Voigtlander Nokton 58mm f/1.4 SL-II Manual Focus Lens for Pentax Film & Digital Cameras Review

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(More customer reviews)The Voigtlander Nokton 58mm is made by Cosina in Japan. On Pentax DSLRs, it is equivalent to an 87mm lens - a very useful focal length for portrait photography. The lens is all-metal, but its online photographs don't really do it justice - it's a real pleasure to hold and control, but you wouldn't be able to tell that just from looking at its photos. Build quality is in the same class as the Pentax Limited series - at 380$ (price as of August 2009), that makes it quite a bargain, given that few of the Pentax Limited sell for less.
The Nokton is a manual focus lens, which doesn't bother me at all, as I rarely use AF, but YMMV here. The focus ring is smooth and allows very accurate control - it's a real pleasure to use. Aperture can be controlled in camera, so the aperture ring is not something you'll need to use (just set it to A). Some reviews mentioned that the exposure is not determined correctly, but so far, I have no complaints in this area - the exposure was always set correctly for the photos I shot. You will have to enter the focal length when starting the camera, because the Pentax DSLRs won't recognize the Nokton - I just selected 55mm, as that was the closest option available.
As far as sharpness goes, this is a very sharp lens - you'll be hard-pressed to find a sharper lens regardless of price and it's the kind of sharpness that can convince one to prefer prime lenses over zooms. I am very pleased with the bokeh as well.
Pros:
- useful focal length
- superb quality all-metal build
- fast and sharp
- buttery bokeh
- excellent focus ring
- great quality-price ratio
Pros/Cons depending on how you look at it:
- MF only - bad if you want AF, good if you like MF (AF lenses just don't control like this)
Cons:
- need to set focal length when starting camera


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Voigtlander Nokton 58mm f/1.4 SL-II Manual Focus Lens for Pentax Film & Digital Cameras: Manual focus lens with fully compatible metering. CPU matrix metering for full meter compatibility with current Digital Slr's. Penatx KA mount. Lets you control the F stop from the camera (set the aperture ring to F22.

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Zeiss Ikon Standard 50mm f/1.4 Planar T* ZK Series Manual Focus Lens for Pentax K-Mount Cameras Review

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(More customer reviews)After reading the reviews on this lens and considering the price It was a "no brainer" to make this purchase. For amateur photographer this precision instrument seemed like a bargain.
Unfortunatley even with my K20D's green light for focusing manual lenses the sharpness when stopped down to 1.4 could be fooled a little. This resulted in a slight out of focus subject. You can order a split screen focusing screen "after market" to help remedy the situation. Or you can practice focusing this great lens and get it right most of the time. I guess its up to you and how much effort you want to put into knowing your equipment. You can also increase your depth of field a little if the lighting situation will let you. This seems to help my camera in focus light get it spot on every time.
My copy could have a little focusing problem, but I believe its my inexperience with such a fine instrument. That is why I have given this a four out of five stars. Be prepared to pratice a lot to get the best result right every time!
As with all my Amazon. com's purchases this one went smooth and fast.


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The Zeiss 50mm f/1.4 ZK Planar T* Lens is a bright and compact standard lens has a precise manual focusing mechanism and large rotation angle for precise control. The Planar T* 1,4/50 is designed for medium and longer distances and provides high-performance wide open, which only improves as the lens is stopped down. The lens construction controls flare and ghosting artifacts, resulting in a brilliant image with excellent contrast and natural color rendition.The Planar T* 1,4/50 is available with the F bayonet (ZF), K bayonet (ZK) and M42 (ZS) lens mounts and is designed for use with full-frame SLR and DSLR cameras. Combined with a DSLR with a 1.5 crop factor, the lens becomes a compact, lightweight 75 mm portrait lens

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Nikon - Filter - protection - 58 mm Review

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(More customer reviews)This is a Nikon NC (Neutral Clear) filter and it's recommended by both myself and many professionals. It's so clear if you're holding it you can't see the glass within the metal ring.
This isn't a UV lens; it's a Neutral Clear lens.
I own a D700 and asked the other professionals on DPReview and Nikon NC filters came highly recommended.

