It’s that time of the year again: The annual bash with members of Leica Society, one of the two national clubs for Leica buffs (the other being the Leica Fellowship). Yesterday we met at Leica’s Mayfair studio under the care of our president, actor David Suchet — who is himself a maestro with the rangefinder — to hear all the latest (at least, all the latest as of Thursday, 16 November; but watch this space) on the world of Leica. This year we were in the care of Arteh Odjidga who previously worked for Leica but is now a successful fashion photographer and organiser of photographic workshops. Our usual host, Robin Sinha was away in Wetzlar, doing we know not what.
Arteh gave us a comprehensive rundown on the current Leica range, including the very successful M10 and the TL2 introduced during the summer. What we couldn’t learn about, however, was any impending future products. Perhaps we should have come later in the month.
I was there with a double motive. I knew that the event would provide a supply of interesting portrait subjects (victims?) and I was anxious to try out the new Voigländer Nokton 50mm f/1.1 which the importers, Flaghead Photographic, had sent along for testing. I’ll be doing a full review later, but yesterday was my first serious outing. I collected the lens on Tuesday from Ivor Cooper at Red Dot Cameras, who is kindly acting as a postbox in this matter, and I experienced initial disappointment when I mounted it on the M10. We scuttled across to the Trafalgar Square area to get some initial shots. Sadly, I didn’t do too well with the rangefinder and it’s a problem I need to address.
All changed, though, when I put the Nokton on the SL. While it was still relatively difficult to get things right when using focus peaking on the SL, the magnification focus aid was a revelation. It’s what I used yesterday at the Society meeting and I found it incredibly easy to get spot-in focus. I have no doubt it will perform equally well on the M10 and Visoflex, but I haven’t yet had the opportunity to try it out.
I should make it clear that yesterday I was using the Nokton wide open as an experiment. Ultra-fast lenses at maximum aperture are notoriously difficult to focus accurately using the rangefinder — the Leica Noctilux 0.95 is exactly the same, especially for older users with dodgy eyesight. But, as I discovered last year, the Noctilux is much easier to use on the SL than on any rangefinder. Younger readers with better eyesight might disagree, but that’s my view.
I shall be comparing the Noctilus and the Nokton as a matter of course, but I accept that these are two very different animals. The Noctilux is a more complex, more modern design and it is heavier and much more expensive. This Nokton costs £699. Ok, that’s a lot of dosh, but not as much dosh as you’ll lay out on the Noctilux — a cool £8,265. Seen in this light, the Nokton is a massive bargain — and first impressions tell me it is no mean performer.
It’s early days yet, but I am grateful to my colleagues in the Leica Society for offering themselves up like so many sacrificial lambs to my modest skills as a portrait photographer. Most of them could have done better in my shoes, I’m sure.
Rangefinder focus
I mentioned earlier that I had been disappointed during my initial foray with the Nokton on the M10 — using the rangefinder. As these results show, I gathered a mixed bag. Focus was decidedly “soft” despite my best intentions. Unfortunately, the rangefinder is WYSIWYMG (what you see is what you might get) and at f/1.1 even the slightest movement of the head between focus and shutter release can cause mayhem. I put this down to operator error, although there is also the possibility of back focus issues, but I will sort it out for the review. The following three pictures are my very first attempts with the Nokton on the M10 using the rangefinder.
If you are interested in joining the Leica Society or the Leica Fellowship, here are the contact details.
More TLS visitors get the Nokton treatment…..
The £699 Voigtlander 50/1.1 is very reasonably priced. Maybe at another TLS GTG I’ll bring my Canon FD 50/1.2 L and Canon FD 85/1.2L manual focus lenses (both acquired from Mahendra at MW years ago) for comparison. Fast primes are fascinating for their different/individual types of bokeh at maximum aperture. Modern digital cameras’ focusing aids e.g. image magnification and peaking are very useful for achieving spot-on focus. We’ve never had it so good for creative wide aperture portraiture.
I agree Dunk. Using ultra-fast lenses can be fun, provided you know when to soft pedal a bit — in situations where critically narrow depth of field actually detracts from the picture. We do have it good with modern cameras. My concern about these fast lenses is that they are not for everyday use unless you stop down dramatically. And that rather defeats the object because you then begin to think you’d be better off with a Summicron or Elmarit. And you probably would be at those apertures or at, say, f/5.6. The Noctilux and this Nokton then become expensive and heavy bits of kit that have no advantage.
I suppose that there is no point in buying a lens with 0.95 or 1.1 maximum aperture unless you are going to use it. I still find focus peaking to be still a bit of a work in progress, but then my eyesight is not the best. I find that a rangefinder at 24mm to 50mm is probably the best you can get. For wider lenses you don’t really need to do much focussing. I find that 75mm is OK, but I have never been able to get satisfactory focus on a rangefinder with a 90mm lens. I suspect that a number of the many 90mm lenses in my collection are a bit ‘off’. So far focus peaking has not been a fully satisfactory solution. Then again, most of my 90mm lenses are just collector’s pieces, as it is a focal length I rarely use. I tend to think and see in ‘normal’ or ‘slightly wide’ and not in ‘tele’.
William
William, I’m not a great fan of focus peaking, but it does work well in the right circumstances. If the setting is too heavy, however, it becomes difficult to judge the sort of fine focus that is necessary at 0.95 or f/1.1. It can be less precise than the rangefinder. In this case, I much prefer focus magnification. This allows very precise focus, assuming the diopter is correctly set for the user’s eyesight. I suspect it is for this reason that Leica introduced such modest, almost undetectable peaking on the TL2 (and it isn’t adjustable). When it does work, it offers the higher degree of precision that is lacking in the slapped-on lipstick mode available on other systems. Focus magnification works well on both the SL and M10, especially on the latter because it is activated automatically by movement in the focus ring.
I find that the focus magnification on the M10 has a mind of its own. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, for reasons I cannot fathom. I can sometimes get it back manually, but sometimes it won’t work at all. My EVF for the M10 currently has a piece of Blu Tack in it to stop it from swivelling unnecessarily when I put it to my eye. I would not call it a super slick state of the art device. Hopefully, the EVF in the new camera, to be announced next week, will be a considerable improvement.
William
William
Sorry, I could not make it to Mayfair this year. I had several other engagements in Dublin yesterday and only managed to make it to two of them. It is good to see Dan, Dunk, Tony and all my other friends enjoying the event. Dunk has already given me a run down on the event. You are certainly becoming a dab hand with that f1.1 lens and I can see that you have improved your technique over time. With my bad eyesight I imagine I would have a lot of difficulty at f1.1. F2 is about my limit for reasonable accuracy of focus. I have checked my photo of yourself (Last Rose of Summar article on this site) taken with a rigid Summar from 1932 at last year’s event. I think that it was taken somewhere between f2 and f3.2 to give myself some latitude. It is naturally not as sharp as the Voigtlander shots, but it has its own character and the bokeh is quite comparable to that of the modern lens even though the lenses themselves are not really comparable.
William
Thanks, William. You were missed! I also have some difficulty with the rangefinder at such wide apertures (as I mentioned in the article). It’s probably old age. But then, scanning the attendance at Mayfair yesterday, we are all more or less in the same boat. Dan Bachman was the baby of the bunch (not counting Arteh). I do think, however, that you would find focusing a Noctilux (or this Nokton) with the aid of the Visoflex to be much, much easier. You should try it.