Well, I suppose there’s thems who punt £10,000,000 or so on a 250 mph Bugatti. Not much use for getting from A to B in traffic. Or in a 55 mph speed limit.
Michael Lee
January 4, 2025 11:33 am
I genuinely don’t understand who would want to buy this lens even if you have the financial means to do so. Yes it’s fantastic optically speaking but it’s also a manual focus lens only. I honestly think the Nikon Z 50 f/1.2 S lens is a far more practical lens at quarter of the price and you would have to look real hard to notice any tangible difference in sharpness and image quality.
1. I already own a about 20 manual focus lenses that I use on a regular basis on my ZF and they are the reason that I purchased the ZF. They are mostly AIS professional lenses from their day. I also count the 28 1.4D, 85 1.4D and 135 2.0D in this category. I am comfortable shooting manual focus on the Noct for the same reason I am comfortable shooting manual focus on my other lenses.
Shooting manual focus is a joy, for the same reason driving a Bugatti or shooting a Leica is a joy. Too many gearheads cannot wrap their heads around photography being a joy and suck the joy out of the room – which is why people that get joy out of photography can’t stand them. Photography is a joy and that is why I spend a fortune on it – in numerous ways besides manual focus.
Further, if you can’t deal with manual focus, you are lacking a critical technical skill. Even if you master manual focus, and mastering it on the Noct and something like a 200mm 2.8 would be a litmus test for this technical competency, and never use it again, you will be much better at judging the quality of your focus when using af.
2. If you can’t tell the difference between the 50 1.2S and the Noct on image quality without looking too hard, then you will not be able to tell the difference between the 50 1.8S and 50 1.2S without looking to hard. If this is your thinking, then I recommend the 50 1.8S. I own all three of these lenses and use them for different uses, so I know their optical characteristics like the back of my hand. Unless of course dof of field and bokeh are important to you and you can actually see. Then the advantage of the 50 1.2S over the 1.8S is obvious and the further benefit of the Noct is obvious on DOF but only obvious on bokeh if you can see.
3. The Noct is a statement by a company that I love about a passion that I love. On countless levels. Owning a piece of that is a privilege.
The Noct is a niche and certainly not as practical as the 50 1.2S. But I felt bad for you that you were not able to understand it. I hope that you have at least a sense of that now.
John D
January 4, 2025 10:26 am
Hi Spencer, thank you for a great review. It looks like a pretty magical lens to me. The shallow DOF samples just look incredible and as mentioned by another commented, those with foreground blur look fantastic with rendering that does not distract in any way, imo. I read your review of the Z50/1.2, but the sample images in that review do not lean into the shallow DOF capabilities, which I would have liked to have seen. I’m really curious now how the 50/1.2 would compare to this magnificent 58/0.95 in terms of the quality of the out of focus areas with similar captures compared side by side. I certainly can’t justify $8000 for my usage but boy it sure looks like it’s worth every penny.
The 50 1.2S is beautiful. When I bought it I had owned the 50 1.8S for a while and I was shocked. The difference is both obvious an subtle at the same time.
The characteristics of the Noct’s are different. The obvious difference is the edges and corners and in this way the Noct was a harbinger for the Plena. Otherwise, it is hard to say if it is better. Despite the bokeh being beautiful like the 50 1.2S, I actually prefer the bokeh on my 85 1.2S and Plena more. But only a little more. These four lenses are in their own class in the Z mount (with the 85 1.8S being a surprising runner up). Kind of like the 28 1.4E, 105 1.4E and 135 DC 2.0, which I also own, are in a class of their own in the F mount.
Tony Studans
January 4, 2025 12:04 am
I thought the whole advantage of mirrorless cameras was to make smaller, lighter and less expensive bodies and lenses. Yet the z8/9 are rather substantial, and this 85mm lens looks to be as long as a 70-200 zoom.
As for less expensive, OMG, look at the prices being asked.
Looks like I am staying with brilliant, inexpensive (by comparison) f-mount lenses for a very long time to come.
