Oh my God, I’m a Noctilux owner!!

arnulf

arnulf

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I have wanted to get my hands on a Noctilux for quite some time now. I do a lot of low light shooting and not long time ago I bought a pre-asph Summilux 35mm from a rff member, a lens I absolutely love. Then a few days ago I got a really sweet deal on a Nocti. I took it. It’s a first generation, I believe, from the 70’s with the detachable hood. It looks quite worn but the optics are, well if not mint, then pretty damn close to mint. I’ve seen month-old lenses with more dust and specks than this one. It’s just been serviced at Leica and the focusing is as smooth as a baby’s bottom. It even has a new bayonet with 6 bits coding. The fact that it looks old actually works to my advantage. I don’t like my gear to appear expensive.

Of course, the greatest danger when buying expensive over-hyped Leica equipment is being disappointed. I have read like a million Noctilux threads both here and on other forums and...., let’s just say that people’s opinions about it differ quite a bit. And even if I got a great deal it’s still expensive, so the bar was high when I opened the package and mounted the lens on my M9.

I was not disappointed.

All I can say is “What A Lens!!” Ok, Kevin, I know it’s hyped, some times out of proportion, and I seriously don’t want to be all religious about it (After all it’s just a camera lens, right?), but still: I love this lens.

I have always considered the small size the greatest advantage of the Leica and that one is clearly out the window with a Noctilux on it (I didn’t know that it actually is slightly heavier than the M9 body itself.), but I’m willing to let that one slide. I’m gonna keep my 50 cron for when I need to be unobtrusive. But for the most of it I guess the 35mm lux and the Noctilux will be pretty much the only lenses I’ll need.

Since I mounted it, it has only left the f/1 position a couple of times. I just love the result it produces wide open. Hopefully I will put the lens to some real use later and not just be used to take pictures of things with a blurry background, but here are some samples from my first couple of evenings with the Noctilux:

nocti6.jpg


nocti1.jpg


nocti3.jpg


nocti4.jpg


nocti8.jpg


nocti9.jpg
 
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I like the rendering this lens gives and your shots are a great example, nice job and congrats.

Todd
 
Congrats on the lens! Nice photos they, rendering is amazing, looks like film. Did you do any post processing or are the images straight out of camera? Very nice!
 
Mervin, those are all with some post processing (just basic level and curve stuff) But I am amazed how good the images look straight out of the camera. These three for instance are all straight from RAW, No post here. Pretty decent, huh?

nocti29.jpg


nocti28.jpg


nocti27.jpg
 
Oh my god, I am a Noctilux owner ... :D;) I think you found a good copy, looking forward to some available darkness shots !
 
Oh my God, I am Carl Zeiss Jena 5cm 1.5 owner!

Congrats. Show us more of your nice results.
 
arnulf said:
Mervin, those are all with some post processing (just basic level and curve stuff) But I am amazed how good the images look straight out of the camera. These three for instance are all straight from RAW, No post here. Pretty decent, huh?
Click to expand...

Arnulf, those RAW images are amazing. I assume those are all wide open shots? Show us more pics :D
 
Congratualtions and welcome to the Noct fan club! It's a great mens to shoot on the M8/9 with their higher top shutter speeds. All of a sudden you can shoot wide open during the day, as your examples show (no ND filter needed).

Have fun with your new lens!

Kent
 
Thank you all :)

Kent, that's true. The m8/9 really allow you to use the lens wide open at pretty much all times of the day. Although: most of these shots are actually taken pretty late at night. I live quite far north in Norway and the sun only goes down for a couple of hours around midnight this time of year. Of course, during winter that is all turned upside down and the lens will be a true "noct" 24 hours a day.
 
arnulf said:
Of course, the greatest danger when buying expensive over-hyped Leica equipment is being disappointed. I have read like a million Noctilux threads both here and on other forums and...., let’s just say that people’s opinions about it differ quite a bit. And even if I got a great deal it’s still expensive, so the bar was high when I opened the package and mounted the lens on my M9.

I was not disappointed.
Click to expand...

It is quite remarkable, isn't it?

I was prepared, when I borrowed one, to say, "Yes, very nice, limited application, not worth the money to me."

Wrong. The only reason I didn't buy it was that I couldn't afford it, and the main reason I couldn't afford it was that I'd been prepared to say the same about a Thambar - which I bought...

Cheers,

R.
 
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