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Will we ever see a Noctilux 35mm?


Ruhayat

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Don't forget size and weight. The Nokton f1.2 is pretty big for an M lens, about the size of my 90mm Summicron E55. ...

I am fortunate to have a v1 35/1.2 Nokton, 90AA, and a Noctilux f1 and I can't recall their size or weight causing me a problem although I don't carry them at the same time.:) I cut my teeth with a Pentax 67 medium format camera so it may be that I'm used to heavy equipment and notice the size and weight less.

 

Pete.

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the new 35mm 1.2 Nokton is large for an M lens- but quite manageable. With a cutout out hood it doesn't block too much of the finder- and is a great, quality lens- already available. Feels much smaller than noticlux f1.

 

I imagine a Leica 35mm Noctilux would cost at least 7 times as much? Will it be worth it? Not to me- no matter how good the performance... no doubt it will be worth it to others...

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I am fortunate to have a v1 35/1.2 Nokton, 90AA, and a Noctilux f1 and I can't recall their size or weight causing me a problem although I don't carry them at the same time.:) I cut my teeth with a Pentax 67 medium format camera so it may be that I'm used to heavy equipment and notice the size and weight less.

 

Pete.

 

It doesn't bother me, either. But I came to the M from SLRs, which can be even heavier and bigger, so I'm used to it. I kitted out the M7 with a grip to use exclusively with my big and fast lenses - 35/1.2, 90/2.0, 50/1.5 - and it's now about the size of an SLR, anyway. For a small M, I have the M4-P with compact lenses.

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Me too... but 35 is a larger frame than 50 : for such an expensive lens a not optimal viewing would be not acceptable... Summilux 21 & 24 are large too, but designed with external OVF in mind.

 

Luigi, I see what you are saying but personally it would not bother me. The current Noctilux finder blockage was a bit of a surprise for me at first but it's not something I really notice now and have my methods of working around it. The one thing that I attribute the acceptance of it is down solely to those resulting images which for me was instant love.

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A Nocti asph 35 around f1 would have a huge front lens - surely an issue with the OVF of Leica M... but not with the EVF of M240... ;)... so I wouldn't be surprised if they have one on the drawing board : right product for some "intermediate" announcement some day: the price, which logically would be over the Nocti 50 will make me stand away, of course.

 

Sorry if I ask a stupid question. My 35mm Lux Pre-ASPH v.2 is one of the smallest lenses I have. The 40mm Cron is even less obtrusive. The FLE is bigger.

 

Does it mean that the modern lenses will have to be monstrous?

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The Noctilux is/would be/has always been a speciality lens. Like a classic roadster, you'd probably only use it a couple of times a month or a week for that special thrill. But once you go f1.2, it's hard to come back. It may be just half a stop, but there's some kind of inexplicable magic involved. Hard to explain in words.

 

Agreed. I ordered the Nokton 1.2 for times when the size isn't an issue, but I've got my teeny 35 Summicron IV for everyday usage.

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Sorry if I ask a stupid question. My 35mm Lux Pre-ASPH v.2 is one of the smallest lenses I have. The 40mm Cron is even less obtrusive. The FLE is bigger.

 

Does it mean that the modern lenses will have to be monstrous?

 

Not so much modern - the Summarit is pretty small for example. It has more to do with the speed of the lens.

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Sorry if I ask a stupid question. My 35mm Lux Pre-ASPH v.2 is one of the smallest lenses I have. The 40mm Cron is even less obtrusive. The FLE is bigger.

 

Does it mean that the modern lenses will have to be monstrous?

To add to Jaap's reply, the size is also to do with how well corrected a lens is for aberrations. Particularly in a fast lens, more correction means more elements, which means a larger lens.

 

Pete.

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To add to Jaap's reply, the size is also to do with how well corrected a lens is for aberrations. Particularly in a fast lens, more correction means more elements, which means a larger lens.

 

Pete.

 

I mentioned in another thread before that Leica needs a compact range of Summarits at the other end of the scale. Make them the same size of the older generation Summicrons and Summiluxes. But I guess Leica is going after the more modern type of rendering now, that's why the f2.5 Summarits need to be as big as they are. That's a shame. Compact, fast lenses with classical renderings are another area that they have practically left to Cosina.

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I mentioned in another thread before that Leica needs a compact range of Summarits at the other end of the scale. Make them the same size of the older generation Summicrons and Summiluxes. But I guess Leica is going after the more modern type of rendering now, that's why the f2.5 Summarits need to be as big as they are. That's a shame. Compact, fast lenses with classical renderings are another area that they have practically left to Cosina.

 

More likely is that the modern designs, particularly for the focal lengths of less than 50mm, are increasingly retrofocus, (tele-centric), to optimise them for use with digital sensors. This tends to result in lenses with larger front elements etc.

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... modern designs [...] are increasingly retrofocus (tele-centric) ...

Retro-focus ist not tele-centric.

 

 

This tends to result in lenses with larger front elements etc.

A long back-focus distance does not necessarily mean larger front elements. For example, the Summarit-M 35 mm has the longest back-focus distance of all current Leica M 35 mm lenses – actually it's even longer than any other's Leica M lens up to 50 mm of focal length – and still it has an extra-ordinarily small front element. The size of the latter depends on speed, angle-of-view, and entry pupil position, but not on the exit pupil position.

 

If a (hypothetical) Noctilux-M 35 mm lens was supposed to have a front element no larger than the Noctilux-M 50 mm Asph's then the distance of the entry pupil from the first element's front vertex must not be longer than approx. 12 mm or thereabouts. For a super-fast lens, that's pretty damn short. In the Summarit-M 35 mm, this distance is 9.3 mm. In the Summicron-M 35 mm Asph, this distance is 10.0 mm. In the Summilux-M 35 mm Asph, this distance is 16.6 mm. So I'd guess 12 mm for a 35 mm Noctilux would be pretty difficult to achieve but not entirely impossible. It would require extremely-high-refractive glass and a difficult-to-manufacture (hence expensive) design.