The Z8 should be thought of as a D850-like camera (but not exactly, it’s more like a small D6), and it’s lighter than the D850. Second, this lens is just a showpiece lens for specialized applications. The other lenses are much more manageable in size and cost. Third, you can get much smaller mirrorless cameras, like the Z6 III for example. Pretty small camera in my opinion. Fourth, the point of mirrorless is not really to make cameras lighter, they have a whole host of other advantages: silent shutter, lack of mechanical shutter in some cases, IBIS (stabilization through the viewfinder), much better video, superior AF capabilities due to using sensor data for AF, etc. In a few cases, lighter was the objective, but then if you want that, the Sony A7 C is not bad or even a Nikon Z50 II — fairly small and cheap for what it provides.
Some of the Nikon lenses are more expensive that the F-mount versions like the Nikon 50mm f/1.8S versus 50mm f/1.8G, but the latter, while a great lens, is very soft wide open compared to the brilliant performance of the 1.8S so you are getting a lot more for your money.
That narrative of “should be smaller/lighter” was a marketing spin by Olympus around 2010. No other manufacturer ever said mirrorless should mean smaller/lighter. That said, the Z8 with 24-70 2.8 is a smaller and lighter package than a D850 with the 24-70 2.8E. The Z9 with 14-24 is a smaller and lighter package than a D6 with 14-24. A Z6III is smaller and lighter than a D750/780. A Z30 is smaller than an any camera from the D3xxx series. The 58 0.95 Noct is basically a cine lens intended for stills. It’s a statement lens absolutely and has no equal and nothing (modern) to compare it to.
Hi Marvin! Most of the other photos I have are variations on these – shallow DoF aspen photos, the Chinese lantern festival, some classic landscapes, and a few portraits. I did lend the lens to Adam for some additional portrait photography, though. He’s traveling right now, but when he gets back, I’ll ask if he has any more photos I can add to the review.
James
January 3, 2025 8:54 am
Spencer, this was a delightful read, thanks! I have never desired this lens and still don’t, but it’s really fun to see what’s possible in unrestrained lens design!
When you posted the review of the Canon 50mm f/1.2, you included comparisons to the Nikon 50mm f/1.2S and Sony 50mm f/1.2 GM. Would you be willing to add the Canon and Sony to this article? I think it’s interesting for readers to be able compare the flagship optics for each system, even if the other two are AF.
Thank you, James! Sure thing, I’ll post them all here for reference:
The Sony is as close as probably any other lens will get to the Noct in sharpness! The Sony 50mm f/1.2 GM and the Nikon Z 58mm f/0.95 Noct are the two sharpest lenses we’ve ever tested in the lab.
I judge a lens by the mid position. Think about taking a portrait orientated image of a person with the top half of the torso in the frame. The center will be on the models neck at best, or perhaps the chest. I would not pay for superior image quality for a sharper t-shirt. I pay for sharper eyes – the mid position. On this measure the Noct is first, the Sony second and the Canon third.
But here is the thing. The Plena is the equal to the Noct.
Truly technically minded experienced photographers understand these practicalities that gear heads are oblivious to.
bg5931
January 3, 2025 3:40 am
I guess this is not a particularly useful lens for most, but I bet it was fun to test, both in the lab and outdoors. Some of your sample shots are really nice – I particularly like the one shot through yellow leaves that provide a “foreground bokeh curtain” of sorts. Very dreamy.
Thank you! It was definitely fun to test, and good timing since I’ve been trying to experiment with shallow depth of field landscapes.
John
January 3, 2025 2:51 am
This might be a bit of a ‘Shake the Hornets Nest’ as a contribution. I have been looking at the changes becoming available in supporting technologies that are used in conjunction with Camera equipment to produce edited images.
With AI now being utilised, how long will it be before a image captured from another Lens Type is not able to become a Clone of a image taken with a lens like the Noct or other specialist type lenses?
I can’t but help sense, that a option in a Software at a later time in the development, will enable a option to select a Lens Type and the Software will display an image with discernible traits that relate to the selected lens, which may at some point produce Clones that are to the untrained eye seen to have traits that are indistinguishable.
For a large quantity of Photographers, would not such a option from a Editing Software be enough for their purposes and discourage the desire to pursue purchasing the lens types that are quite specialist and also expensive.
From my own personal viewpoint, such an option will be with similarities to when Digital Photography become the format, that left Film Photography Obsolete.
For a large volume of Photographers Editing Software advancement might offer enough to Obsolete the idea of having certain lens types in a Camera Bag.
> With AI now being utilised, how long will it be before a image captured from another Lens Type is not able to become a Clone of a image taken with a lens like the Noct or other specialist type lenses?
