Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/03/15

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Subject: [Leica] Re: size and weight of the Noctilux
From: "Doug Richardson" <doug@meditor.demon.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 12:23:54 -0000

Re: size and weight of the Noctilux

 Horst Schmidt <horsts@primus.com.au> wrote:

>I don't know much about the Jupiter 1.5. I had a F2 once, but this
was at
least mechanically pretty lousy. The way you say it, the Jupiter 1.5
is
of the same quality as the Noctilux at least from f1.5 or 1.4 onwards.
And
this for 1/30th of the price.

>I really have some doubts about this.

Hello Horst,

You message is well-timed. Just at the point when I was thinking about
unsubscribing to get away from the off-topic prattle of the
luxury-speaker-cable and Linn-Sondek crowd, here came something I
enjoyed reading - and it was about Leica.

I think you are reading more into my posting than I intended. When I
said "My 50mm f1.5 Jupiter is a fraction of the weight of the bigger
lens, and was 1/30 of the cost" I was simply talking about size and
weight - I was making no judgement in my posting about mechanical or
optical quality of the Russian lens.

Your phrase "at least mechanically pretty lousy" is perhaps over-kind
to my Jupiter, whose mount is made from very soft aluminium alloy.
Optically, the Jupiter cannot match the definition of a lens designed
some 40 years later, and my first impression of it is that the images
lack contrast, a surprising observation given the reputation of the
original Sonnar design. Cleaning might improve this, but the cost
would be almost twice what I paid for the lens.

Next time I have a day spare, I’m planning to take some photos in the
sculpture galleries of the British Museum. It might to interesting to
repeat several photos with the Noctilux at f1 and f1.5, and the
Jupiter, a pre-war 5cm Sonnar and a 5.8cm "Leica-Sonnar" all used at
f1.5.

However, the result will only be valid for my individual examples of
these lenses. Given that lenses of the earlier vintage were
hand-assembled, the results from individual examples could be
variable, so I’m always wary of claims that lens X from that era blows
lens Y into the weeds. Some of the images which my father obtained
from his 5cm Summitar are sharper than I’ve ever managed with the two
5cm Summicrons I own. I must assume he was lucky and got a really good
one.

The decision on whether to buy an f1 or an f1.4 lens may depend in
part on whether one already has a 50mm f2 lens. I did, so opted to buy
a lens which would give me two further stops. (In practice, it’s given
me three extra stops, since the extra weight of the Noctilux means I
can hand-hold 1/15 with a fair degree of confidence.)

The Jupiter was purchased later for use as a cheap fast lens my screw
cameras, my interest in these have been re-awakened by using a IIIb
during last year’s LHSA "pilgrimage’ to Wetzlar and Solms. Had I
already owned the Jupiter, I’d probably not have purchased the
Noctilux, but have used the Jupiter on a second body loaded with
faster film so as to have the same dim-light capability as a Noctilux
loaded with my regular film. I’d have assumed that camera shake at low
hand-held speeds would have degraded the optical quality of the more
modern lens and reduced the impact on image quality of the faster
film.

(Despite its size and weight, I’m getting to like the Noctilux. The
images it produces in dim light have what I can only describe as a
"glow" or "sparkle" which produces a very 3D effect. I think this may
in part be evidence that my 1950s-era Leitz lenses need to be
cleaned!)

All I was trying to suggest in my original posting was that an f1.4
lens and a faster film might for some users be a cost-effective
alternative to an f1 lens used with one’s normal film. So I was
puzzled when your message quoted me as saying:

>OK, then you may as well use a f3.5 Elmar, and a 7 times faster film

This line was not in my original posting - I don’t know who added it.
It’s an amusing but impractical idea! The practical range of
non-specialised emulsions which are available from your nearest
friendly small-town photo store is only 50 - 400 for slide film, and
50 - 800 for colour negative, which is a difference of three or four
times (ignoring the effects of push processing, if this is available).

You rightly point out that:

>you can not get the same results with a slower lens, by increasing
film speed. Something suffers.

As I have discovered with my recent sad experience with Kodachrome
200!

But for some users and some applications, the effect of a modest
increase in film speed may be either negligible or acceptable. For
work, I formerly used 200ASA film, but switched to 400. On photos
processed in the nearest "fast-photo" establishment, there is no
obvious loss of quality from the faster film, and the image as
reproduced on the printed page of a magazine will in most cases be
similar in size or even smaller than the commercial print. Next stage
will be to try 800ASA to get increased depth of field, faster shutter
speeds, or a little more dim-light capability.

Regards,

Doug Richardson