Voigtlander M Nokton 50mm f/1 MC for Leica M (and L-Mount)
Related: apochromatic, L-mount, Leica, Leica M, Voigtlander, Voigtlander Lenses, Voigtlander M, Voigtlander M Nokton 50mm f/1 Aspherical MC
New for Leica M (and L-Mount via adapter) is the Voigtlander Nokton 50mm f/1.0 MC Aspherical.
- Leica M-Mount Lens
- Aperture Range: f/1.0 to f/16
- 1 x Grinding Aspherical (GA) Front Lens
- 1 x Aspherical Element
- Multi-Coating
- Manual Focus Design
- Minimum Focus Design: 35.4"
- Filter Thread: 62mm
- 12-Blade Diaphragm
- Rangefinder Interlocking System
With a lens adapter like the Leica M-Adapter L, the Voigtlander 50/1.0 can also be used on L-Mount cameras (and others but with more ray angle issues). Best platform is Leica M, then Leica SL.
The 12-blade lens diaphragm should contribute to exceptionally smooth and pleasing out-of-focus blurs.
Consider pairing the 50/1.0 with the Voigtlander M Nokton 75mm f/1.5 Aspherical and the Voigtlander M 35mm f/2 APO-Lanthar Aspherical.
Voigtlander has acquired considerably experience over the years in making lenses on their own, and for Zeiss. Recent lenses like the Voigtlander M 50mm f/2 APO-Lanthar and Voigtlander FE 35mm f/2 APO-Lanthar are spectacular performers. Whatever you get for the price is generally a huge value relative to the competition.
Optical design
Shooting for f/1.0 means that a lot is going to suffer—f/1 is about 8 times more difficult to deal with some types of aberrations than f/2—something has to give. The interesting question is what happens stopped-down to f/4 or so—can this lens be used as an all-arounder, with high performance once stopped down? Still, presumably you buy this specialty lens for its rendering style at f/1, f/1.4, f/2.
The optical design uses a very large ground aspherical front lens element (read, expensive to make), along with another presumably molded rear aspherical element. This bodes well for wide open performance, but f/1.0 is a severe challenge.
Voigtlander does not call out the use of any special optical glass types, raising the possibility of marked secondary color issues such as violet fringing and magenta/green color bokeh (both of which are very strong with the fast Leica 50mm designs).
