How about this? I traced around the hood of the Cron and then took both lenses, marking where their respective points were. The Cron has an extremely long throw from 0.3 to 0.7, the throw of the Noctilux is slightly longer from 0.7 to infinity. Infinity was the starting point of both lenses. Obviously not exact as the Noctilux is fatter, so degree will be even more than this picture shows
All the images above had to be off the back lcd. My copy is front focusing horribly. I checked all my other Lux's, they are all spot on. Also checked on my M11M, same exact result. 3 feet away it is front focusing exactly 3 inches. Will 100% have to be sent in, I have to pay for shipping and cover the insurance - not a cheap shipment. I have a trip I want to take this lens on next month, I'll wait until after that to send in
rsolti13 wrote:
All the images above had to be off the back lcd. My copy is front focusing horribly. I checked all my other Lux's, they are all spot on. Also checked on my M11M, same exact result. 3 feet away it is front focusing exactly 3 inches. Will 100% have to be sent in, I have to pay for shipping and cover the insurance - not a cheap shipment. I have a trip I want to take this lens on next month, I'll wait until after that to send in
Dang. What a bummer. That's not an insignificant error and focusing with the screen isn't great in most situations. Do you have a Visoflex? It works flawlessly to focus the 50 1.0 Nokton, so the 35 would be easy. If the trip is important, it might be worth picking up a used one and selling it after the lens is calibrated correctly.
thanks for samples, GPT estimated these for the focus throw based on your drawing:
Results (from your sketch)
APO 0.3 → ∞: ≈ 302.5°
Noctilux 0.5 → ∞: ≈ 173.5°
Noctilux 0.7 → ∞: ≈ 95.5°
APO (“Cron”) 0.7 → ∞: ≈ 73.7°
pretty disappointing to see yet again miscalibration for brand new lens. in the meantime for your trip if the noctilux will be primary lens you can always temporarily adjust the RF with the hex key to the lens, then calibrate it back to your other lenses after the trip when it's being sent back
josh-himes wrote:
Dang. What a bummer. That's not an insignificant error and focusing with the screen isn't great in most situations. Do you have a Visoflex? It works flawlessly to focus the 50 1.0 Nokton, so the 35 would be easy. If the trip is important, it might be worth picking up a used one and selling it after the lens is calibrated correctly.
rsolti13 wrote:
How about this? I traced around the hood of the Cron and then took both lenses, marking where their respective points were. The Cron has an extremely long throw from 0.3 to 0.7, the throw of the Noctilux is slightly longer from 0.7 to infinity. Infinity was the starting point of both lenses. Obviously not exact as the Noctilux is fatter, so degree will be even more than this picture shows
ftllens wrote:
thanks for samples, GPT estimated these for the focus throw based on your drawing:
Results (from your sketch)
APO 0.3 → ∞: ≈ 302.5°
Noctilux 0.5 → ∞: ≈ 173.5°
Noctilux 0.7 → ∞: ≈ 95.5°
APO (“Cron”) 0.7 → ∞: ≈ 73.7°
pretty disappointing to see yet again miscalibration for brand new lens. in the meantime for your trip if the noctilux will be primary lens you can always temporarily adjust the RF with the hex key to the lens, then calibrate it back to your other lenses after the trip when it's being sent back
Thank you! That was precise and really helpful. Here is what Grok came up with. I asked for precision and this is the closest it could get, which is pretty close to your results. I agree that the 35/1.2 Noctilux focus throw from the 0.7m tactile indentation to infinity is not very large at around ~100 degrees, which is actually quite normal.
We can see which way the wind is blowing in the table below. And close focus on wide-to-normal lenses opens up many opportunities. It will always have sound resale. Fun fact: it weighs 18% of the weight of an M11 (93g/530g).
Leica M lens: recent releases by year of release and MFD.
Focus throw long or not, I'm certainly able to focus correctly on M EV1 without much time.
The long focus throw lenses take time to focus but somehow that does not seem to be the case with this noctilux for me.
rsolti13 wrote:
I don’t have a Visoflex, going to pick one up
hmmmm, not good news that a $10k lens right out of the box has to be sent back for adjustment. Even worse, images I've seen from my friend are not center sharp at f1.2. It could be either his lens isn't focusing correctly, or perhaps because he's using a EV1. And at the risk of offending EV1 owners, from what I've seen thus far, with some lenses it's not easy to absolutely nail focus with the EV1.
I shoot with rangefinders and while I'm okay with the $10k price tag, no way am I shelling it out until I'm absolutely certain rsolti13's bad copy of the 35 nocti was a fluke AND that the 35 nocti IS center sharp at f1.2. If it isn't center sharp at f1.2, then there's no reason for me to get it since I've already got the cron 35 APO.
brick33308 wrote:
hmmmm, not good news that a $10k lens right out of the box has to be sent back for adjustment. Even worse, images I've seen from my friend are not center sharp at f1.2. It could be either his lens isn't focusing correctly, or perhaps because he's using a EV1. And at the risk of offending EV1 owners, from what I've seen thus far, with some lenses it's not easy to absolutely nail focus with the EV1.
