Leica 50mm Noctilux ASPH – The cream of the lenses

Posted on Mar 14th, 2014

by Thierry

Last year early December, I made a trip to France to visit my family, during my stay in the South of France, my dad and I stopped by a photo store in Nice, ArtaPhoto Nice, to talk Leica.

ArtaPhoto is the official Leica Store in Nice and Stephane, the owner of the shop is one of a kind. He is a very knowledgeable Leica user and sales man and above all, he is a generous one.

In deed, he let me go away the whole afternoon with the awesomest of all lenses: The Leica 50mm f/0.95 Noctilux ASPH. The one that is listed for about 9000 Euros .. Just to see if I’d like it.

With a friend who just flew down from Lille, we wandered the vieux Nice snapping away one of France’s most beautiful landscape.

I tried to keep the aperture wide open as much as possible, even though it was mid afternoon.

I must admit I expect a lot about sharpness of a lens but when using Leica, I found myself more tolerant with this expectation. Not that because of the lens but because of the user’s fault. My fault.

It is not an easy task to focus on moving subject with a rangefinder camera but when using Leica, if you nail the focus, there is nothing out there that comes close to the render of Leica optics. Again, personal opinion. I’d even say Leica users’ opinion.

Some of the images attached below are beyond soft but for some obscure reasons, I kinda like hem. None of these would go pass the cull if I’d used another system, including my Nikon, Canon or Hasselblad gears..

So, what to say about a lens of this price..? It’s nice, easy to use and sweet to carry around .. hum not really.

The depth of field of such aperture is so tiny that it is almost impossible to put the focus where you want it to be, especially shooting street photography with moving subjects, where the instant is key to a great photograph.

Believe it or not, this lens, for me, is easier to use than my 50mm f/1.4 Summilux ASPH.. for some reason, I have more ‘keeper’ using this lens at f/0.95 than my lens at full aperture of f/1.4.