Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/08/25
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Earlier in the year, after much belly acheing and searching around, I snagged a used 28/2, at a price still quite dear-to-me. At that time, used prices between a 28/2 and the most recent E46 Leica 28/2.8 weren't all that different. I'm very happy with the lens - but today, "knowing what I know now" about my own shooting habits with the lens and what not, I imagine I might happily spring for a new ZM 28/2.8 or maybe even a CV 28/1.9. Actually, the CV 28/3.5 is wonderfully small, beautifully built, and I believe over the last year-plus, I only think I've heard from one owner who was not happy with this lens, and many more positive assessment. The prices are great, IIRC Puts has some nice'ish things to say, and in the case of the ZM, the 1 stop doesn't really matter that much to me. On the topic of shooting habits with the lens, so far I've shot with HP5+ at either EI 320 or pushed to 800 with HC110, yellow-green filter, rather up-close-and-personal focus, and using hyperfocal distance when light/aperture allows. In the up close shooting, framing/aligning horz/verts, and watching for converging verticals and the like has been more of an issue to me than any slight nuances in lens quality. Coming from a 28/2.8 AIS on my FM3a, I find these issues are harder to deal with on my Leica RF. The lack of barrel distortion is greatly appreciated, but the ZM and CV lenses probably enjoy the same or a comparable quality level in this regard. I recently picked up a CV bright line metal 28 finder from Stephen, and it's proven my most useful "accessory" in shooting with the 28/2. Lately, I've been shooting slower film and might better wring out some of the optical quality inherent in the 28/2 in my future shooting. We'll see. In any case, since it's already comfy in my bag, I'll hold onto my 28/2 for now :-) Another plus is that sans hood, it's quite a compact lens for an f2 max aperture. Scott Stephen Gandy wrote: >feli wrote: > > > >>On Aug 25, 2005, at 1:05 PM, Jeff Sumner wrote: >> >> >> >>>> The 25/2.8 Zeiss is also reputed to be hands down better than >>>>Leica's 24 Aspherical. >>>> >>>> >>Where did you hear this? They are reputed to be a close match, with >>the 24 ASPH having a slight >>edge wide open. >> >> > >one buyer's opinion. until we have a majority of independent tests >agreeing, nothing will be too sure. with the big price difference >however, it's surprising they are even close. . > > > >>>>in short, if the new ZM 28/2.8 Biogon is not the full equal of the >>>>current 28/2 >>>>Leica lens, it is very very close, and better than used versions >>>>of previous >>>>Leica M 28 designs. >>>> >>>> > >if the Leica 28/2 isn't noticeably better, Zeiss wins in this comparison >due to the much lower cost > > > >>You would have hoped that the 2.8/28 would have been better that the >>2/28. >>It's a lot harder to design a high performance f2 lens than a 2.8. >> >>My biggest hope is that the new competition will force Leica to stop >>resting on their laurels >>and become more aggressive, especially in the price department. >> >> > >perhaps, time will tell. > >Stephen > > > >_______________________________________________ >Leica Users Group. >See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information > >