> For a large quantity of Photographers, would not such a option from a Editing Software be enough for their purposes and discourage the desire to pursue purchasing the lens types that are quite specialist and also expensive.
How is this even photography, then? I can give a pass to AI noise reduction, because it doesn’t really change the essence of the image, but changing the depth of field and bokeh fundamentally alters the image. What you are describing is not easily possible with traditional post-processing, and even if you do use some lens-blur type tool, you’ll never get it to look like the real thing. Once you use AI, it’s effectively like using a simulation engine in which you give it an approximation of your final result and it does the rest. Photography has always been about projecting light onto a surface, and then transforming that stored projection into a print using a variety of geometric, tonal, and color transformations.
People can do what you are describing, and probably will. But for those who actually care that what they are doing is photography, I don’t think this method will be appealing. It’s graphic art, not photography.
And it really is not the same as the film to digital transition. The only thing that changed there was the way the projected image was stored and edited. However, neither film nor digital photography involves using a giant database of other photographs to generate new fragments to replace old ones in the image you are processsing.
I’d prefer looking at a genuine photograph taken with a coke bottle at f/16 than an AI-transformed photograph that emulates the Noct.
It seems that the subject of AI Influences being added to Post Editing Software and how it develops as a technology in how it is able to be utilised will become an area of divisory ideas of how it should be applied.
I recall from many years past, when using Post Editing was considered by a particular group of Photographers involved in discussions as a form of cheating. Hence my stating ” such an option will be with similarities to when Digital Photography become the format, that left Film Photography Obsolete.
I’m comfortable with suggesting it is a accurate statement today, to suggest that the objectionists who were once vociferous about Software being used for editing are a very rare commodity.
For the record, I am early adopter of Household Name Editing Software, to the point in the past I used a few suites in conjunction. I have not purchased anything to date, with the motivation to have AI available, inevitably avoiding AI at some point will not be an option if keeping up to date with certain editing suites.
My comments were about cloning Photo’s with AI Technology at some point in the advancement of the tech. As most at some point will have access to AI. Maybe PL can do an article on AI and the expectations of the influences it can have on image editing. This would encourage a broader range of thoughts to be expressed on using the tech from their contributors.
I came the exact conclusion a few years ago, when the idea of ChatGPT started to become popular. I am into programming and also a bit into photography. The vast majority have absolutely no clue what is “down the road”. When it comes to photography (and most other things in life) – what will be possible in 5 years, will make most things of today redundant 😢
The entire point of creating art like photography *is* to do it yourself with the basic tools of lenses and light! What all these arguments miss is that life is for living, not for producing content. Living doesn’t mean automating all of the best things in life so you can sit around all day watching Netflix.
The joy of photography comes from the journey of going out there with tools that take light from a scene and capture it with a lens onto a surface. That’s the magic of it. Same with running: the joy of winning a race is not just winning, but the fact that you are doing it with your body. The moment an athelete uses perforance enhancing drugs, that magic is lost because it goes outside the spirit of using your body to run.
Big tech is so obsessed with the final product or thing because their entire existence is devoted to the final thing. That obsession has stripped them of the ability to understand the importance of the fragility of human experience that goes behind making something, and sadly, their platforms are stripping its users of that understanding as well.
In five years, if AI can do all this “cool” stuff, then for those who care about art, it will still be valueless and lifeless. And for those that pick up a special lens like the Noct, they will still be able to do something that cannot be replicated by AI: create something that corresponds to the physical process of light hitting a sensor. AI is irrelevant in that process.
AI will make photography redundant in the arts in the same way the invention of helicopters made rock climbing redundant in sports: Nobody will give a rat’s posterior about somebody helicoptering to the top of “Jumbo Love”.
You said it beautifully, Jason. The algorithms on social media platforms and elsewhere favor superficial, quick, endless content. This is of course designed to keep people scrolling for longer without stopping to think, or worse yet, leave the platform. And as a side effect, soon it isn’t just the site’s algorithm that prefers superficial and emotionally charged content, but likewise the people who spend hours each day on these platforms. It eventually changes people’s psychologies and personalities. And AI-generated content is surface-level by definition, so it’s naturally a perfect fit for these sites.
If we wish to live a different life than the one laid out by big tech, what matters is to value photography, or any other artistic pursuit, for its own sake – not as a mechanism for feeding the social media beast, nor for automating out creativity in pursuit of volume.
