[Leica] An informal test of my 50/1.5 Zeiss Sonnar (on a Contax Iia)

[jsmith342 at cox.net (Jeffery Smith)]

I have never seriously used my 50/1.5 Sonnar because my Contax IIa isn't
terribly light-tight and its rangefinder is out of vertical alignment.
However, having just bought a 50/1.5 Sonnar in Leica LTM mount, I tried to
see what the lens could do. I don't have any of the fancy equipment that
Erwin Puts has, so my lens test consists primarily of walking around the
campus annoying people under different lighting situations. Here are four
shots from that roll of Tri-X.

http://www.400tx.com/Susan.html f/1.5
http://www.400tx.com/Michael.html f/2.0
http://www.400tx.com/Thomas.html  f/4
http://www.400tx.com/Phillip.html f/5.6

My knee-jerk reaction is that it is a pretty good lens with nice bokeh, but
isn't razor sharp wide open (Susan may be blurry because I was at 1/50). So,
it gives me pretty much what my Summarit and Canon 50/1.2 lens give me wide
open...less than stellar images. However, closed down just a stop it starts
performing fairly well.

Jeffery Smith
New Orleans, LA
http://www.400tx.com