex 60/1.2). Why - because it's probably the next best thing to Noctilux at half the price. Plus has it's own look to it's images. Or why people want/buy them? - same thing - a great lens if Noctilux is way too expensive and Canon 50/1.2 is not good enough. Not that many RF 1.2 lenses out there. These make it rare and much wanted lens for me.
I'm not sure I answered what you asked, so could you clarify if I didn't ?
 
Tony C. said:
I own both, and it is a can of worms!
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Can I confirm that the 50mm f1.2 is a screw on hood for the lens? Also, does anyone know whether this statement is correct from Chasseur d'Image: "Compared to the Noctilux, the 1.2 wins and here noticably at every aperture, vigneting and distortion". If so, what would be the reference for it, e.g. edition number?
 
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Hacker said:
Can I confirm that the 50mm f1.2 is a screw on hood for the lens? Also, does anyone know whether this statement is correct from Chasseur d'Image: "Compared to the Noctilux, the 1.2 wins and here noticably at every aperture, vigneting and distortion". If so, what would be the reference for it, e.g. edition number?
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Hacker,

I've recently sold mine, and, as ridiculous as it sounds, I don't recall whether the hood is a bayonet mount or screw-in. Sorry! The build quality of the 50mm 1.2 is superb, but I prefer the bokeh of the Noctilux.

Regards,

Tony C.
 
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Tony C. said:
Hacker,

I've recently sold mine, and, as ridiculous as it sounds, I don't recall whether the hood is a bayonet mount or screw-in. Sorry! The build quality of the 50mm 1.2 is superb, but I prefer the bokeh of the Noctilux.

Regards,

Tony C.
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I would think so if the Hexanon is more highly corrected. Anyway, do you also have experience with the 60mm f1.2? I understand that the 60 is different from the 50. I have had only a brief encounter with it. Not much info and I found one reference from Erwin Puts:

http://leica-users.org/v10/msg02766.html

"Through the Hexanon 1.2/60mm at full aperure flows less energy than through the Noctilux 1.0/50mm. In fact the Hexanon at 1,2 is equal to the Noctilux at f/1.4. When comparing the two lenses at their full aperture, one should be aware of the fact that it is a f/1.0 against f/1.4 game.

On test the Hexanon at full aperture produced medium to high overall contrast with excellent on axis performance. Very fine detail is clearly recorded, but tangentially oriented structured are recorded very softly. The overall effect of both orientations would be a softening of the contrast of fine detail. In the field chromatic aberrations can be detected as color fringes around the edges of outlines. Some curvature of field is also noticeable. The on axis performance extends over a circle with a diameter of about 8mm. Beyond this circle, image quality rapidly falls away, and in a small zone beyond the 8mm area, fine detail has good visibility with a low contrast. In the outer zones and far edges the outlines of bigger objects are quite fuzzy.

At a focus distance of 1 meter, this general behavior holds, but contrast drops over the whole image field. Some of the lens-elements of the Hexanon are large and have very thin edges. I could note some decentring. The report is based on the correct centring."
 
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Erwin Puts said:
"Through the Hexanon 1.2/60mm at full aperure flows less energy than through the Noctilux 1.0/50mm. In fact the Hexanon at 1,2 is equal to the Noctilux at f/1.4. When comparing the two lenses at their full aperture, one should be aware of the fact that it is a f/1.0 against f/1.4 game."
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What on earth does he mean by "more energy"? What does he mean by "a f/1.0 against f/1.4 game"? DOF? Transmission? It would be a lot easier to take him seriously if he didn't resort to this kind of vague bubbles of rhetoric.

Basically from that piece of prose you learn nothing about the lens at all.

Philipp
 
I own the 60mm f/1.2 Konica lens (paid around $1600). I do not own a noctilux, but I've used one briefly. Even if the price of these two lenses were the same, I would still choose the Konica for several reasons:

It's lighter than the noctilux so not so bad to carry around all day (or night). The ergonomics on an M mount camera are great (for me). I use this lens most these days on an Epson RD-1 where the 50mm framelines fit the 60mm field of view P E R F E C T L Y. The build quality is excellent, but the noctilux is even a bit better.

The bokeh wide open is "more normal" - very very smooth and lovely, but not the unique, sometimes swirly, sometimes nauseating bokeh you get with the noctilux. This makes the Konica better for general use, but with a less unique look. Personally, I feel a strong photograph should stand on it's content, and not on a unique look. Ideally, one would want to own BOTH these lenses 😉

There's very little vignetting wide open with the Konica. I know that noctilux lovers also preach that the vignetting wide open only adds to it's unique look. This is true, but I like the "default option" of no vignetting - I can always easily add it later in Photoshop. (Therefore, I also disagree with Irwin Putts' statement that the Noctilux is a true f/1.0 while the Konica lens is only f/1.4. The noctilux is f/1 in the centre, perhaps more like f/2 or less at the corners. Also, I've tested the Konica f/1.2 and the summilux at f/1.4 on my RD-1 where the EXACT shutter speed can be determined, and the Konica is half a stop faster than the Summilux.)

The noctilux is famous for it's resistance to flare. I can't comment much on the Konica except to say that I haven't seen any flare - I have never tried to "force" some by test shooting into a very strong light source. I'll get back to you on this after some testing.

LAST, but NOT LEAST, the Konica lens focuses down to 0.8 meters vs. 1.0 meters for the noctilux. This, combined with the slightly longer focal length actually gives you THINNER DOF than the noctilux, and better ability to fill the frame.

I've tested and used quite a few 50mm lenses over the past few years, and in the end I settled on the current 50mm f/2.8 Elmar-M in combination with the 60mm Konica Hexanon. The best of both worlds, in my opinion. I think I can live with these two lenses forever.
 
Kevin said:
Please do, Yaron!
Btw, I love the 35 Nokton you sold me !!!
It currently lives on my new R-D1 !
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Hi Kevín, I'm really glad to hear it - I loved the results from the 35/1.2 Nokton, but just couldn't warm up to it's weight. For some reason, I'll tolerate a 50mm or a 21mm being big, but not a 35...
 
Appears to be a nice fast lens, capable of the shallow DOF approaching that of the noct, but has the circular bokeh of a Rokkor 40/2, not the oval artful look of the other. Still very nice.
 
rxmd said:
What on earth does he mean by "more energy"? What does he mean by "a f/1.0 against f/1.4 game"? DOF? Transmission? It would be a lot easier to take him seriously if he didn't resort to this kind of vague bubbles of rhetoric.

Basically from that piece of prose you learn nothing about the lens at all.

Philipp
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I tend to agree with you, which is why I find no substitute for using, or, minimally, seeing examples of images taken with a particular lens.

With respect to Yarn's comments, I respectfully disagree about the bokeh. It doesn't really matter, as there is of course an element of subjectivity, but after using both the Noctilux and the 50mm 1.2 M-Hexanon, I found the Leica's bokeh to be a bit smoother overall. Don't misunderstand me, as I did like the M-Hex quite a bit, and it is a beautifully built lens. It also does focus closer than the Noctilux, and the focus ring is easier to handle. But with respect to the final product (i.e. the images), I'm sticking with my Noctilux. Now, if I only had $2,500 to spend, then the decision would be easy!

Regards,

Tony C.
 
edhohoho said:
I caught a glimpse of the lens in some pictures and saw that nearest focusing is 0.9m. And yes, I believe it is a screw in hood.
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Thanks. I wanted to confirm (impatient me) while I expect the lens to arrive today.
 
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