I will say that it isn’t about picking a lens like the Noct, but any lens, or even a pinhole. I greatly enjoy testing lenses, but I recognize it is tangential to the art of photography. No (working) lens is any more or less capable of art than any other.
Absolutely right, Spencer. Well said. All lenses have their artistic potential, indeed.
Nasim Mansurov
Admin
January 2, 2025 9:53 pm
I refuse to touch this lens only for one reason. The day it was announced, I looked at the optical formula and realized that I would really want it. I used to own the original “Noct-NIKKOR”, and this thing is in a different dimension altogether.
One of the best advertisements that Nikon could have produced for this lens is that absurd optical diagram!
FPD Cotterill
January 2, 2025 9:43 pm
An Extraordinary optic in its own realm of excellence.
The engineering standards it embodies epitomize why so many photographers are loyal to Nikon through the decades of their tenure on Earth (also in space in the case of the few who work for NASA).
There’s a fascinating albeit highly technical analysis of the patent for this flagship Nikkor, written up by an Italian engineer. He explains why Nikon’s realization of this optical embodiment into a commercial product represents an eloquent ‘Business Card’ for the know how of Nikon Corporation. Its formal announcement in 2018 eclipsed Canon’s launch at the same time of the 50mm f1.2 USM as the Optical flagship for their new RF system.
The author points out the engineers designed and specified no less than 3 new types of optical glass, besides using several different glass types. Obviously, Nikon has its advantages owning Hikari Glass to design the ideal system with the optical properties to correct aberrations etc.
Also of interest is the well known photography expert, Jim Kasson, has reviewed the Z Noct – a copy borrowed from Lens Rentals. You can read the review in his blog post, in short: “.. ..At eight thousand bucks, it’s out of the impulse buy territory and into the don’t-tell-your-spouse-how-much-the-darned-thing-cost region…..It looks to me like this lens could do fine on a 200+ megapixel sensor!”
I am very sceptical about the 200+ mp speculation. The reason is simple, in all the Photography Life reviews, the maximum Imatest score is typically 4,000 or slightly more. It appears that 4,000 is about 45mp. And if a lens was “way sharper” than 45mp, I would expect to see several apertures pushing the 4,000 limit – basically there would be a flat line across several apertures. But even with the Noct, 2.8 is the only aperture that appears to be pushing the limit of a 45mp sensor.
Which causes me to further speculate that the reason that Nikon or really nobody else (except Sony at 60mp) is pushing past 45mp is that there are no lenses that could truly exploit this.
It’s a good question, and actually, I would expect a clear benefit from using this lens with a higher resolution sensor, including 200 megapixels. Resolution is always a combination of the sensor and the lens, and even at apertures like f/8 or f/11, some benefits would be visible. In part, that’s because today’s typical RGB sensors do not provide full color data at every pixel. At a minimum, 4x the sensor resolution would still show benefits from any lens that performs well on our 45MP test camera in the lab.
Sensor shift technologies already show us that this is the case — I remember testing the Panasonic S1R and noticing that even the 24-105mm f/4 kit lens substantially benefited from the pixel-shift mode (which resulted in 187 megapixels compared to the sensor’s original 47). You can see some sample images on this page: photographylife.com/revie…onic-s1r/4
And here’s by far the most apt comment on the issue:
“If you have a reasonably good lens and/or a reasonably good camera, upgrading either one upgrades your images. If you ask something like ‘is my camera going to out resolve this lens’ you sound silly.”
— Roger Cicala (2019), “More Ultra High-Resolution MTF Experiments”, Lensrentals
FPD Cotterill, that’s all very interesting information, and nothing I disagree with. But tell me — are you going to take the blame when people spend too much money on the lens after reading your comment? 🤣
Thanks Spencer Nikonitis is the most virulent strain of GAS. Incurable unless monitored ruthlessly by partner, although relapses are guaranteed in most patients 😁😁
Well, I suppose there’s thems who punt £10,000,000 or so on a 250 mph Bugatti. Not much use for getting from A to B in traffic. Or in a 55 mph speed limit.
I genuinely don’t understand who would want to buy this lens even if you have the financial means to do so. Yes it’s fantastic optically speaking but it’s also a manual focus lens only. I honestly think the Nikon Z 50 f/1.2 S lens is a far more practical lens at quarter of the price and you would have to look real hard to notice any tangible difference in sharpness and image quality.