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A clear (colorless) filter for color as well as black and white films. Also serves as a permanent lens protector. Multi-coated to minimize reflection at the filter surfaces which reduces flare and ghosting.

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Nikon 50mm f/1.4G SIC SW Prime Nikkor Lens for Nikon Digital SLR Cameras Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This lens is very well-made and takes wonderful pictures. To address the most common questions people ask before they take the plunge:
Price: No, it's not usually this expensive. I paid around $400 for mine, but I got it a couple of months ago. Apparently Nikon is having a hard time making enough of these. Rather than rewarding the greedy opportunists who are now charging exorbitant prices for this lens, I suggest calling local and smaller camera shops - they are much more likely to have one sitting on the shelves. It's absolutely worth about $500, but I wouldn't pay more than that. The Sigma (very similar, see below) is a better value at that point.
Image quality: Great. Slightly soft and glowy at 1.4, but that's to be expected. Gets quite sharp at 2.8. The Sigma is even softer at 1.4 than this lens, so if wide-open sharpness is important to you, this is your lens.
Bokeh: Nice, but a little jittery at 1.4 on specular highlights. This means that if you have any light sources or sharp point reflections in the out-of-focus area behind your subject, you will see little light rings around the round blob. These disappear at f2, and they don't really bother me. They are a side effect of correcting spherical aberration in the image - lens manufacturers have to make tough choices sometimes, and Nikon apparently chose wide-open image correction over the absolute best bokeh possible in this circumstance. Compared to other lenses: not quite as nice as the Sigma 50/1.4 wide open, but you get a sharper in-focus area, so it's a trade-off. Not really able to compete with the 85/1.4 or the 105/2 DC, but that's not surprising - those lenses have a much longer focal length.
Focusing: Fast and precise. To be sure, at 1.4, the depth of field (especially at closer focusing distances) is RAZOR thin, so focusing just isn't possibly going to be spot-on every time. I frequently use manual focus, and even a TINY, TINY nudge on the focus ring moves the plane of sharp focus about one-half inch at those distances, so it's extremely hard to get perfect focus exactly where you want it to be. Be prepared to have some patience, or use live view, if you plan to take close-up shots at 1.4 and you want perfect focus. Most amateurs won't notice if things are slightly out of focus, so not generally a problem unless you're a perfectionist. If you're a constant autofocus user you will not even be aware of this issue. Speaking of up-close focus, I will mention that I feel this lens has a fairly short focusing distance, which is nice - you can really get in nice and tight on subjects and come up with some really attention-getting compositions with neat depth-of-field effects. It's no macro, but I'm constantly amazed at just how close I can get to things.
Low-light performance: Stellar. That's really why I bought this lens, as I already have several amazing lenses for portraiture/bokeh. I love this lens for events where I have room to move around (it's a little long in focal length for tightly-packed spaces) because I hate using flash if it's not necessary. This lens and a slight ISO boost is all you need to take flash-free pictures in many settings.
Build quality: Good. Not like Nikon's professional-grade lenses, but very sturdy - I can't foresee any possible problems. The plastic hood is a twist-on bayonet type, and it works well but can be slightly annoying at times.
Lack of VR: Not a big deal - you shouldn't need VR for a 50mm lens at this aperture; it is easily possible to get to a reasonable shutter speed so that shake isn't a problem. On an APS-C sensor, I'd aim for at least 1/60 second if you want blur-free images. At 1/125 second, you'd have to be going through an earthquake to see any shake with this lens, because it just doesn't have enough focal length to make that a problem. Besides, would you really want to pay $200 more for a 50mm prime? Nikon would have to make this a 1.2 for that to make sense to most people. I think the decision to leave VR off this lens was a good one.

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Nikon 50mm f/1.4G SIC SW Prime Nikkor Lens for Nikon Digital SLR Cameras

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