Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

Nokton 50mm f/1.1

Cosina Voigtländer · Leica M · 2009

single source, unconfirmed

Also known as: Voigtländer Nokton 50mm f/1.1 · Voigtlander Nokton 50mm F1.1 VM · NOKTON 50mm F1.1 · Voigtlander 50mm f1.1 Nokton Leica M · Cosina Voigtlander Nokton 50/1.1 · CV Nokton 50mm 1.1 · Voigtlander 50/1.1 VM · フォクトレンダー ノクトン 50mm F1.1 · フォクトレンダー NOKTON 50mm F1.1 VM · コシナ フォクトレンダー NOKTON 50mm F1.1

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
VM (2009–2019) Leica M 2009–2019 — —
  1. Cosina's discontinued-products page dates the release to June 2009 (2009年6月) and the end of production to November 2019; camera-wiki's Cosina Voigtländer list says May 2009. The month is the only point of disagreement.
  2. The $1,100 launch price is Steve Huff's figure from November 2009 and stands on that one source; CameraQuest's page for the lens is no longer online.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Rangefinder-coupled from infinity to 1m only — a lens engraved with a 0.7m close focus is the f/1.2 or the f/1, not this
  • A fat 69.6mm barrel with a 58mm filter thread; the f/1.2 that followed is 63.3mm across with a 52mm thread

VM (2009–2019):

  • Engraved NOKTON 50mm F1.1 with no Aspherical suffix — the only VM 50 Cosina built without one
  • Black anodised barrel, 58mm filter thread, 10 straight aperture blades, focus stops at 1m
  • Push-on standard hood in the box; the optional LH-7 is a metal slip-over hood cut away to reduce finder blockage

Specifications

Formula
Double Gauss derivative, all spherical — 7 elements in 6 groups
Construction
7 elements / 6 groups
Aperture range
f/1.1–f/16
Diaphragm blades
10
Min. focus
1 m
Dimensions
69.6 × 57.2 mm
Weight
428 g
Filter
58 mm
Years manufactured
2009–2019
Country
Japan
Coating
Multi-coated
Original price
¥125,000 excluding tax (2009) (today ¥142,000); $1,100 in the United States at launch

What reviewers say

Optical Ratings

Aggregated from the reviews above — follow the links for the full picture.

Spherical aberration
severe focus shift
Vignetting
heavy wide open
Flare & ghosting
flares wide open
Coma
strong in corners
Optical formula — Double Gauss derivative, all spherical — 7 elements in 6 groups

History

Ten years after the 1999 Nokton 50mm f/1.5 had restarted the rangefinder-lens market, Cosina went a stop and a half faster. The Nokton 50mm F1.1 VM arrived in June 2009 by Cosina’s own record — camera-wiki says May — at ¥125,000 excluding tax in Japan and $1,100 in the United States, and it was, for a decade, the cheapest new lens faster than f/1.2 anyone could put on a Leica M. Cosina’s own description sets out the idea plainly: recreate the flavour of the storied super-fast lenses of the past while using ultra-high-refractive-index glass without stint, so that the lens performs from wide open. What that produced was an all-spherical design of seven elements in six groups — no aspherical surface anywhere, which is why alone among Cosina’s VM fifties it carries no Aspherical suffix — with ten straight blades, f/16 at the small end, a 58mm filter thread and 428g without the hood. It is rangefinder-coupled from infinity to 1m and focuses no closer, which is the quickest way to tell it from the two lenses that followed it: the f/1.2 Aspherical of 2018 and the f/1 Aspherical of 2022 both reach 0.7m and 0.9m respectively and are engraved as such. A standard push-on hood came in the box; the optional LH-7 is a metal slip-over hood cut away to keep more of the finder clear. Production ended in November 2019, announced on 26 November, two months after the f/1.2 had shipped. There was one version and one finish, black, and no screw-mount edition.

Reviewers have argued about this lens since the week it appeared, and the argument has stayed the same. Steve Huff had it on a Leica M9 in November 2009 and found it sharper wide open than the classic f/1 Noctilux he set beside it, well built, and a pound in weight with a hood that pushes into the finder; the bokeh was nice but had none of the old Noctilux’s swirl or glow, and his verdict — 80 per cent of a Noctilux for a fifth of the price — came with the admission that he kept his pre-aspherical Summilux instead. His side-by-side a week later put it more gently: the Leica has the smoother, creamier, more classical rendering and the Nokton is a bit harsher, but the differences are subtle and the Leica is not worth the extra money unless the money is spare. Hamish Gill, writing on 35mmc in 2014, thought the divided opinion came down to why people buy it. Bought to shoot in the dark on fast film it does exactly that, and he found the edgy highlights that stretch to ovals at the frame edge pleasing; bought for daylight character it disappoints, and he sends those buyers to a Zeiss Sonnar. Bastian Kratzke’s 2024 review on phillipreeve.net is the most thorough and the most damning on one point: the focus shift between f/1.4 and f/2.8 at close to middle distances is among the worst he has measured on any lens, and on a rangefinder — which cannot see it — that matters more than anything else on the sheet. Against it he puts high contrast and resolution from f/1.1 at portrait distances, low vignetting once stopped down, pointed sunstars from the straight blades, and a price of around $500 used that makes the whole package better than its reputation, provided it is bought as a portrait and night lens and not as a general fifty.

Buying one, then, means buying it for f/1.1 and living with the rest. The focus shift is the thing to test: focus at f/1.1 on a rangefinder, stop down to f/2 and expect the plane to have moved back. The 69.6mm barrel and the hood block the lower right of the finder on every M and Bessa; Gill and Huff both say so. Check the aperture ring clicks and the focus for the smooth, damped action Cosina is known for, and that the standard hood is present, since the LH-7 was an extra. The lens exists in no other mount, and the f/1.1 was never revised, so any listing describing a II, an Aspherical, a Vintage Line or a silver finish is describing something else; the Nokton 50mm f/1.2 Aspherical and the f/1 Aspherical, which took over the fast-fifty slot in the VM line, each have their own page.

Expand Collapse

This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.

Example photos

Sample photo taken with the Nokton 50mm f/1.1
Street dancers in Akihabara at night, August 2010 — Nokton 50mm f/1.1 on a Panasonic GF1, 1/30s at ISO 125 (Hajime Nagahata) — Hajime Nagahata, via Flickr and Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Sample photo wanted — shot with a Nokton 50mm f/1.1? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $750 across 27 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-19 (middle half $650–$800). First day tracked.

Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.

Show 60 more listings

Buying from Yahoo! Auctions outside Japan. It is a domestic marketplace: sellers ship within Japan, and most will not register an overseas buyer. A proxy service bids on your behalf, receives the item and forwards it, for a fee and a wait. Buyee, Jauce and ZenMarket each accept a Yahoo auction number directly. Listed alphabetically for information — none is recommended over another, and none of these is an affiliate link.

Listings updated 2026-09-19. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Nokton 35mm f/1.2 Aspherical · Nokton 40mm f/1.2 Aspherical · Nokton Classic 40mm f/1.4 · Nokton 50mm f/1 Aspherical · Nokton 50mm f/1.2 Aspherical · Nokton 50mm f/1.5 Aspherical · Ultron 21mm f/1.8 Aspherical

Sources (7)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this lens, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.