MS Optical 50mm f/1.1 Leica M

[Erik Lund]

Inspired by the reference by Almass to the Nikon rangefinder lens of old age the Nippon Kogaku 50mm 1.1 I vent to my local camera store to try out their MS Optical 50mm 1.1 in Leica M mount on my old Leica M9

What to say,,, the lens has Character and Bokeh in buckets

The images has been corrected for WB added a bit of Clarity and Sharpening that's it in order to show as much as the real deal here - The files really scream after more PP, they are so rich in color, artifacts, bleeding, coma and what have you,,, Although the lens has almost no CA go figure

Indoor shot wide open converted to B&W but the color version is also clean and nice

L1043154 by Erik Gunst Lund, on Flickr


Some school children passing by a bit more than a meter away disappearing into Blur Heaven, note the blur reflection in the brass sign; Luk døren - Close the door

L1043158 by Erik Gunst Lund, on Flickr

Focus is on the lady passing the blue Gågade - Pedestrian street sign - The highlight in the handelbars and mirrors are spectacular rainbow Coma flares galore,,, I have never seen anything like it - Here also note the huge apparent depth of field details can be seen in more or less the whole image - Completely unbelievable for a shot at f/1.1 a truly unique rendering!

L1043160 by Erik Gunst Lund, on Flickr


Colorful BIF is no problem for the little MS Optical 50mm - around 200 grams, 36mm long, 55mm diameter filter thread it seems it scoops in color directly into the sensor wells with ease,,,

L1043162 by Erik Gunst Lund, on Flickr

It's like it's longing for some soft painterly rendering action Here is a 100% crop of the Love bursting Blonde from the 18 MP CCD sensor

L1043163_100 by Erik Gunst Lund, on Flickr

Here focus is on the balcony in the bg - Bokeh Blur rules and despite the gray skies over Copenhagen the colors are plenty vivid,,,

L1043170 by Erik Gunst Lund, on Flickr

Reference image with the 35mm 1.4 Asph FLE just to show the,,, Contrast

L1043172 by Erik Gunst Lund, on Flickr

The rendering is like a LSD version of the Noct-Nikkor and various other fast 50-55-58mm 1.2 - with hints of the Leica M Noctilux f/1.0 but without swirl more like Canon 50mm f/0.95,,, I have not shot with Nippon Kogaku 50mm 1.1 but it is probably close to that rendering as well. The latest  Leica M f/0.95 is much cleaner and sharper,,,

I didn't even get to play with the adjustable rear element, the coma control has the distance settings infinity, 4m, 2m and 1m I need to take this lens for one more trip,,, and hopefully shoot some people as well

L1043164 by Erik Gunst Lund, on Flickr

[Jakov Minić]

Don't tell me you didn't buy the lens 
The shot's area a dream!

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Will we see the lens in Scotland?

[Erik Lund]

Thanks

They almost literately put the lens in my pocket when I was there; You don't have to pay for it - Just take it home and shoot away,,,

They kind of know me 

[Bjørn Rørslett]

You should have a good leverage when time comes to negotiate the final price ...

[Erik Lund]

The look and feel is that of a pre-production prototype, the workmanship is outstanding and the little package feels solid and with very tight tolerances and very nice feel to the focus and aperture rings, the sample I tested was not focusing below 1 Meter, strange since it's supposed to and marked to go to 0.8 M,,,

The aperture ring has no fixed clicks so you go by the markings for full and half stops, video ready as they say - Very strange in real world use since the two rings sit side by side just at the screw in lens hood.

Front and rear lens caps are old school screw in types, the rear one can be seen in the image - It mounts onto the Coma adjustment ring of the rear element, so when you dismount it you need to re adjust the Coma setting a real 'feature'

The lens has Coma settings for: Infinity - Rangefinder - 4 - 2 - 1 Meters
The Rangefinder setting is like a zero setting for the lens to behave predictable on a mechanical rangefinder like a Leica M9, since it alters the focal length of the lens which trows off the linear rangefinder travel, it worked well on my M9 hitting focus quite accurately.

The other Coma settings are similar to a floating element, FLE, CRC or DC adjustments - Designed to reduce coma at the selected distance - And to be experimented with - If this was coupled with the focus ring then the whole lens would have been much more; Complicated, large, expensive and heavy,,, with extra guides and all,,, And not so quirky fun 

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Aha. It has the classic 51.6 mm focal length.

[Erik Lund]

Yes the 'standard' focal length for the Classic Leica rangefinder movement

[Dr Klaus Schmitt]

I like difficult to use lenses 

[Frank Fremerey]

The more I use MF glass the more I feel it is the faults that make the character, that make them lovely as long as the faults are at the right place.

A friend of mine said that a great lens makes for sharper focussed area but unlike a bad lens, the unsharp areas are still well defined and recognizable.

Currently I feel light years away from cheap or super corrected "professional" zooms. ... lenses with character like this 51.6/f=1.1 or my current favorite the 35/f=1.4 Ai-S or our common love the 24/f=1.4 G set the look and feel of the results far apart.

I love the brothel sign and the Guiness sign and the scene with the bearded bicycle rider with the huge ear phones especially

[Almass]

Thanks

They almost literately put the lens in my pocket when I was there; You don't have to pay for it - Just take it home and shoot away,,,

They kind of know me 

The lens is calling out to you. Don't you feel sorry that the lens is sitting waiting to shine in front of your eyes?

These are images which makes you fall in love with photography and Leica glass for me was a wake up call.

50/1.1 or bust!

[null]

This lens is an amazing design- it is 5 elements in 4 groups. an "Ernostar" formula as the 2nd and 3rd element are not made into a triplet using a low-index of refraction glass. With the use of multi-coated surfaces, I suspect that Zeiss and MS-Optical figured they did not need to eliminate the two air/glass surfaces. The coma-adjustment, I understand. I've carefully changed the spacing on a couple of early Jupiter-3's to reduce aberrations.