efix:photography - News. Thoughts. Pictures. » nokton 35/1.4

My guest article for stevehuffphoto.com

efix — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 20:40:10 +0000

Today, Steve Huff from stevehuffphoto.com did me the honour of publishing a little essay I wrote, entitled “How I became a rangefinder aficionado”. It’s about, well, how I became a rangefinder aficionado Those of you who frequently visit my site might already know how I came to use rangefinder cameras, as I’ve been writing on that topic in earlier posts. But if you’re interested in reading a more extensive essay about what I think and how I feel about rangefinder cameras, feel free to visit my article at stevehuffphoto.com.

Thanks again to Steve for publishing [...]

Second thoughts

efix — Thu, 20 May 2010 07:43:57 +0000

It’s been two days since I carefully packed the Nokton back into its box and sent it off back to the dealer I bought it from. I thought this was the right thing to do, as I was constantly unsatisfied with having to re-adjust focus everywhere from f/2 onwards. But now I’m having second thoughts. Was it really that bad? Could I really not have lived with it? Looking at the pictures I took with it, I found that most of them were shot wide open anyways, as I either wanted heavy bokeh or was shooting in low light. [...]

My keepers with the Nokton 35/1.4

efix — Wed, 19 May 2010 09:56:57 +0000

As I wrote earlier, I sent the Nokton back as I didn’t get along with that focus shift. I like the lens’ signature, thoug, and would’ve loved to keep it otherwise as it was small, fast and had a nice rendering. But now I’m looking for a pre-ASPH 35 ‘cron, and I’m sure I will have at least as much fun with that – if not more.

But I did take some nice shots with the Nokton, and as now that era has come to an end, I decided to share my favourites with you.

One of the [...]

Nokton 35/1.4 going back

efix — Tue, 18 May 2010 10:33:20 +0000

I decided to send the Nokton back. It’s not a bad lens – I actually got some very nice shots with it some of which I will post soon. But I just couldn’t get friends with the focusing issue. I managed to get the rangefinder aligned to be spot on with the Nokton at f/1.4 and f/1.7, but everywhere else up until f/8 focus was off by a considerable margin. As I’m kind of a perfectionist (and have been fancying the Summicron 35, to be honest), I decided this is not the lens for me. I’m sure it’s great [...]

Picture of the day (May 17, 2010)

efix — Mon, 17 May 2010 12:27:51 +0000

This is Pinot, the dog of a co-worker of my wife who was visiting us for our birthday party last weekend. He’s usually not comfortable at new places, but at our place, he immediately occupied the huge beanbag and stayed there for the remainder of the evening.

"Pinot" | Leica M8 + Nokton 35/1.4 @ f/1.4, 1/60 sec, ISO 1250 | b&w conversion in Lightroom 3 beta 2

I don’t seem to get nice colors from the M8 indoors at low light, which may at least in part be due to the lacking UV/IR filter. At the moment [...]

Picture of the day (May 14, 2010)

efix — Fri, 14 May 2010 10:16:46 +0000

"Watching TV" | Leica M8 + Nokton 35/1.4 @ f/1.4, 1/45 sec, ISO 640

The M8′s output is great for b&w conversions!

Picture of the day (May 12, 2010)

efix — Wed, 12 May 2010 18:09:41 +0000

“Balzer’s underground parking is open: ONLY FOR CUSTOMERS and employees in assigned places. Mo.-Fr. from 6:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Retract antenna! Don’t park overnight! Parking at own risk”

"Balzer's Tiefgarage" | Leica M8 + Nokton 35/1.4 @ f/1.4, 1/45 sec, ISO 160

Some M8/Nokton first shots

efix — Wed, 12 May 2010 08:34:48 +0000

I haven’t shot my new (old) M8 much yet, but did a bit and got some nice results already. And as my wife requested that I post some of the pictures I took, here you go.

My wife and Lilly | Leica M8 + Nokton 35/1.4 @ f/1.4 or f/2, 1/6000 sec, ISO 160

Here’s why I wouldn’t have wanted a shutter-upgraded M8 or M8.2 – you can shoot your fast glass wide open using shutter speeds > 1/4000 sec.!

"Lilly" | Leica M8 + Nokton 35/1.4 @ f/1.4 or f/2, 1/4000 sec, ISO 160

Picture of the day (May 11, 2010)

efix — Tue, 11 May 2010 11:32:59 +0000

Despite all the ranting about a flawed lens and a (potentially) misaligned rangefinder, my new toys do deliver great shots. It just takes some adjusting. Nonetheless, I do hope I can get either camera or lens adjusted so that at least at one given aperture setting I get in focus what I’m focusing on …

"Juxtaposed" | Leica M8 + Nokton 35/1.4 @ f/8, 1/350 sec, ISO 160

This was of course processed in Lightroom, but the M8′s out-of-camera JPEGs aren’t actually that bad if the white balance is correct. When first processing the DNGs, I had a [...]

Caution: rant

efix — Mon, 10 May 2010 15:17:02 +0000

I don’t seem to be getting anything in focus with the M8 + Nokton. I’ve been doing tests over and over and over, and results seem to be highly contradicting. What I can say for sure is that from f/2.5 onwards there’s a back-focusing issue, meaning the lens draws sharp what is slightly behind of what I was focusing on. Below f/2, it first seemed the lens was front-focusing, i. e. drawing sharp what was before what I was focusing on, but in another test I couldn’t make out anything as sharp since before f/2 the lens just isn’t [...]