Nokton 50/1.1 Woes

…is that it’s not easy to find situations that justify the f/1.1.

Okay, that’s not really the fault of the lens.

I could use the Nokton all the time, but given that I have 50/2 lenses that are half the volume and weight, it seems superfluous.

By this reasoning, the Nokton is a very specialized lens. You’d probably not shoot with it outdoors, in the day. Going by the Sunny-16 guide, with an ISO 50 film like Pan F+, one would be looking at exposures of 1/50s at f/16, or if you maintain the same EV and open up the aperture as far as it’d go, the Leica can give you up to 1/1000s at f/4.

At night, it’s much better. I typically use an ISO 400 film and shoot at about 1/15s at f/2.8. That’s the equivalent of f/1.1 and 1/125s, which is a very comfortable shutter speed to be using (to avoid camera shake).

Where the Nokton really shines though, is in a dimly lit indoor situation. I was recently playing with it over dinner in a dark restaurant. I managed to get exposures of around 1/30s at f/1.1, which with any other lens, would have resulted in a swash of motion blur.

And this is my excuse for the lack of a review. :)