I shoot with rangefinders and while I'm okay with the $10k price tag, no way am I shelling it out until I'm absolutely certain rsolti13's bad copy of the 35 nocti was a fluke AND that the 35 nocti IS center sharp at f1.2. If it isn't center sharp at f1.2, then there's no reason for me to get it since I've already got the cron 35 APO....Show more →
You are mistaken. Even using the Visoflex on the M11, focusing fast lenses is levels of magnitude easier than using the rangefinder. And that's assuming your lens and camera are calibrated perfectly. If one is a bit out, you'll never hit focus wide open with a Noctilux 0.95 or 50 F1 Nokton. The 35 has a much broader depth of field than either of those ultra fast 50's and focusing with either the M11/Visoflex 2 or EV1 would be trivial.
josh-himes wrote:
You are mistaken. Even using the Visoflex on the M11, focusing fast lenses is levels of magnitude easier than using the rangefinder. And that's assuming your lens and camera are calibrated perfectly. If one is a bit out, you'll never hit focus wide open with a Noctilux 0.95 or 50 F1 Nokton. The 35 has a much broader depth of field than either of those ultra fast 50's and focusing with either the M11/Visoflex 2 or EV1 would be trivial.
This begs the question, when the M12 appears, likely later in the year, will it sport a viewfinder that is optimal for such fast lenses? Hugh Brownstone, in his last video, suggest that it should have an EVF of 9.4 million dots and a magnification of 1x. I think that he was suggesting a hybrid viewfinder that retains an electronic version of today’s mechanical rangefinder. Of course, they might just punt and relegate such lenses to use on an VF3, SL4, or EV2. I realize that there are many that have perfectly calibrated rangefinders and get close to 100% sharp eyes at apertures close to 1.0. I’m not in the 100% elite., but I can say that the EVF in the A7RV was quite easy to use for manual focus and it wasn’t a 1.0x viewfinder.
Yes, I watched part of that video and I disagree with his theory that you need a hi res evf to focus fast lenses accurately. I've used all recent cameras from GFX to Sony/Lumix etc. Focusing is easy as pie with any of them, you just need good technique. Maybe that guy has bad eyes or some other issue. Even using much older generations of cameras (A7S, SL 601, etc) focusing the very fastest lenses is a breeze. My A1 makes it easier, but not by that much.
brick33308 wrote:
hmmmm, not good news that a $10k lens right out of the box has to be sent back for adjustment. Even worse, images I've seen from my friend are not center sharp at f1.2. It could be either his lens isn't focusing correctly, or perhaps because he's using a EV1. And at the risk of offending EV1 owners, from what I've seen thus far, with some lenses it's not easy to absolutely nail focus with the EV1.
I shoot with rangefinders and while I'm okay with the $10k price tag, no way am I shelling it out until I'm absolutely certain rsolti13's bad copy of the 35 nocti was a fluke AND that the 35 nocti IS center sharp at f1.2. If it isn't center sharp at f1.2, then there's no reason for me to get it since I've already got the cron 35 APO....Show more →
Without a doubt, this lens is sharp in center at f/1.2. I have issues because it isn't properly calibrated, but excluding that, this lens is like nothing I've used before. It almost has multiple personalities like the lux V2, yet it IS extremely sharp even wide open. From the small sample size I have, I would characterize as the following:
- sharp dead center, even at f/1.2. Not Cron APO sharpness, but more like 35 Cron sharp dead center. Not just usable, looks great
- towards edges/corners wide open 50 0.95 look, yet not as pronounced
- stopping down sharpens up in the center, but still retains almost like a faint glow, reminding you it isn't a Cron APO
- stopping down edges/corners cleans up really quickly, f/2.8 or f/4 looks more like a regular Cron. Overall feeling of the image retains the softer glow, never reaches Cron APO quality
- high vignetting at/near wide open. Doesn't look much different than Cron APO to be honest, which is also extremely high
I decided to take my chance on getting the lens back in time for my trip - sending it off today. They quoted me 4-5 weeks. I need it back before 7 weeks
I picked up mine last week (I might have got the last item at my dealer, but availability appears a lot better on this side of the Atlantic) but haven't had much time to test it properly thanks to terrible weather and work life being busy...
Anyway, a few thoughts:
Firstly, apart from a few Q bodies, I have no Leica cameras. I use M glass on Sony bodies (mostly the a1 II).
Focus throw: As people have said, the throw isn't as bad as it may at first seem. The way I work is to treat the throw in two ranges, close and far. When I'm walking up to my subject, I'm already moving the focus into the rough region I will need. Using the haptic feedback at 0.7m helps here. Then when I bring the camera to my eye, I'm only really moving the ring a small amount, and I appreciate the precision the longer throw provides.
Also on focus throw, Fred asks a great question about why the throw is so much longer on this f/1.2 than it is on the f/1.4 since the DoF isn't all that different. My theory here is that it is due to the size/weight of the focusing groups. It might be that moving them smoothly requires more torque?
