Markus Wachter on the new Voigtländer Nokton VM 50mm f1.0 lens

by Christopher Osborne.

We spoke to fashion photographer and Voigtländer ambassador Markus Wachter on his experience shooting with the Voigtländer’s new Nokton VM 50mm f1.0 lens.

I spoke to fashion photographer and Voigtländer ambassador Markus Wachter on his experience shooting with the Voigtländer’s new Nokton VM 50mm f1.0 lens.

Markus tested this lens both on his Leica M film camera and on his Canon R6 via an adapter so that it was tested in both the film and digital worlds.

“The lens produced fantastic results on both cameras”, Markus notes. “There are two reasons for using a lens like this. It works well in low light situations, although focussing at f1.0 is a challenge. The second reason to use a lens like this is as a portrait or fashion lens”.

Markus has used the lens on two fashion shoots with model Chiara Christmann. The second shoot was made in the city of Munich and some of these images are shown here.

“This lens is the perfect lens for taking portraits. At f1.0 and f1.4, the lens shows a beautiful softness. The image is not unnaturally contrasty and is very smooth. The result is very flattering as wrinkles and lines disappear. The bokeh has a beautiful creamy feel and doesn’t look artificially swirly. The lens has a slightly warm feel and renders with a slight yellow hue. Open the lens up to f2.8, and the lens becomes insanely sharp”.

The packaging is nothing special. The lens is packaged in a normal Voigtländer box rather than packaging that befits an iPhone. The design and engineering is in the lens and not the packaging”.

“The build quality is great. The focus and aperture rings are smooth. The lens is not too big and heavy, and the viewfinder blockage is acceptable”.

“I like the soft look that this lens produces”, reflects Markus. “You would not use this lens for something like architecture. But for portraits, this lens is simply perfect”. I asked Markus if there was something that he didn’t like. “The lens cap could be more substantial. The current cap is a bit flimsy”.

Voigtländer latest Nokton 50mm is the eleventh iteration of this lens. The overall package is not that big which means that the lens barely shows in the corner of the viewfinder. Voigtländer’s have achieved this small form factor by grinding the front element which enables a much higher refractive index of glass to be used. This lens is designed to compete against Leica’s Noctilux 50mm f0.95 lens, and Markus feels that the result is between  50mm Noctilux and a pre-aspherical 50mm Summilux lenses.

In Markus’ eyes, Voigtänder has achieved a slightly better result in a smaller package.

Images © Markus Wachter. You can see more of Markus Wachter’s work at www.instagram.com/_markuswachter and at his website www.markuswachter.de

Film developed & scanned by Urbanfilmlab: https://urbanfilmlab.com https://www.instagram.com/urbanfilmlab

Model Chiara Christmann: www.instagram.com/chiara_1808

 

If you are interested in the resurgence in analogue photography for fashion shoots zou might be interested in https://silvergrainclassics.com/en/2020/12/friday-focus-sam-allison-analogue-fashion-photographer-dubai/

 

We have a favour to ask. We want to make these online articles free to the world. We see it as our contribution to the photographic community. You can help by subscribing to our awesome analogue photography magazine – https://shop.silvergrainclassics.com/subscriptions/