I'm considering purchasing the the new Nokton f/1.5 lens to use with a Leica IIIF. With a 52mm filter & shade attached, does this lens cut into the 50mm viewfinder window? If so, how much?

Years ago I had a Canon 50mm f/1.2 om my M3 and it cut into the 50mm frame which I didn't like.

Oh, how good is the Nokton?

Thanks!

Tony

-- Tony Oresteen (aoresteen@mindspring.com), September 22, 2001

Answers

All of the Voitglander/Cosina lenses are supposed to be pretty good. I have a 25/4 Skopar which is excellent. Click on the link on the Cameraquest site and if you scroll down you will see the 50/1.5 on a IIIf. with info on all of the lenses. CLICK

-- Gerry Widen (GerryWiden@netscape.net), September 22, 2001.

I forgot to add I think that this lens (as you can see from the picture) will probably obstruct a large part of the viewfinder. I have a Russian Jupiter-3 with a small hood extention which while useable on my IIIc cuts into about 20% of the frame. I would think the 50/1.5 lens on the similiar IIIf would cut into a larger area. You could always use an external viewfinder which would give a much larger brighter view with any 50 you choose. Since you have to look in two windows anyway to frame and focus and the viewfinder in the camera is not parallex corrected it shouldn't matter.

-- Gerry Widen (GerryWiden@netscape.net), September 22, 2001.

Forget the Nokton with a IIIF. The built-in viewfinder will be unusable, even without the shade.

Too bad Cosina/Voiglander still doesn't make a decent standard lens for the screw mount cameras. I gave up on waiting for them and bought the current 50mm Summicron in LTM instead.

-- Joe Buechler (jbuechler@toad.net), September 22, 2001.

Voigtlander does make wonderful bright-line viewfinders similar to the classic Leitz 50mm finders. The new 50 and 75 finders are made of metal and IMHO quite a bargain. Adorama sells them for $140. And they fit perfectly even into the early black II's and III's, something most of the later finders from Leitz would not do.

-- Carlin Mayer (carlinm@abac.com), September 23, 2001.

The new LTM summicron 50 protrudes quite a bit into the finder, as well. The 50 brightline finder is so nice, I sometimes use it on my EOS 5!

-- John Fleetwood (johnfleetwood@hotmail.com), September 25, 2001.

Unless you must have the 1.5 aperture, consider Voigtlander's 35/2.5 classic. It's better scaled to the IIIf and produces wonderful negatives. Cheaper too. The alternative might be some of the later Canon LTM RF lenses, which are similarly priced.

-- Joe Brugger (jbrugger@pcez.com), September 25, 2001.