The Online Photographer

Light Lens Lab made a replica of the original f/1.2 Noctilux.

https://lightlenslab.com/products/light-lens-lab-50mm-1-2-asph-1966

May be a copy, but it's definitely a f/1.2 lens from a Chinese maker.

[Thanks Ben. I added a correction to the post. —Mike]

I don't doubt for a minute that what we grew up with as photographers influences what we like to this day. For me, at least, another age-related factor (I'm 68) is simply growing tired of lugging around heavy equipment. A 2 lb. normal lens? No thanks.

I recently picked up a Nikon Z50ii body with 18-140mm lens (27-210mm equivalent on the APS-C body). I bought it mainly as a walking-around camera – better than my phone, smaller than my full-frame DSLR, a Nikon D750. The Z50ii covers virtually the same range of focal lengths as the 2-lens kit I've used with the D750, but is 4.5 lbs. lighter (a 72% reduction). In the limited like-for-like tests I've done with the two cameras so far, I have a slight preference for the images from the Z50ii.

So even though I bought it for "walking-around," when I look at the two cameras, at this point I'm feeling happier picking up the Z50ii for whatever I'm shooting.

D750 w/70-200mm, and Z50ii w/18-140mm:

I own the 70mm limited lens. It is lovely.
My favorite Pentax limited of that era, is the 15mm limited, which easily makes fantastic starbursts.
These lens are focused by the camera body and are a bit loud compared to today’s lens. Doesn’t bother me. 😀
What a fun project.

I learned to drive in one of those original Austin/Morris/BLMC Minis. It felt like you were Rat Fink reaching up to grasp the end of the gear lever – pity you had to deal with 20mm of flex before the business end of the lever started to move. Between that, the pull-cord door release and not being able to see past the car in front I'm fairly glad they're no longer a thing.

I had an ME Super when I was in high school, and really loved the size and ergonomics. Unfortunately it was stolen. When Pentax DSLRs came out I got one of the early ones, not out of brand loyalty (as I'd had a Canon T90 in the interim) but again because I liked the size and ergonomics.

I owned the 70mm Limited you talk about here, and it was both very small and light, and exceptionally sharp. The 21 was also great, and the 35mm Macro too (though a tad slow focusing even for the time).

My theory for the rise of big honkin lenses of all types is that if someone is after small and light as a priority they'll just use their phone. The reason to step up to a "real" camera is to make a big leap, which is partly why full frame has become so popular.

These days I shoot Fuji, and I think Fujifilm is following similar logic - they won't make money at the low-end, and the midrange will be crowded. So they're going more premium, with a focus on the experience (since that's the other reason to move beyond smartphone cameras).

The lenses I bought and used (still use) with my Nikon FM- and FE-series cameras are nice and compact yet still manage to have rather large maximum apertures. I always considered those cameras to be the ideal size. That's why, despite having "better" and bigger cameras, I only travel with the Z50ii and also enjoy shooting with it at home.

I have the Zuiko 55mm f1.2 and still use it. I never saw the later 50mm version, but I was surprised to see mir.com.my listing them as having the same weight (310g). The 55mm feels a bit chunky by Zuiko standards, and has a 55mm filter thread.

I loved all the small semi-fast Zuiko primes, all with the same 49mm filter size

Don't like those large lenses either, however they unfortunately have a reason: newer lenses need to be even more betterer (with higher and higher pixelcounts, and to keep the marketing types and the internet happy anyway), and for that they need more glass, and they need to get heavier to feel like it's build like a tank. I'm afraid compact is a niche market now that competes with old(er) lenses. There is always Voigtlander/Cosina with their lenses, whenever they are available.

"...ever held an ME Super?"

I had the Pentax ME Super. It was terrific size-wise, but after the hype of the push buttons to change the shutter speeds wore off, some weaknesses showed up. The LEDs in the finder that glowed next to the shutter speed on the scale with every speed being permanently displayed was great in low light, but not strong enough in super bright light, like on a beach. Also, for an aperture priority camera, the lack of a depth-of-field preview was not optimal.

Since I had acquired several Pentax primes for the camera, I bought a Pentax MX and then an LX and never touched the ME Super again.

