Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/04/23
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Hi Johnny, Excellent review! I agree with you totally. The bokeh from the summilux is really something. I took several photographs (wide open, indoors) of my friend's toddler recently in Thailand and when the results came out, the remarks was WOW! the quality is worth buying a Leica. My version is black with detachable hood came with a M5. Cheers, Paul Singapore Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2000 22:36:30 +0100 From: Johnny Deadman <deadman@jukebox.demon.co.uk> Subject: [Leica] nokton v. summilux first impressions Haven't done the detailed test yet but I have shot enough with the summilux 50 (about ten rolls) to give some first impresssions. Lens in question is a mid-sixties chrome version with absolutely crystal clear glass which cost about 30% more than the Nokton. Bear in mind these are impressions from real-life use handheld with APX 400 film, not photographing newspapers on APX 25 in Rodinal. Good thing or bad thing? you decide. First, handling. The focus throw is much longer on the Summilux than the Nokton. This makes focusing wide open more accurate, and I feel more confident about it. However, it makes tracking a moving target more difficult, especially as the throw from around 6 feet to three feet requires a huge wrist action. Second sharpness. Both lenses are critically sharp from 2.8 onwards, but I'm really interested in what happens wide open. Here they are radically different. The Nokton is very, very sharp even wide open. The Summilux has lower contrast wide open which makes it appear less sharp unless you are ABSOLUTELY spot on with the focus, in which case the whole frame twangs and you realise it is actually a very sharp lens too. I would say the Nokton has the edge, though. The nature of the sharpness is very different, too. The Nokton makes everything look almost 'engraved'. I might be bullshitting here but my guts tell me it is better at edges than gradations. The Leica is quite the opposite. Everything has a silky sweetness which, especially in a good 'tone' film like APX 400, makes you want to go mmmmmm. I don't get this with the Nokton, though the 75 color-heliar does a pretty good impression. Third flare. Both lenses have to be pointed into the sun to flare egregiously. Not like the 35 Summilux. Both very well behaved. However, in adverse light the Nokton is subject to an overall lowering of contrast which you only really notice when you compare it to the Summilux, which just doesn't suffer from the same thing. Fourth, and the biggest difference, bokeh. The problem with the Nokton for me is that the out-of-focus (OOF) detail just looked ugly. I found the same thing with the Minolta Rokkor 28. In a 1.4 lens your OOF areas need to look good. Bokeh is tremendously hard to describe, but one of the effects of this in the Nokton is that (to me) it draws attention to the OOF areas. In the Leica lens, however, the bokeh is very good. Nearfield areas have that familiar 'glow' while the distant field has a complex bokeh which I think is probably some 'ni-sen' variation (ie it renders out-of-focus straight lines as two lines to a greater or lesser extent). For example, the Nokton will render a point highlight in the bg as a round white disk with a quite sharp fall off, whereas the Leica will render it as a disk with a slight halo, like a fuzzy donut. The difference this makes is quite surprising to me. The Summilux appears to have more of the picture in focus because (key point) the transition from in-focus to out-of-focus is less obvious. Pictures with the Leica lens look 'sweet'. That's the only way I can describe it (but will post examples soon on my Human Traffic site). The Nokton's bokeh is, I am afraid, 'grubby'... mainly I think because it has quite a high edge contrast. Not blurry bokeh at all. You might guess from this 'review' that I think the lenses are pretty close. Well, I don't. The Leica wins hands down for me, simply because the out of focus areas look 'right' to me and with the Nokton they don't. Of course, this is a personaly opinion and you may just think it's another Leica idiot convincing himself he can count angels on the head of a pin, but I don't think that's the case. Anyway, will put up some pix shortly and you can judge for yourselves. Hope this helps... - - -- Johnny Deadman photos: http://www.pinkheadedbug.com music: http://www.jukebox.demon.co.uk