As an owner, I will answer your question:
1.
I already own a about 20 manual focus lenses that I use on a regular basis on my ZF and they are the reason that I purchased the ZF. They are mostly AIS professional lenses from their day. I also count the 28 1.4D, 85 1.4D and 135 2.0D in this category. I am comfortable shooting manual focus on the Noct for the same reason I am comfortable shooting manual focus on my other lenses.
Shooting manual focus is a joy, for the same reason driving a Bugatti or shooting a Leica is a joy. Too many gearheads cannot wrap their heads around photography being a joy and suck the joy out of the room – which is why people that get joy out of photography can’t stand them. Photography is a joy and that is why I spend a fortune on it – in numerous ways besides manual focus.
Further, if you can’t deal with manual focus, you are lacking a critical technical skill. Even if you master manual focus, and mastering it on the Noct and something like a 200mm 2.8 would be a litmus test for this technical competency, and never use it again, you will be much better at judging the quality of your focus when using af.
2.
If you can’t tell the difference between the 50 1.2S and the Noct on image quality without looking too hard, then you will not be able to tell the difference between the 50 1.8S and 50 1.2S without looking to hard. If this is your thinking, then I recommend the 50 1.8S. I own all three of these lenses and use them for different uses, so I know their optical characteristics like the back of my hand. Unless of course dof of field and bokeh are important to you and you can actually see. Then the advantage of the 50 1.2S over the 1.8S is obvious and the further benefit of the Noct is obvious on DOF but only obvious on bokeh if you can see.
3.
The Noct is a statement by a company that I love about a passion that I love. On countless levels. Owning a piece of that is a privilege.
The Noct is a niche and certainly not as practical as the 50 1.2S. But I felt bad for you that you were not able to understand it. I hope that you have at least a sense of that now.
Hi Spencer, thank you for a great review. It looks like a pretty magical lens to me. The shallow DOF samples just look incredible and as mentioned by another commented, those with foreground blur look fantastic with rendering that does not distract in any way, imo. I read your review of the Z50/1.2, but the sample images in that review do not lean into the shallow DOF capabilities, which I would have liked to have seen. I’m really curious now how the 50/1.2 would compare to this magnificent 58/0.95 in terms of the quality of the out of focus areas with similar captures compared side by side. I certainly can’t justify $8000 for my usage but boy it sure looks like it’s worth every penny.
The 50 1.2S is beautiful. When I bought it I had owned the 50 1.8S for a while and I was shocked. The difference is both obvious an subtle at the same time.
The characteristics of the Noct’s are different. The obvious difference is the edges and corners and in this way the Noct was a harbinger for the Plena. Otherwise, it is hard to say if it is better. Despite the bokeh being beautiful like the 50 1.2S, I actually prefer the bokeh on my 85 1.2S and Plena more. But only a little more. These four lenses are in their own class in the Z mount (with the 85 1.8S being a surprising runner up). Kind of like the 28 1.4E, 105 1.4E and 135 DC 2.0, which I also own, are in a class of their own in the F mount.
I thought the whole advantage of mirrorless cameras was to make smaller, lighter and less expensive bodies and lenses. Yet the z8/9 are rather substantial, and this 85mm lens looks to be as long as a 70-200 zoom.
As for less expensive, OMG, look at the prices being asked.
Looks like I am staying with brilliant, inexpensive (by comparison) f-mount lenses for a very long time to come.
The Z8 should be thought of as a D850-like camera (but not exactly, it’s more like a small D6), and it’s lighter than the D850. Second, this lens is just a showpiece lens for specialized applications. The other lenses are much more manageable in size and cost. Third, you can get much smaller mirrorless cameras, like the Z6 III for example. Pretty small camera in my opinion. Fourth, the point of mirrorless is not really to make cameras lighter, they have a whole host of other advantages: silent shutter, lack of mechanical shutter in some cases, IBIS (stabilization through the viewfinder), much better video, superior AF capabilities due to using sensor data for AF, etc. In a few cases, lighter was the objective, but then if you want that, the Sony A7 C is not bad or even a Nikon Z50 II — fairly small and cheap for what it provides.
Some of the Nikon lenses are more expensive that the F-mount versions like the Nikon 50mm f/1.8S versus 50mm f/1.8G, but the latter, while a great lens, is very soft wide open compared to the brilliant performance of the 1.8S so you are getting a lot more for your money.
