DLS Posted May 9, 2012 Author Share #41 Posted May 9, 2012 Advertisement (gone after registration) Had to go to two sources: 60mm 0.9 ND MRC ordered from Dale Photo in Florida (is also available at B&H in NYC) while the only source I could find 1.8 ND MRC was Popflash in California. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted May 9, 2012 Posted May 9, 2012 Hi DLS, Take a look here After a Year My Dealer has called with Noctilux. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
StephenPatterson Posted May 9, 2012 Share #42 Posted May 9, 2012 Your feedback over the weekend was helpful and I pulled the trigger. The Nocti will be here on Wednesday. The Dealer, Dale Photo in Florida, was terrific and without being asked honored the pricing from last year when I put in the order - really unexpected! I recommend them highly as knowledgeable and fair. I'm now plowing through as much as I can learn about ND filters and it seems to come down to B&W or Heliopan. The B&W's seem to be more readily available. I'll have about a month to get up to speed using this lens and I'm truly excited! Again - MANY THANKS TO YOU ALL! Congratulations and enjoy your new lens. I will look forward to seeing what you create with this new tool... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paulus Posted May 9, 2012 Share #43 Posted May 9, 2012 Me too! A photo please? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DLS Posted May 9, 2012 Author Share #44 Posted May 9, 2012 OMG it's arrived. Unpacking it I felt like a kid again. I've got a week with it before Leica/NJ will get the Camera and my four lenses to make certain all is well with everything before heading to China. I'll see what I can do but from the first shot I took in my office I can tell this is going to be a bit of a learning curve and a whole lot of fun. Thanks again guys! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cornellfrancis Posted May 9, 2012 Share #45 Posted May 9, 2012 OMG it's arrived. Unpacking it I felt like a kid again. I've got a week with it before Leica/NJ will get the Camera and my four lenses to make certain all is well with everything before heading to China. I'll see what I can do but from the first shot I took in my office I can tell this is going to be a bit of a learning curve and a whole lot of fun. Thanks again guys! Congrats and best of luck with it. I am green with envy! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
StephenPatterson Posted May 10, 2012 Share #46 Posted May 10, 2012 OMG it's arrived. Unpacking it I felt like a kid again. I've got a week with it before Leica/NJ will get the Camera and my four lenses to make certain all is well with everything before heading to China. I'll see what I can do but from the first shot I took in my office I can tell this is going to be a bit of a learning curve and a whole lot of fun. Thanks again guys! Congratulations again, enjoy your lens, and travel safe to the Middle Kingdom. Also don't forget your umbrella, as it's the rainy season here. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Double Negative Posted May 10, 2012 Share #47 Posted May 10, 2012 Advertisement (gone after registration) Awesome! Congratulations, and enjoy. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ophyls Posted May 12, 2012 Share #48 Posted May 12, 2012 Congratulations! I got my noctilux a couple of weeks ago and having fun with it! Just got my 0.9 ND filter too. It's a bit heavy to lug around China though... I intend to use mine in Singapore where I live but will travel with my 35mm summilux... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DLS Posted June 3, 2012 Author Share #49 Posted June 3, 2012 Again, many thanks to all of you who responded here and helped me make a very pleasing decision on the Noctilux. As I reported, it arrived, unpacking it made me giddy, and then I began using it. Damn, I couldn’t nail the focus. I’ve gotten older and my eyesight is worse, but even with the 1.4x viewer magnifier I couldn’t hit it. Begging Carmen Vargas at Leica in New Jersey to help me out, I delivered the M9 and all four lenses (18mm Super-Elmar, 35mm ‘Cron, 50mm Nocti, and 75mm ‘Cron) to them for complete checkup. Sure enough ALL FOUR lenses were back focusing! Not only that, but the sensor in the M9 was somehow out of correct tilt. They fixed everything without charge, even updating the vulcanite covering to leatherette. The M9 looks brand new (when Leica is good, they are very very good…). The only oddity was that in their re-writing the firmware, the numbering sequence got bumped up to a few shots short of maximum and that caused a brief panic when the M9 told me the SD card had no room and I needed to reset the counter (doing so and formatting again resolved everything). By the way, they told me that new firmware was just a few weeks away from being released. The past few days I’ve been shooting with the Nocti as many difficult shots as I can to familiarize myself with focusing with this lens (interiors at night, bright daylight with ND filters – interesting that the aperture gets interpreted incorrectly as a result of using these, but it should have been obvious in hindsight). The Noctilux is uncanny in its ability to make the subject “pop” as a result of the narrow DOF (of course you all already know that) and I