Focusing in general isn't terribly difficult. The other lens I use is the 50/0.95 and that is far harder to focus due to having a shallowed DoF and because it never gets quite as sharp as the 35/1.2 so it's harder to identify when the subject is at peak sharpness (via magnification or peaking). On the 50/0.95 Noctilux, I ofen switch the EVF into black and white (through a Picture Profile) and use red peaking, even when the final result is in colour. This helps when the peaking signal isn't as strong. On the 35/1.2 I don't need to do this at all thanks to the sharpness in the centre.
Finally, I no longer have a 35APO to compare against, but I did do a quick comparison with the Sony 35GM. The Noctilux is as sharp (if not a bit sharper) in the centre at f/1.2 as the Sony is at f/1.4. The Sony is notably sharper in the corners, however, but this may be due to sensor stack depth. Both lenses balance very well on the Sony a1 II as well.
bwcolor wrote:
This begs the question, when the M12 appears, likely later in the year, will it sport a viewfinder that is optimal for such fast lenses? Hugh Brownstone, in his last video, suggest that it should have an EVF of 9.4 million dots and a magnification of 1x. I think that he was suggesting a hybrid viewfinder that retains an electronic version of today’s mechanical rangefinder. Of course, they might just punt and relegate such lenses to use on an VF3, SL4, or EV2. I realize that there are many that have perfectly calibrated rangefinders and get close to 100% sharp eyes at apertures close to 1.0. I’m not in the 100% elite., but I can say that the EVF in the A7RV was quite easy to use for manual focus and it wasn’t a 1.0x viewfinder....Show more →
You can hike the resolution of the EVF but without IBIS, it’s still tricky.
what I want from the 35 nocti: more than decent center sharpness at f1.2. I wouldn't expect same center sharpness of my cron 35 APO at f2, but close to it. Mid field and edge sharpness at f1.2 - not a concern to me, and indeed if I'm shooting the 35 nocti at f1.2, I would appreciate fall off from center sharpness.
And of course I expect the 35 nocti out of the box to focus properly, unlike rsolti13's copy. It's shocking (at least to me, not sure about others) that Leica apparently doesn't have sufficient quality controls to prevent a lens of this caliber and price point to be released like the copy rsolti13 received.
brick33308 wrote:
what I want from the 35 nocti: more than decent center sharpness at f1.2. I wouldn't expect same center sharpness of my cron 35 APO at f2, but close to it. Mid field and edge sharpness at f1.2 - not a concern to me, and indeed if I'm shooting the 35 nocti at f1.2, I would appreciate fall off from center sharpness.
And of course I expect the 35 nocti out of the box to focus properly, unlike rsolti13's copy. It's shocking (at least to me, not sure about others) that Leica apparently doesn't have sufficient quality controls to prevent a lens of this caliber and price point to be released like the copy rsolti13 received....Show more →
When I had a lens calibrated in the film days, the technician asked that I also send in the camera. Is this no longer the case?
sidaths wrote:
I picked up mine last week (I might have got the last item at my dealer, but availability appears a lot better on this side of the Atlantic) but haven't had much time to test it properly thanks to terrible weather and work life being busy...
Anyway, a few thoughts:
Firstly, apart from a few Q bodies, I have no Leica cameras. I use M glass on Sony bodies (mostly the a1 II).
Focus throw: As people have said, the throw isn't as bad as it may at first seem. The way I work is to treat the throw in two ranges, close and far. When I'm walking up to my subject, I'm already moving the focus into the rough region I will need. Using the haptic feedback at 0.7m helps here. Then when I bring the camera to my eye, I'm only really moving the ring a small amount, and I appreciate the precision the longer throw provides.
Also on focus throw, Fred asks a great question about why the throw is so much longer on this f/1.2 than it is on the f/1.4 since the DoF isn't all that different. My theory here is that it is due to the size/weight of the focusing groups. It might be that moving them smoothly requires more torque?
Focusing in general isn't terribly difficult. The other lens I use is the 50/0.95 and that is far harder to focus due to having a shallowed DoF and because it never gets quite as sharp as the 35/1.2 so it's harder to identify when the subject is at peak sharpness (via magnification or peaking). On the 50/0.95 Noctilux, I ofen switch the EVF into black and white (through a Picture Profile) and use red peaking, even when the final result is in colour. This helps when the peaking signal isn't as strong. On the 35/1.2 I don't need to do this at all thanks to the sharpness in the centre.
Finally, I no longer have a 35APO to compare against, but I did do a quick comparison with the Sony 35GM. The Noctilux is as sharp (if not a bit sharper) in the centre at f/1.2 as the Sony is at f/1.4. The Sony is notably sharper in the corners, however, but this may be due to sensor stack depth. Both lenses balance very well on the Sony a1 II as well.
I'd love to see some images at f1.2 from your copy that demonstrate its center sharpness.
And not to open up a can of worms discussing how well the EV1 focuses, does anyone feel it will be difficult to focus the 35 nocti at f1.2 using a rangefinder (like my M11P) without the aid of the LCD and/or visoflex 2?
