Nokton 35 1.4

Anyone have experience with the 35mm 1.4 Nokton? How does it compare to the Leica's or others?

Thanks,

Michael

This lens is known to suffer from focus shift. I don't have it, but wanted one and decided against it after reading this several places.

Your better off with any of the Leica or Zeiss options or the older CV 1.7 LTM version.

I own one, I have heard the comments but I can not confirm it Mine works . The Zeiss leses do only f=2.8, needless to say Leicas are the best.

Good luck

I have one and use it as my standard 35mm on an M8. It is well built, very compact for its aperture and very sharp, though like any wide aperture lens it is sharper stopped down a couple of stops. It does suffer from slight barrel distortion which is easily fixed in Lightroom and can be provoked into showing some flare under certain conditions. I have never seen the reported focus shift problems in practice.

I don't know if it helps but here is a shot I had to take a couple of days age (official photographer didn't turn up). Hand held, f5.6 low evening light. Sharpened from DNG and cropped vertically, very very slightly horizontally. No distortion correction.

Looks pretty good at A3.





Full size crop

Very well done

Thanks for the comments everyone. After considering it and going back and forth I have decided to spring for an m-Rokkor 40 f2, a little longer and a little slower, but there were too many good comments about it. I liked its size, and if the comments were correct that it is very similar to the Summicron, it can't be all bad. Now all I have to do is wait for it to come from across the Atlantic Ocean. I will be in Europe in August and I am trying to assemble a package to travel light.

Michael

I have the older formula Nokton 35mm f1.2. If you can find one, it is an awesome lens with edge to edge sharpness on a par with Leica, somewhat less contrast than the Leica and all in all a great lens. I use it on my M8 and my M4P. As I recall, Reid Reviews found it to be somewhat better than the later (and current) f1.4, albeit, a little larger and somewhat heavier.

I have the multicoated version. I have heard of the focus shift issues but I have either have a good copy, or they do not appear in my style of shooting. I tend to shoot this lens either wide open or above f4.

The lens is built very well and feels solid. The tolerances in the focus ring are very tight, and the feel is smooth and well damped. I have used it with film rangefinders and the M9 and I love it. The bokeh is reasonably smooth, particularly at f1.4. The lens itself is compact, fairly light, and does a great job as a general purpose and nighttime lens. It is my go-to lens for night shooting.
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Jim Evidon said:

I have the older formula Nokton 35mm f1.2. If you can find one, it is an awesome lens with edge to edge sharpness on a par with Leica, somewhat less contrast than the Leica and all in all a great lens. I use it on my M8 and my M4P. As I recall, Reid Reviews found it to be somewhat better than the later (and current) f1.4, albeit, a little larger and somewhat heavier.

Click to expand...

a great lens & a relative bargain providing you can find one

f1.2 comes in handy & wide open results are surprisingly good with this special lens

it is significantly a larger lens than 35 mm f1.4 lenses, but I do not find this onerous having cut my teeth on SLR lenses
it does block a good bit of the VF, even with its optional ventilated lens hood

it has little if any CA (may be CV's most successful design in this regard) & true to its name adroitly handles specular highlights

no problems with focus & I like its firmly smooth large knurled focus ring, though I would prefer it with some sort of tab

some examples from it can be found in my post here ------> http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1038&message=38849525
which were taken pretty much wide open, despite what the EXIF reports
I do not like the fact that I cannot enter accurate lens data with my digital Ms
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