The Japanese word for ‘reward’ as in a reward to oneself for hard work or a good job done is ‘gohoobi’.
My gohoobi for working hard in 2026 I picked up a new Voigtlander 50mm F1.0 Nokton lens from Tokiwa Camera here in Osaka last week. What a lens.
There’s no shortage of online reviews and all of them were digested prior to slapping down the credit card.
My anticipation was over and I headed out into the streets of Osaka to see what all the fuss was about and I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to use manual focus only.
The Nikon Z5ii has all the latest Nikon manual focus assist features but I found using a high contrast monochrome picture control, namely the Graphite option, paired with level 3 red peaking was a dream.. even at F1.0
All those comments about how difficult it is to focus on the street at F1.0 didn’t resonate.. it wasn’t that hard. However I’m new to manual focus on the street bar my Helios 44 13 blade vintage lens from Russia and its a different approach to street photography compared to autofocus.. ahh the luxury.
As for the much commented chromatic aberrations and strong vignette.. just use DXO Pure RAW 5 or 6. Job done.. no big deal.
As for the lens it’s basically over engineered perfection.. a bit like my M Zuiko 25mm F1.2 micro four thirds lens. The look that this Voigt delivers though is very unique. That’s why I got it.. no other lens I have comes even close.
Firefighter in Namba Osaka.. Voigtlander 50mm F1.0