FWIW, One great thing about the Pentax back in the manual focus era is that unlike so many other brands, is that the focus direction and aperture direction was the same as Nikkor lenses, making the concurrent use of Pentax and Nikon cameras easy in terms of muscle memory.

"*Actually the smallest car I ever saw (and sat in!) was the original Honda Civic. A dealer had one on display. It was a little larger than, say, a suit of armor."

That's probably a luxury car, compared to one I rode in. A Honda N600. Two cylinders and owned by a "kid" who helped his dad with Formula 2 tires in Europe during the summers. Did I mention this two-cylinder had a misfiring spark plug wire? It was like having the brakes slammed to the floor and then taking off in a very low gear when the wire would decide to deliver electricity to only one spark plug!

I've always gone the way of light and compact for my camera gear, so this trend is very foreign to me. I'm primarily a street shooter so any excess weight or bulk just slows me down and makes things less efficient overall. Adds friction to the system as Thom Hogan might say.

As for small cars, a friend of mine had one of those early Honda Civics but I was never inside of it. Looked pretty tiny on the outside. The smallest car I've owned would be my Citroen 2CV, the size of a VW bug but considerably lighter.

When I was four years old, in 1954, my father replaced his '36 Plymouth coupe with a '48 Crosley. That car was so small that I thought it was for me; he said that I had been very pissed-off when told that it was his.

Dad was a real car guy, and as I was growing up we had a variety of vehicles of all shapes, sizes, and nationalities. I recall several Renaults, some Falcons and Merc Comets, four Mustangs, a Ford Consul, a Triumph Spitfire, an Opel, a 1950 Nash, a '53 Ford sedan delivery, a Kaiser Henry J, and a huge yellow boat of a Lincoln Continental ragtop he named The Big Banana. I'm sure that if he had he the funds he would have loved to put together a collection. But because he was a school teacher he never really had much spare cash. He was only able to pull this off because he did all the mechanical and body work himself. His collection was more along the lines of automotive serial monogamy. Whenever he bought another new old car he would sell the previous one. He bought his first car when he was twelve, a Model T for $3.

In about 1970 he had a chance to pick up a pristine 1957 Bentley for a very low price. Car had only about six or seven thousand original miles on it and had all the options, including the cocktail bar built into the rear of the front passenger seat. Story was it's owner had died shortly after buying the car new and it sat in a garage for all those years, its ownership tied up in a probate battle. Dad really liked the car and he could swing the purchase price, but even with doing all the wrenching himself, realized that in the end he couldn't afford to maintain it properly. The price of just the ignition tune-up kit was $125 at a time when the kit for an average 6 or 8 cylinder american car was under $10. All the other expendables for the car were priced accordingly. The book value of the car was actually surprisingly low because the usual buyers of such a car, wealthy people, had no interest in a thirteen year-old vehicle. The fact that it had been Bogart's car made no difference because celebrity-owned cars were not yet a thing then.

You could, instead of complaining, herald the Sigma Contemporary DG DN series. The 45mm is, in particular, a standout.

[James, that's my lens. —Mike]

As Bruce Hedge pointed out, OLY already did this for µ4/3 sensors, nine years ago.

25/1.2 - 3 HR, 2 ED, 1 E-HR, 1 HR, 1 Super-ED

Also, 45/1.2 - 1 ED, 4 HR, 1 aspherical

When these came out, I ignored them, thinking they were just about the "mine is bigger/faster than yours" market. Now they are favorites. All that fanciness is about the same thing as the SongRaw Moonlit; great bokeh and, rarer, very smooth transitions from in to out of focus.

That's part of what I see in some of the "Pretty images." you mention on their web site. OTOH, there is also some busy/edgy bokeh in a couple. I think the Oly bokeh is a bit better, based on the few images on their site.

I despair of showing what I'm talking about in the tiny images that fit here.

(F2, for the right DoF)

Less obvious may be their ability to do something that hasn't been possible (without egregious effort) on smaller formats since classic LF days, lots of non-edgy fine detail together with deep DoF.

Oly/OMS focus bracketing, together with very wide apertures and a focus stacking app, does this magic thing.