This time with the Zeiss Biogon T* 2/35 ZM. I received the lens yesterday, and I’m verry happy with it. It has rich and warm color, great contrast, the famous Zeiss ‘3D pop’, smooth bokeh, smoothly operating focus and aperture rings – in summary, it’s pretty perfect. I’m glad I traded the Nokton 35/1.4 in for this!

Self portrait with Leica M8 + Biogon 35/2 @ f/2, 1/45 sec, ISO 160

I don’t think I’m going to miss the one extra stop of speed of the Nokton, as the Biogon is just so much nicer in every other respect. It is considerably longer (physically) than the Nokton (which is close to being a ‘pancake’), but it has no focus shift whatsoever and is tack sharp already at f/2, becoming even sharper from f/2.8 onwards. It’s also twice the money, but the price difference surely shows (and is surely worth it).

I’ll post some more significant pictures soon, when I’ve had the time to shoot the lens a bit more.