REVIEWS - Leica 50mm F0.95 Noctilux-M ASPH

BACKGROUND

This review was originally published in January 2014. At the time I marveled at the Leica 50mm F.95 Noctilux-M ASPH's technical achievements, but it proved to be a low-use lens for me due, mostly due to its weight and focus challenges. In the seven or so years since, the camera landscape has changed considerably. EVF cameras dominate and the even the Leica M10 has an okay'ish EVF. So I decided to try the Noctilux again (2021) and see if things turn out different this time.

BUILD QUALITY AND HANDLING

The Leica 50mm F.95 Noctilux-M ASPH's build quality is standard Leica - metal upon metal, tight tolerances and clean finishes. Focus is smooth, though it can feel somewhat stiff compared to other, smaller Leica M lenses. The aperture ring is easy to find, and clicks easily across the detents. The built-in lens hood slides out and rotates to lock into place. There are no rattles, no wobbles and everything feels tight. The build quality is everything we expect from Leica. That said, Leica has understated some of the specifications:

The Noctilux ASPH feels nose heavy on the Leica M10, so something like Match Technical's Thumbs-Up is a must-have in my opinion. The Noctilux’s weight leads to camera shake, so I try to keep shutter speeds faster than 1/50th. One bit of Noctilux trivia, the whether black or silver, the weight is the same. Both are made of the same material. The only difference is the finish. The weights listed in specification table above are the exacts of my two Noctilux's. I do not know why the silver version weighed 5 grams less.

OPTICAL PERFORMANCE

The Noctilux ASPH incorporates two aspherical elements with a floating lens element (FLE) design. A FLE lens group improves near-field sharpness and generally reduces focus shift.

Leica 50mm F.95 Noctilux-M ASPH Optical Formula

If buying a F.95 lens, the whole purpose of the lens is F.95, so some quick observations about the 50mm F.95 Noctilux-M ASPH’s performance at its wider apertures:

• Sharpness:  I have owned the Voigtlander 50mm F1.1 Nokton and Leica 50mm F1 Noctilux-M (E60) and found their wide open sharpness to be unimpressive. The Noctilux ASPH easily wins - and is a faster lens. At F.95 the Noctilux is not as sharp as the Leica 50mm Summilux-M ASPH at F1.4, but still quite good.
• Color and Contrast:  The Noctilux ASPH images seem to have slightly more punch or pop in their color and contrast compared to the Leica 50mm Summilux-M ASPH. The Noctilux’s color rendition is similar to the Leica 35mm F1.4 Summilux-M ASPH FLE.

Sharpness is a mixed result. While the Noctilux has a floating lens element, its near sharpness has been underwhelming. The best results have been at distances like 10 to 50 feet. Also, sharpness drops off quite quickly from the center when shooting F.95. On the other hand, I have had some shots come out much sharper than expected - the steam engine picture came out really sharp for F.95. For a bit context, pretty much every Leica M10-M picture on this page was taken on a tripod and focused via EVF.

The picture below is a good example of how the Noctilux bokeh can render. Sharpness is great and nothing is “wrong” with the picture, but the aperture blades are not circular, so the bokeh orbs have straight edges. There is a degree of cats-eye. And there is an onion ring effect in the bokeh orbs (generally due to mechanically polished aspherical elements) -

Leica 50mm F.95 Noctilux ASPH Bokeh Example at F1.4

Since I had the Leica 50mm Summilux-SL ASPH on hand, I compared its bokeh with the Noctilux -

All images taken at the same distance with a Leica SL Typ 601 on a tripod

The Leica 50mm Summilux-SL shows smoother bokeh along the edges / corners and is more contrasty. In the central area the Noctilux shows more blur / abstraction, especially in the F.95 image. The takeaway here is to be careful with Noctilux ASPH when the scene has busy patterns at or near the edges.

If trying to pick a stand out feature of the Leica 50mm F.95 Noctilux, it would be the "air" that it can put around the focus point. It is a mash-up of soft focus, drop off in sharpness and the various optical aberrations that propagate throughout the bokeh. Call it lens character, fingerprint, magic, Leica glow, atmosphere... whatever. It does not always happen, but when it does, it is nice.

Leica 50mm F.95 Noctilux ASPH Bokeh Example at F.95

Of course, shooting a hyper-fast prime at wide open apertures comes with risk, one of those risk is purple CA. The CA tends to clean itself up around F1.4. Below is a good example of how things can go awry at night -

Leica 50mm F.95 Noctilux-M ASPH Purple CA at F.95 vs F2.8

Fixing that amount of purple CA would require some type in Photoshop. Phase One's Capture21 software did not make any appreciable improvement when toggling its chromatic aberration or purple lens fringing slider.

CONCLUSION

The 50mm F.95 Noctilux is a polarizing lens - its size and weight are very anti-M, there's the price and the often underwhelming wide open sharpness. But then there are the outcomes. This review was expanded / updated with 12 new images - 50% of review the content - during the past 2 months. I feel that is a robust (positive) outcome.

Sometimes I am very pleased with the Noctilux's results, such as the barn image (middle of the page) and the Baker Motel image (old brick building picture). The Noctilux has done well with the Leica M10-M, which is somewhat surprising given my intent was to shoot mostly color with it.

The color images have fallen short of my expectations, but any discussion with color gets muddied with a rant of about the Leica M10-R color rendition - which I find "odd" - and that's being nice. Also, color reveals sins, like the various color aberrations and purple fringing. B&W hides those sins.

All that said, there is a fallacy in this approach of a "fact based" decision or conclusion. A Noctilux purchase decision is emotion, such as always wanting to try one, or pride of ownership, or as a halo product for M users. I can dress it up in pseudo facts and outcomes, but buying a Noctilux is 99% "want" and maybe 1% "need".

So, the bottom line is - do you want a Noctilux?