That narrative of “should be smaller/lighter” was a marketing spin by Olympus around 2010. No other manufacturer ever said mirrorless should mean smaller/lighter. That said, the Z8 with 24-70 2.8 is a smaller and lighter package than a D850 with the 24-70 2.8E. The Z9 with 14-24 is a smaller and lighter package than a D6 with 14-24. A Z6III is smaller and lighter than a D750/780. A Z30 is smaller than an any camera from the D3xxx series. The 58 0.95 Noct is basically a cine lens intended for stills. It’s a statement lens absolutely and has no equal and nothing (modern) to compare it to.
Z-mount is pretty decently priced.
A Z50II is about 75% of the nominal price of my D7500 6 years ago.
The 100-400 is about the same nominal price as the 80-400 about 8 years ago.
Both Z-mount are much better products.
Used F-mount is very good value now. Used Z-mount isn’t.
If F-mount serves your purposes then it’s a very good place to be.
As an old codger, I prefer my Z5, 14-30 and 24-200 to my old D610, 18-35, 24-85 and 70-200. It’s lighter, less faf and I do like the evf with filters.
Hello Spencer, are there more sample images you can add to the review?
Hi Marvin! Most of the other photos I have are variations on these – shallow DoF aspen photos, the Chinese lantern festival, some classic landscapes, and a few portraits. I did lend the lens to Adam for some additional portrait photography, though. He’s traveling right now, but when he gets back, I’ll ask if he has any more photos I can add to the review.
Spencer, this was a delightful read, thanks! I have never desired this lens and still don’t, but it’s really fun to see what’s possible in unrestrained lens design!
When you posted the review of the Canon 50mm f/1.2, you included comparisons to the Nikon 50mm f/1.2S and Sony 50mm f/1.2 GM. Would you be willing to add the Canon and Sony to this article? I think it’s interesting for readers to be able compare the flagship optics for each system, even if the other two are AF.
Again, thanks for the hard work!
Thank you, James! Sure thing, I’ll post them all here for reference:
The Sony is as close as probably any other lens will get to the Noct in sharpness! The Sony 50mm f/1.2 GM and the Nikon Z 58mm f/0.95 Noct are the two sharpest lenses we’ve ever tested in the lab.
Thanks Spencer! It’s cool to look at them side by side. The Noct and GM are both wildly sharp!
I judge a lens by the mid position. Think about taking a portrait orientated image of a person with the top half of the torso in the frame. The center will be on the models neck at best, or perhaps the chest. I would not pay for superior image quality for a sharper t-shirt. I pay for sharper eyes – the mid position. On this measure the Noct is first, the Sony second and the Canon third.
But here is the thing. The Plena is the equal to the Noct.
Truly technically minded experienced photographers understand these practicalities that gear heads are oblivious to.
I guess this is not a particularly useful lens for most, but I bet it was fun to test, both in the lab and outdoors. Some of your sample shots are really nice – I particularly like the one shot through yellow leaves that provide a “foreground bokeh curtain” of sorts. Very dreamy.
Thank you! It was definitely fun to test, and good timing since I’ve been trying to experiment with shallow depth of field landscapes.
This might be a bit of a ‘Shake the Hornets Nest’ as a contribution.
I have been looking at the changes becoming available in supporting technologies that are used in conjunction with Camera equipment to produce edited images.
With AI now being utilised, how long will it be before a image captured from another Lens Type is not able to become a Clone of a image taken with a lens like the Noct or other specialist type lenses?
I can’t but help sense, that a option in a Software at a later time in the development, will enable a option to select a Lens Type and the Software will display an image with discernible traits that relate to the selected lens, which may at some point produce Clones that are to the untrained eye seen to have traits that are indistinguishable.
For a large quantity of Photographers, would not such a option from a Editing Software be enough for their purposes and discourage the desire to pursue purchasing the lens types that are quite specialist and also expensive.
From my own personal viewpoint, such an option will be with similarities to when Digital Photography become the format, that left Film Photography Obsolete.
For a large volume of Photographers Editing Software advancement might offer enough to Obsolete the idea of having certain lens types in a Camera Bag.
> With AI now being utilised, how long will it be before a image captured from another Lens Type is not able to become a Clone of a image taken with a lens like the Noct or other specialist type lenses?
