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I have had the good luck to get a Noctilux early by pure happenstance. I will post a few pix soon, but I confirm what everybody is seeing. I will add that I find the lens to be sharp wide open, but only in the very center and that spot has low contrast. I’m hesitant to use the word glow because I think that is overused manner of describing spherical chromatic aberrations, when describing lenses. But away from center, wide open you are not likely to satisfy any descriptor that includes sharp. In practice, that means, if you wish to use this for portraits wide open and you’d like an eye to be sharp, it best be near the center of the frame.  However, as you start stopping down, sharpness and contrast increase dramatically, far more than I expected from the Noctilux that preceded the f 1.0 version. The best way I can describe it is that the lens rapidly changes personality as you stop down, getting sharp and contrasty throughout the whole frame while out of focus areas remain drastically different from more modern and highly corrected lenses such as the Summilux and of course the APO Summicron. I have never owned the other Noctilux lenses, but this Noctilux is not a large lens, smaller than the latest Voigtlander 50 1.2, which is their smallest version yet of their 50 Noctilux 1.1/1.2 line. Granted the Voigtlander is a fraction of the cost of the Leica but the Voigtlander is not a Leica clone, the two lenses are very different and deciding which is better is a very subjective task indeed.

There are famous studies of wine tasting and rating where knowledgeable  consumers derive quantifiable enjoyment, real pleasure, that can be correlated with the increasing cost of the wine, if they are aware of the cost. While that would seem like exposing the “scam” of wine pricing and quality, I will confess that occasionally I have an acquaintance that shares very special bottles of wine with us and I never ask what it costs, its his pleasure to share, and I know it is far more than what I would ever pay, but I tell you what, even not knowing the cost, his wines are the finest I’ve ever had in my life. I would probably fall off my chair if I knew how much he was spending on his wine and he would do likewise if he knew how much that little camera and lens sitting on the table cost. (whaddya  mean, it doesn’t even shoot in color!?) So, while I believe the studies about wine pleasure and cost, I also know that those wines are indescribably better than the average swill I bring in my house to have with dinner... The Leica Noctilux f 1.2 is a very fine sip of wine, and the Voigtlander 1.2 is very tasty also.

If you are looking for resolution and contrast tests to separate the two, to distinguish one from the other as “better”, neither of these  lenses are for you, skip right ahead and just go get yourself one of the highly corrected APO’s from either Leica or Voigtlander.

 

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Leica M6. Leica 50mm f1.2 Noctilux lens.  Tri-X rated at 800, developed 7:45 in XTOL stock with added Rodinal 1:100. 20 degrees Celsius. 

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I guess it's that time of the year, although I've never been able to figure out the connection between rabbits and Easter. Crazy Americans!

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4 hours ago, fotografr said:

I guess it's that time of the year, although I've never been able to figure out the connection between rabbits and Easter. Crazy Americans!

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German Lutherans came up with the Easter Hare, or rabbit that acted as a judge of whether children were good or disobedient.

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Just now, jdlaing said:

German Lutherans came up with the Easter Hare, or rabbit that acted as a judge of whether children were good or disobedient.

Obedient or disobedient 🙂

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I spent a bit of time today just getting to know this new lens and I'm really liking what I see. I was concerned that the focus throw might make working quickly a bit of a challenge but that's not at all the case. I also had concerns that unless I took extreme care with focusing I'd end up with unsharp images, but it turns out that the lens is sharper wide open than I expected. I absolutely love the bokeh and how fast the transition is from sharp to out of focus. The few images I'm posting below aren't great photography but are only meant to demonstrate the character of this extraordinary lens. All were shot at f/1.2 with my M10-P.

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Perhaps the world's worst lawn ornament (across the street from my house).

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Getting ready to make coffee this morning.

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In the window of an ice cream shop near my house.

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Very quick grab shot at the store.

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vor 7 Minuten schrieb Al Brown:

A little poll - in your opinion, would this lens have gotten the same love and passionate affection in 2021 had it not Leica Noctilux written on it?

Please open up a new thread for this and for general discussions. This one is meant for images in general.

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10 hours ago, fotografr said:

It's still a puzzle to me how that connects to Easter.

The Lutherans of old did a lot of puzzling things. 😃

I suspect it was just to keep the kids in line and used that day as a crutch.

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10 hours ago, fotografr said:

It's still a puzzle to me how that connects to Easter.

It's quite simple, really.  At Easter, the Easter Bunny travels to and fro, laying chocolate eggs.  Children hunt for them, find them and eat them. 

In his wisdom, the Easter Bunny knows exactly where to lay chocolate eggs so that good little children will find them.  The eggs that little hooligans find and eat look like chocolate, but they are made of something else.

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Magnolia Flower

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24 minutes ago, Wonzo said:

Magnolia Flower

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Lovely. Your area is just slightly ahead of ours. I expect to start seeing the magnolias in about two weeks. 

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I believe I inherited my interest in photography from my father. Whenever our family traveled he constantly pulled out thiis camera to record our trips, generally on Kodachrome. When I was starting my third year as a journalism major I needed a camera for the photojournalism course I was enrolled in so my dad gave me this one--my first rangefinder. It was so difficult to use that after struggling with it for about two weeks I went out and bought a 35mm SLR. I still have the Argus camera but it doesn't work anymore. 

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