A few points:
1. I agree the Noct is expensive, but it was never a cheap lens, very expensive to hand polish the aspherical element, and only made in limited numbers, it was the "Otus" of its time. I don't think it is over-rated, but it is over-priced - it is a shame that collectors have pushed the price so high, out of the reach of many who would like to use it. Even without collectors I would expect it to be well above $500, and more than the more conventional AIS 50/1.2 costs to buy new today.
Have to disagree with you, Roland.
As a comparison, high-end computers, 20 years ago, were prohibitively expensive. Today, they are utterly worthless and couldn't run Microsoft Word.
Their extreme prices 20 years ago don't justify a tripling in the price to get one of these (comparative) dogs today.
To finish the point, that the Noct. was so difficult to make decades ago, doesn't justify a $3,000 of $4,000 current price tag. The Noct. simply under-delivers compared to other available options.
If I spend 3K-4K on a 58mm lens, is going to be on an impeccable 55mm Zeiss Otis, not a dated, under-performing Noct.
IMO, the Noct. is worth $500
more than a 50/1.2 AIS, at most, and that's it.
Of course, any individual is free to do whatever they want to with his money, but what it took to make (30 years ago) is irrelevant today IMO.
2. MTF charts have their place but I would never judge a lens on them alone. These charts say very little about rendering characteristics except for sharpness of a flat subject at a fixed distance. The Noct, Neo-Noct and 55/1.2 all have significant field curvature so corner sharpness is never going to score highly on flat MTF charts. This says nothing about their performance on real-world 3D subjects. They may actually have very good corner sharpness, but a little in front or behind the test chart. Lenses with flatter fields like the Otus are always going to look better in these tests. The designers of the Neo-Noct purposely designed the lens with field curvature to make the background rendition smoother. This was a brave decision as it does not look good in most test charts, they had different design goals, and most who use it find the sharpness is perfectly acceptable and the overall rendition is very pleasing. That's not to say everyone will be happy with this lens, some will prefer the Otus or Voigtlander or something else...
Totally agree with you here, in all respects.
Even modern cell phones deliberately soften portrait pics, so you have to use the right tool for the job.
While I personally favor razor-sharp images wide-open, I have also seen softer, Neo-Noct images that look better than super-sharp Zeiss Apo Sonnar images (on people/portraits), because of the dreamy softness, so I agree I need to keep that in mind.
3. You said you seek extreme sharpness wide open. If that is your goal, the 55/1.2 S.C is likely to disappoint since it is less sharp than any of the other options mentioned.
Based on images, like John Geerts posted, I will not be disappointed at all; I will merely value it
for what it's good at ... and seek what I desire for macro/nature via a different route.
4. I was up last night until nearly midnight sanding and cleaning down my daughter's room in preparation for re-painting. I had no time to find more pictures, maybe later this week.
Understood. Am anxious to see more of your images, and I appreciate your time and effort in providing feedback, thank you.