> For a large quantity of Photographers, would not such a option from a Editing Software be enough for their purposes and discourage the desire to pursue purchasing the lens types that are quite specialist and also expensive.
How is this even photography, then? I can give a pass to AI noise reduction, because it doesn’t really change the essence of the image, but changing the depth of field and bokeh fundamentally alters the image. What you are describing is not easily possible with traditional post-processing, and even if you do use some lens-blur type tool, you’ll never get it to look like the real thing. Once you use AI, it’s effectively like using a simulation engine in which you give it an approximation of your final result and it does the rest. Photography has always been about projecting light onto a surface, and then transforming that stored projection into a print using a variety of geometric, tonal, and color transformations.
People can do what you are describing, and probably will. But for those who actually care that what they are doing is photography, I don’t think this method will be appealing. It’s graphic art, not photography.
And it really is not the same as the film to digital transition. The only thing that changed there was the way the projected image was stored and edited. However, neither film nor digital photography involves using a giant database of other photographs to generate new fragments to replace old ones in the image you are processsing.
I’d prefer looking at a genuine photograph taken with a coke bottle at f/16 than an AI-transformed photograph that emulates the Noct.
Hear, hear Jason!
It seems that the subject of AI Influences being added to Post Editing Software and how it develops as a technology in how it is able to be utilised will become an area of divisory ideas of how it should be applied.
I recall from many years past, when using Post Editing was considered by a particular group of Photographers involved in discussions as a form of cheating. Hence my stating ” such an option will be with similarities to when Digital Photography become the format, that left Film Photography Obsolete.
I’m comfortable with suggesting it is a accurate statement today, to suggest that the objectionists who were once vociferous about Software being used for editing are a very rare commodity.
For the record, I am early adopter of Household Name Editing Software, to the point in the past I used a few suites in conjunction.
I have not purchased anything to date, with the motivation to have AI available, inevitably avoiding AI at some point will not be an option if keeping up to date with certain editing suites.
My comments were about cloning Photo’s with AI Technology at some point in the advancement of the tech.
As most at some point will have access to AI. Maybe PL can do an article on AI and the expectations of the influences it can have on image editing.
This would encourage a broader range of thoughts to be expressed on using the tech from their contributors.
Well said.
I came the exact conclusion a few years ago, when the idea of ChatGPT started to become popular. I am into programming and also a bit into photography. The vast majority have absolutely no clue what is “down the road”. When it comes to photography (and most other things in life) – what will be possible in 5 years, will make most things of today redundant 😢
> will make most things of today redundant
The entire point of creating art like photography *is* to do it yourself with the basic tools of lenses and light! What all these arguments miss is that life is for living, not for producing content. Living doesn’t mean automating all of the best things in life so you can sit around all day watching Netflix.
The joy of photography comes from the journey of going out there with tools that take light from a scene and capture it with a lens onto a surface. That’s the magic of it. Same with running: the joy of winning a race is not just winning, but the fact that you are doing it with your body. The moment an athelete uses perforance enhancing drugs, that magic is lost because it goes outside the spirit of using your body to run.
Big tech is so obsessed with the final product or thing because their entire existence is devoted to the final thing. That obsession has stripped them of the ability to understand the importance of the fragility of human experience that goes behind making something, and sadly, their platforms are stripping its users of that understanding as well.
In five years, if AI can do all this “cool” stuff, then for those who care about art, it will still be valueless and lifeless. And for those that pick up a special lens like the Noct, they will still be able to do something that cannot be replicated by AI: create something that corresponds to the physical process of light hitting a sensor. AI is irrelevant in that process.
AI will make photography redundant in the arts in the same way the invention of helicopters made rock climbing redundant in sports: Nobody will give a rat’s posterior about somebody helicoptering to the top of “Jumbo Love”.
You said it beautifully, Jason. The algorithms on social media platforms and elsewhere favor superficial, quick, endless content. This is of course designed to keep people scrolling for longer without stopping to think, or worse yet, leave the platform. And as a side effect, soon it isn’t just the site’s algorithm that prefers superficial and emotionally charged content, but likewise the people who spend hours each day on these platforms. It eventually changes people’s psychologies and personalities. And AI-generated content is surface-level by definition, so it’s naturally a perfect fit for these sites.
If we wish to live a different life than the one laid out by big tech, what matters is to value photography, or any other artistic pursuit, for its own sake – not as a mechanism for feeding the social media beast, nor for automating out creativity in pursuit of volume.