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Retro-focus ist not tele-centric.

 

 

 

A long back-focus distance does not necessarily mean larger front elements. For example, the Summarit-M 35 mm has the longest back-focus distance of all current Leica M 35 mm lenses – actually it's even longer than any other's Leica M lens up to 50 mm of focal length – and still it has an extra-ordinarily small front element. The size of the latter depends on speed, angle-of-view, and entry pupil position, but not on the exit pupil position.

 

If a (hypothetical) Noctilux-M 35 mm lens was supposed to have a front element no larger than the Noctilux-M 50 mm Asph's then the distance of the entry pupil from the first element's front vertex must not be longer than approx. 12 mm or thereabouts. For a super-fast lens, that's pretty damn short. In the Summarit-M 35 mm, this distance is 9.3 mm. In the Summicron-M 35 mm Asph, this distance is 10.0 mm. In the Summilux-M 35 mm Asph, this distance is 16.6 mm. So I'd guess 12 mm for a 35 mm Noctilux would be pretty difficult to achieve but not entirely impossible. It would require extremely-high-refractive glass and a difficult-to-manufacture (hence expensive) design.

 

You are correct - retro focus is not the same as tele-centric. Leica have recently started to use the term "telecentric" - listen to the Stefan Daniel interview as one example - but as far as I know no Leica M design is tele-centric, i.e. with the exit pupil at infinity. The new design lenses are however increasingly retrofocus. This tends to result in larger front elements. Certainly much larger than the classic symetrical lenses of the past which had a front element often not much larger than the focal length divided by the aperture.

 

Quite what this has to do with the distance between the first lens surface in the direction of the light and the position of the entrance pupil is not clear to me.

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The new design lenses are however increasingly retrofocus.

No, they are not. While there are one or two exceptions (notably in the 21 mm focal length), in general the back-focus distances of the current wide-angle M lenses are not significantly longer than they used to be in the past.

 

 

This tends to result in larger front elements.

Yes, there is some positive correlation ... but no direct causal connection.

 

 

Quite what this has to do with the distance between the first lens surface in the direction of the light and the position of the entrance pupil is not clear to me.

From indoors, look outside through a window. Your eye is the entrance pupil; the window is the front element. Note the relationship between your distance from the window and how much of the outside scenery you can see through the window from your position. If you want to see more (wider angle-of-view), you could either widen the window—or move closer to it.

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Retro-focus ist not tele-centric.

 

 

 

A long back-focus distance does not necessarily mean larger front elements. For example, the Summarit-M 35 mm has the longest back-focus distance of all current Leica M 35 mm lenses – actually it's even longer than any other's Leica M lens up to 50 mm of focal length – and still it has an extra-ordinarily small front element. The size of the latter depends on speed, angle-of-view, and entry pupil position, but not on the exit pupil position.

 

If a (hypothetical) Noctilux-M 35 mm lens was supposed to have a front element no larger than the Noctilux-M 50 mm Asph's then the distance of the entry pupil from the first element's front vertex must not be longer than approx. 12 mm or thereabouts. For a super-fast lens, that's pretty damn short. In the Summarit-M 35 mm, this distance is 9.3 mm. In the Summicron-M 35 mm Asph, this distance is 10.0 mm. In the Summilux-M 35 mm Asph, this distance is 16.6 mm. So I'd guess 12 mm for a 35 mm Noctilux would be pretty difficult to achieve but not entirely impossible. It would require extremely-high-refractive glass and a difficult-to-manufacture (hence expensive) design.

 

Thank you for the detailed explanation.

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......From indoors, look outside through a window. Your eye is the entrance pupil; the window is the front element. Note the relationship between your distance from the window and how much of the outside scenery you can see through the window from your position. If you want to see more (wider angle-of-view), you could either widen the window—or move closer to it.

 

It is instructive to analyse your window analogy quantitatively using data published by Leica.

 

If we confine ourselves to the f1.4 lenses then calculate the ratio of the front lens diameter to the distance from the front of the lens to the entrance pupil we get the following results:-

 

50 mm = ~1.5; 35mm = ~2.2; 24mm = ~2.3 and 21mm = ~2.1

 

Thus, to use the window analogy, either as one moves away the angle of view increases or the angle of view can be increased significantly by just standing still.

 

There is a considerable problem with terms such as retrofocus and telecentric as there seems to be no clear definition. Retrofocus either seems to mean having sufficient space between the rear element and the sensor to allow an SLR mirror to function or as a design principle of highly asymetric lenses tending to have a negative component closer to the object than a positive component, i.e. the inverse of a telephoto. This, according to most text books, results in large front elements. With the introduction of digital sensors the design objective has been to minimise the angle of incidence onto the sensor thus lenses are frequently described as having a "telecentric type" design. This does not inply that there is space for an SLR mirror.

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It is instructive to analyse your window analogy quantitatively ...

No, it isn't, because the windows analogy ignores the refractive powers of the lenses' front elements.

 

 

There is a considerable problem with terms such as retrofocus and telecentric as there seems to be no clear definition.

No, there is no problem, because there are clear definitions of the terms.

 

 

With the introduction of digital sensors the design objective has been to minimise the angle of incidence onto the sensor thus lenses are frequently described as having a "telecentric type" design.

That's because this sort of textbooks is written by clueless authors.The correct description would be, "having an increased exit-pupil-to-image distance."

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