absolutely love it. It’s heavy but very easy to get used to – I suspect I will use it 75%-plus of the time we are in China. I will be taking all the lenses, an extra battery, two chargers, six 16gb SD cards, and the MacBook Air with external HD backup. Over 7,400 miles from home, I don’t want to find myself wishing I’d brought something else… So we are off to Shanghai, Bejing, Xi’an, Wuhan, Hong Kong, and Macau (June 10-18th). We are traveling with the Bard College Conservatory of Music and I’m sure the trip will be amazing. I set up a primitive web site (Home Page) for uploading pictures directly from LR4 (assuming internet availability) and plan to load a few shots each day for our friends to see in “real-time.” Hope you enjoy them too. And again, many thanks for your help! David Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bpalme Posted June 4, 2012 Share #50 Posted June 4, 2012 I love Leica glass, but there is one lens I just can't recommend anymore: the 35 Lux. The Voigtlander 35 1.2 is just better. Faster, sharper from wide open in the center frame, sharper at landscape apertures, almost as sharp in the corners at intermediate apertures, only ~1200$, available. I say go for the Noctilux if you want it. It's a great lens facing competition only from the SLR magic 50/.92. IMO 50mm is a "meh" FL and I'd much rather have the Voigtlander 35/1.2 and the Hexanon 60 1.2. Where can you get a 60mm Hexanon? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bpalme Posted June 4, 2012 Share #51 Posted June 4, 2012 Again, many thanks to all of you who responded here and helped me make a very pleasing decision on the Noctilux. As I reported, it arrived, unpacking it made me giddy, and then I began using it. Damn, I couldn’t nail the focus. I’ve gotten older and my eyesight is worse, but even with the 1.4x viewer magnifier I couldn’t hit it. Begging Carmen Vargas at Leica in New Jersey to help me out, I delivered the M9 and all four lenses (18mm Super-Elmar, 35mm ‘Cron, 50mm Nocti, and 75mm ‘Cron) to them for complete checkup. Sure enough ALL FOUR lenses were back focusing! Not only that, but the sensor in the M9 was somehow out of correct tilt. They fixed everything without charge, even updating the vulcanite covering to leatherette. The M9 looks brand new (when Leica is good, they are very very good…). The only oddity was that in their re-writing the firmware, the numbering sequence got bumped up to a few shots short of maximum and that caused a brief panic when the M9 told me the SD card had no room and I needed to reset the counter (doing so and formatting again resolved everything). By the way, they told me that new firmware was just a few weeks away from being released. The past few days I’ve been shooting with the Nocti as many difficult shots as I can to familiarize myself with focusing with this lens (interiors at night, bright daylight with ND filters – interesting that the aperture gets interpreted incorrectly as a result of using these, but it should have been obvious in hindsight). The Noctilux is uncanny in its ability to make the subject “pop” as a result of the narrow DOF (of course you all already know that) and I absolutely love it. It’s heavy but very easy to get used to – I suspect I will use it 75%-plus of the time we are in China. I will be taking all the lenses, an extra battery, two chargers, six 16gb SD cards, and the MacBook Air with external HD backup. Over 7,400 miles from home, I don’t want to find myself wishing I’d brought something else… So we are off to Shanghai, Bejing, Xi’an, Wuhan, Hong Kong, and Macau (June 10-18th). We are traveling with the Bard College Conservatory of Music and I’m sure the trip will be amazing. I set up a primitive web site (Home Page) for uploading pictures directly from LR4 (assuming internet availability) and plan to load a few shots each day for our friends to see in “real-time.” Hope you enjoy them too. And again, many thanks for your help! David I find the key (for me anyway) is to keep a little distance between you and the subject. Unless of course you have time to sit with a static subject. Enjoy and let's see some photos! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DLS Posted June 4, 2012 Author Share #52 Posted June 4, 2012 So we are off to Shanghai, Bejing, Xi’an, Wuhan, Hong Kong, and Macau (June 10-18th). We are traveling with the Bard College Conservatory of Music and I’m sure the trip will be amazing. I set up a primitive web site (Home Page) for uploading pictures directly from LR4 (assuming internet availability) and plan to load a few shots each day for our friends to see in “real-time.” Hope you enjoy them too. And again, many thanks for your help! David OOPS - dates are June 10-28th and I certainly didn't mean to separate you all from "our friends." David Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
StephenPatterson Posted June 5, 2012 Share #53 Posted June 5, 2012 David, I will be in Hong Kong the week of June 25, so if you're in town then drop me a PM if you want to get together and shoot. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ecaton Posted June 5, 2012 Share #54 Posted June 5, 2012 If I wanted one, I had one. Hope this answers your question. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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