I will say that it isn’t about picking a lens like the Noct, but any lens, or even a pinhole. I greatly enjoy testing lenses, but I recognize it is tangential to the art of photography. No (working) lens is any more or less capable of art than any other.
Absolutely right, Spencer. Well said. All lenses have their artistic potential, indeed.
I refuse to touch this lens only for one reason. The day it was announced, I looked at the optical formula and realized that I would really want it. I used to own the original “Noct-NIKKOR”, and this thing is in a different dimension altogether.
One of the best advertisements that Nikon could have produced for this lens is that absurd optical diagram!
An Extraordinary optic in its own realm of excellence.
The engineering standards it embodies epitomize why so many photographers are loyal to Nikon through the decades of their tenure on Earth (also in space in the case of the few who work for NASA).
There’s a fascinating albeit highly technical analysis of the patent for this flagship Nikkor, written up by an Italian engineer. He explains why Nikon’s realization of this optical embodiment into a commercial product represents an eloquent ‘Business Card’ for the know how of Nikon Corporation. Its formal announcement in 2018 eclipsed Canon’s launch at the same time of the 50mm f1.2 USM as the Optical flagship for their new RF system.
The author points out the engineers designed and specified no less than 3 new types of optical glass, besides using several different glass types. Obviously, Nikon has its advantages owning Hikari Glass to design the ideal system with the optical properties to correct aberrations etc.
Also of interest is the well known photography expert, Jim Kasson, has reviewed the Z Noct – a copy borrowed from Lens Rentals. You can read the review in his blog post, in short:
“.. ..At eight thousand bucks, it’s out of the impulse buy territory and into the don’t-tell-your-spouse-how-much-the-darned-thing-cost region…..It looks to me like this lens could do fine on a 200+ megapixel sensor!”
The link
www.nocsensei.com/camer…ma-ottico/
I am very sceptical about the 200+ mp speculation. The reason is simple, in all the Photography Life reviews, the maximum Imatest score is typically 4,000 or slightly more. It appears that 4,000 is about 45mp. And if a lens was “way sharper” than 45mp, I would expect to see several apertures pushing the 4,000 limit – basically there would be a flat line across several apertures. But even with the Noct, 2.8 is the only aperture that appears to be pushing the limit of a 45mp sensor.
Which causes me to further speculate that the reason that Nikon or really nobody else (except Sony at 60mp) is pushing past 45mp is that there are no lenses that could truly exploit this.
Spencer, I would be interested in your thoughts.
It’s a good question, and actually, I would expect a clear benefit from using this lens with a higher resolution sensor, including 200 megapixels. Resolution is always a combination of the sensor and the lens, and even at apertures like f/8 or f/11, some benefits would be visible. In part, that’s because today’s typical RGB sensors do not provide full color data at every pixel. At a minimum, 4x the sensor resolution would still show benefits from any lens that performs well on our 45MP test camera in the lab.
Sensor shift technologies already show us that this is the case — I remember testing the Panasonic S1R and noticing that even the 24-105mm f/4 kit lens substantially benefited from the pixel-shift mode (which resulted in 187 megapixels compared to the sensor’s original 47). You can see some sample images on this page: photographylife.com/revie…onic-s1r/4
Yes, I see the benefit. I didn’t think about the colour issue as well.
Commentator Ben C.K. made a similar point on the article “What Is the Highest Megapixel Camera Today?” by Spencer Cox.
Here’s the link to my reply:
photographylife.com/what-…ent-305059
And here’s by far the most apt comment on the issue:
“If you have a reasonably good lens and/or a reasonably good camera, upgrading either one upgrades your images. If you ask something like ‘is my camera going to out resolve this lens’ you sound silly.”
— Roger Cicala (2019), “More Ultra High-Resolution MTF Experiments”, Lensrentals
As Thom would say, the more data the better.
OK, this makes sense. It really is the lens and sensor working in tandem.
FPD Cotterill, that’s all very interesting information, and nothing I disagree with. But tell me — are you going to take the blame when people spend too much money on the lens after reading your comment? 🤣
Thanks Spencer
Nikonitis is the most virulent strain of GAS. Incurable unless monitored ruthlessly by partner, although relapses are guaranteed in most patients 😁😁
I definitely suffer from it.