Hi, Would anyone know the relative handling differences between the three types of Noctilux 50mm 1.0 lenses?(58mm,60mm/removable hood, and 60mm/ built in hood.) And...which you consider your favorite? Thanks and Happy New Year!

-- Emile de Leon (knightpeople @msn.com), December 30, 2001

Answers

I've used (but not owned) each of the versions over the years, they all handle pretty much the same except that of course the latest version has the hood built-in. I didn't use them outdoors in sunlight, and for night scenes the Noct is nearly impossible to get flare from point light sources, so the current version was irritating to me because I couldn't remove the hood and it blocks more of the finder than the previous versions. If I were going to buy one I think I'd look for the E58 version simply because the filters are more widely available and cheaper than E60 as Canon uses E58 for many of their lenses. Personally I never warmed up to the Noctilux, or the 75 Lux for that matter. Too big and heavy, strong vignetting wide open, and DOF too shallow for my imagination. I go with the 50/2 and faster film.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), December 30, 2001.

Yes, the Summicron is quite the lens. However, it isn't perfect.

Notice the flare on the blonde nymph. Shooting at maximum aperture challenges any lens... no matter who the maker. I suspect the same would be true of the Noctilux... only with a shallower plane of focus.

Cheers,

-- John Chan (ouroboros_2001@yahoo.com), December 30, 2001.

I had to stare *really* hard at the blonde nymph to see the flare, and I also spent some time staring at the brunette nymph too ;>) Actually the Noctilux excels beyond the Summicron with point-source flare supression. Other lenses equally as proficient at flare supression are the 85 R lens, 75 Lux, 28/2.8 E46 and 21ASPH. In point of fact I might have used the latter for this shot...just to get in closer to the subjects ;>)

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), December 30, 2001.

In addition to red-eye, we now have red-eye-socket. Jumped right out at me. John, where was the light source? Just behind her, or behind the sign? Or outside the frame? And which Summicron version were you using?

-- Bob Fleischman (RFXMAIL@prodigy.net), December 30, 2001.

I can't really say. Overall, the scene was extremely "low contrast" so I chose to shoot it with 100 ISO slide film pushed 2 stops to 400. Again this is my first foray into push-processing slide film but I figured that pushing it would exaggerate the contrast to more acceptable levels. I think the light source was behind the sign (a Le Chateau store with spotlights in the window). The shot was taken at full aperture with a current FORMULATION 50 Summicron with the removable shade and built in focus tab.

-- John Chan (ouroboros_2001@yahoo.com), December 30, 2001.

The flare in the "Midnight Madness" picture is coming from the bright yellow light between the girl's head and the sign - note that the red blush is also visible in the edge of the blue sign.

I don't know why red/yellow light "blooms" like this while (presumably brighter) white light doesn't - but I've noticed it with most color films with, e.g. red traffic lights.

-- Andy Piper (apidens@denver.infi.net), December 30, 2001.

Andy, I've been thinking about that red/yellow thing for quite some time now and I'd like to propose an explanation.

Red and yellow light are the longest wavelengths in the visible spectrum thus the degree of refraction in optical glasses is less. That's essentially how the Sony Nightshot feature can "see" through some types of thin clothing. The sum of refractive indices of your lens groups is fixed but the behaviour of the different wavelengths of light are not equal. So OOF highlights that are blue will be refracted to a greater extent than OOF highlights that are rich in red. Therefore the OOF red highlights will less "diffuse" giving you that red corona that we see. I think even the APO designation only refers to the performance of a lens when everything is in perfect focus.

I've given this alot of thought because I work on a flow cytometer and notice that the red profiles (Texas Red staining) are not as "tight" as green profiles (fluorescien) that I run... and the flow cytometer determines the profiles by measuring emmissions using a non-APO lens system and bandpass filters.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong about something... I'm not a physicist (sorry to say).

-- John Chan (ouroboros_2001@yahoo.com), December 30, 2001.

I read somewhere (on Erwins site I think) at the Nocti has no distinct advantage over the Summicon 50/f2 except for its ability to shoot in low/bad lighting situations.

Jason

-- Jason (jason@futurafish.com), January 02, 2002.