List Price: $780.00
Sale Price: $489.00
Today's Bonus: 37% Off
Many fine lenses are outstanding on a technical scale, yet fail to truly inspire your photography. Some cheap lenses are inspiring, yet leave much to be desired in terms of image quality. This lens is both wicked sharp and truly inspiring. Flipping through any of my photos, I can always tell the shots taken with my Nokton. Somehow, this lens has a soul.
Wide open at f/1.4, the image is somewhat soft in the center and quite soft in the corners. In real life, it is not too much of an issue because at f/1.4, your depth of field is so narrow, only what you focused on will be in focus (unless you are one of those poor people who only take photos of brick walls). Stop down to around f/2.0 or thereabouts, the bokeh becomes amazingly creamy and the center is sharp. Did I mention that the bokeh is superb? Stop down to f/4 through f/8, and you get a resolution monster. Everything is sharp across the field. Likely, stopped down in this area, this lens will outresolve your sensor (with virtually no chromatic aberation to boot).
I use this lens for portraits, bokeh shots, and landscapes. It is the best lens for each case. The construction is top notch. This lens feels heavy and old school in the best sense. The all metal construction, overdamped focus, and general "mass" to it remind me of a machine tool or well oiled firearm. You just want to touch it. This lens has doubled in price since I bought it. Knowing what I know now, I would gladly pay market price for it again.
Gripes: Not many. This is a manual focus lens, and manual focus at f/1.4 is not easy. If you are not experienced in manual focus, don't get this lens to take photos of your kid running around the playground (though, in the right circumstances, manual focus can be very rewarding).
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