Nocticron („Night-time“ from

latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

''nox, noctis'' „night“ and

ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

''kronos'' „time“) is the brand name of Leica lenses with an extreme

speed In everyday use and in kinematics, the speed (commonly referred to as ''v'') of an object is the magnitude of the change of its position over time or the magnitude of the change of its position per unit of time; it is thus a scalar quantity ...

of f/1.2. Because of the large

aperture In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. More specifically, the aperture and focal length of an optical system determine the cone angle of a bundle of rays that come to a focus in the image plane. An ...

size and its image stabilisation system it is possible to take images with relatively short exposure time especially in

available light In photography and cinematography, available light (also called ambient light or practical light) refers to any ''available'' source of light that is not explicitly supplied by the photographer for the purpose of taking pictures. The term usu ...

situations. Together with the high number of nine diaphragm blades the lens creates a strong and pleasant

bokeh In photography, bokeh ( or ; ) is the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in out-of-focus parts of an image. Bokeh has also been defined as "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light". Differences in lens aberrations and ...

Market position

Nocticron lenses are slower than

Noctilux The name Noctilux is used by Leica to designate their camera lenses with the widest maximum aperture. Lenses with that name have been in production since 1966. So far all Noctilux lenses have been made for the Leica M mount. History The name Noct ...

lenses (f/0,95 or f/1,0) and faster than the Leica-lenses with the brand name

Summilux The name Summilux is used by Leica and Panasonic Lumix to designate camera lenses that have a maximum aperture of less than f/2, typically f/1.4, but greater than f/1.0. The lens has been in production since 1959 and carries on to the present d ...

(f/1,4),

Summicron The name Summicron is used by Leica to designate camera lenses that have a maximum aperture of f/2 after 1953 and to present day. History The name Summicron is derived from ''summus'', latin word for maximum and ''kronos'', the ancient Greek wo ...

(f/2,0) and

Elmarit The name Elmarit is used by Leica to designate camera lenses that have a maximum aperture of f/2.8. History The Elmarit is a derivation of the Elmar. Confusingly not all f/2.8 lenses are Elmarits. The 50 mm f/2.8 collapsible, manufactured ...

(f/2,8).

Description

Nocticron

prime lens In film and photography, a prime lens is a fixed focal length photographic lens (as opposed to a zoom lens), typically with a maximum aperture from f2.8 to f1.2. The term can also mean the primary lens in a combination lens system. Confusion b ...

es are offered as exchangeable lenses for the Micro Four Thirds system (MFT). At

photokina Photokina (rendered in the promoters' branding as "photokina") is a trade fair held in Europe for the photographic and imaging industries. It is the world's largest such trade fair. The first Photokina was held in Cologne, Germany, in 1950, a ...

2012 the model ''Lumix Leica DG Nocticron 1:1,2/42.5 mm ASPH'' was announced, and it is available since 2014. Leica lenses with the model name attribute ''DG'' are made by

Panasonic formerly between 1935 and 2008 and the first incarnation of between 2008 and 2022, is a major Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation, headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka. It was founded by Kōnosuke Matsushita in 1918 as a lightbulb ...

under licence. The lens has a focussing as well as an aperture ring, it is relatively large and heavy, and it is not water or dust proof. The

anti-reflective coating An antireflective, antiglare or anti-reflection (AR) coating is a type of optical coating applied to the surface of lenses, other optical elements, and photovoltaic cells to reduce reflection. In typical imaging systems, this improves the eff ...

of the

telephoto lens A telephoto lens, in photography and cinematography, is a specific type of a long-focus lens in which the physical length of the lens is shorter than the focal length. This is achieved by incorporating a special lens group known as a ''telephoto ...

with 1.7 times normal focal length has 14

lenses A lens is a transmissive optical device which focuses or disperses a light beam by means of refraction. A simple lens consists of a single piece of transparent material, while a compound lens consists of several simple lenses (''elements ...

in 11 groups, two of them

aspheric An aspheric lens or asphere (often labeled ''ASPH'' on eye pieces) is a lens (optics), lens whose surface profiles are not portions of a sphere or Cylinder (geometry), cylinder. In photography, a camera lens, lens assembly that includes an aspheri ...

and another with extremely low

dispersion Dispersion may refer to: Economics and finance * Dispersion (finance), a measure for the statistical distribution of portfolio returns *Price dispersion, a variation in prices across sellers of the same item * Wage dispersion, the amount of variat ...

. The front lens is made of extremely high refracting glass. The Nocticron has an excellent image quality. The Nocticron lenses allow a fast lens-body communication for autofocussing with its rather silent stepper motor, due to the large aperture size also at low light conditions. Objektiv.Blendenzahl.16.jpg, Minimum aperture of the Noctricron 42.5 mm (F-number 16) Objektiv.Blendenzahl.1.2.jpg, Maximum aperture of the Noctricron 42.5 mm (F-number 1,2)

Image stabilisation

As of late 2017, while there are other f/1.2 Micro Four Thirds

autofocus An autofocus (or AF) optical system uses a sensor, a control system and a motor to focus on an automatically or manually selected point or area. An electronic rangefinder has a display instead of the motor; the adjustment of the optical syste ...

lenses, it is still the fastest Micro Four Thirds lens with both

image stabilisation Image stabilization (IS) is a family of techniques that reduce blurring associated with the motion of a camera or other imaging device during exposure. Generally, it compensates for pan and tilt (angular movement, equivalent to yaw and pit ...

and autofocus.William Brawley
Panasonic 42.5mm f/1.2 ASPH POWER OIS LEICA DG NOCTICRON (Tested)
SLRgear Review, 16 January 2014, retrieved 23 October 2015 The optical image stabilisation of the lens can even be combined with the opto-mechanical image stabilisation systems of some camera bodies of the system (''Dual Image Stabilisation'' = ''Dual I.S.''). The ‘’Dual I.S.’’ mode can be used only if the firmware of the Nocticron has version 1.2 or higher.
support.panasonic.com, 5 August 2015, retrieved 23 October 2015

Gallery

The following images show some extraordinary capabilities of the Nocticron such as at low light, at high speed, for strong

or with

. focal length The focal length of an optical system is a measure of how strongly the system converges or diverges light; it is the inverse of the system's optical power. A positive focal length indicates that a system converges light, while a negative foca ...

Market position

Description

Image stabilisation

Gallery

Comparison

External links

References