Warning! This is not an Art Gallery. This blog post was created to give information, both in words and in images, about the Carl Zeiss 35mm f2.0 Biogon lens for the Leica M mount cameras. Nothing more. Wanna play art critic? Do it somewhere else.

 

As you are probably aware I sabotaged my resolution not to buy more gear in 2023 and went on a wild spending spree, buying several Carl  Zeiss lenses which were originally made to work on Zeiss's own M mount film camera (since discontinued) and also on any Leica or similar camera that uses the Leica M mount. These were in addition to my recent indiscretions in buying the 40mm and 58mm Voigtlander lenses in a Nikon F mount configuration. Woe is me. Will my checking account ever recover? 

After a couple of false starts concerning viable lens to camera adapters I've finally found one that gives me both correct infinity focusing (without going beyond infinity!) and also has a helicoid for extending the close up range of lenses mounted to it. It's a Hoage branded M to L Macro adapter and costs about $89. I used the adapter and the lens successfully on a Leica SL camera body this afternoon after a few quick tests yesterday evening. Everything tested out well. 

The lens I've been photographing with yesterday evening and today is the Carl Zeiss 35mm f2.0 Biogon lens ZM and I opted to buy it because it is known to be a good optical performer and it's also quite small and compact. Just the thing for long periods of handheld picture taking. When I realized that the new adapter was working perfectly I grabbed the rig and headed downtown. One priority was getting Macchiato from Mañana  Coffee but the over-riding priority was to give the new (to me) lens a trial run. To get a feel for how to focus a lens with a different touch and feel than others I am used to. To see how it renders details. To see if there is distortion and, after the fact, to see how hard (or easy) the distortion was to correct. And...would a smaller, lighter lens work well for me in the field?

I've tossed some captions under some of the images below but my overall assessment, after shooting color DNG's and black and white (oops! Monochrome) Jpegs is that the lens is very sharp and contrasty, overall, and has no major faults anywhere in the chain. The small size is fun and different from the lenses I have been using and would be nice for all day touring, on foot, in major cities. 

A note for people who might have mistaken this BLOG for a virtual fine art gallery: The pix are here to illustrate the copy. The copy is about my subjective appraisal of the lens. It's not a photo essay about street photography. It's not "Sleeping Beside the Colorado River." The photos are definitely not intended to be nor presented as fine art. You'll have to look elsewhere for that. Tough nuts. 

We're starting with a close up of this industrial handle. It's at the close

focusing distance of the lens, combined with the closest setting on the 

lens to camera adapter. If you click in to 100% you can see sharp detail on the 

part of the handle that's in focus. It's really good.  See the 100% crop just below...

Here is the same object at the close focus limit of the lens without the added

magnificiation of the macro adapter. 

And a wider shot just to show off the context of the three images above.

I didn't have a test target at hand so I stopped down to f8.0 and shot

the sidewalk adjacent to the pedestrian bridge. As you can see, it's sharp everywhere. 

That's nice. The sun is just above the frame but there isn't a hint of flare!!

I like the sun stars starting to come out from the highlight area already at f5.6.

Again, filling the frame. At f2.8 and the closest lens (alone) focus.

Wow! blood and urine! Tempting...

Now really enjoying the sun star off the Google "Sail" building. 

And no hint of veiling flare to be seen. Nor flare artifacts in the frame.

Color and detail are crispy but not overly "digital" in appearance.

Don't know whether to credit the camera or the lens or the combination.

But I like what I see. 

B was back for a few days and last night we had dinner with close friends.

Their backyard is beautifully and comfortably landscaped and their outdoor 

dining area table can comfortably seat ten. Our host was just back from 

restaurant hopping in Tokyo and Kyoto and whipped up some incredible 

dishes for us. I brought some wine from our favorite wine merchant.

Hard to beat a good St. Emilion Grand Cru. Even the 2019s are yummy.

Same thing in color. Lens wide open. Camera? SL.

I bought the lens on a lark and now I'm happy I did. It's just want I wanted in a small and lightweight travel companion and, if I ever decide to get back into "M" photography, I now have three lenses tested and ready to go. Might be looking at an M 262. Seems like my speed. But I'll have to wait for my birthday.... And that's a ways off. 

Dinner with B & B tonight. Everyone is doing well and it was great to get back into the tradition of the Sunday Family dinner. Tomorrow is a swim AND strength training day so it's off to bed for me. Fun fact: Ice cream has a lower glycemic index than brown rice. And it's tastier too. 

Eeyore's 2023. Still fun.

 

All images taken with the Q2. 

Artist working on canvas in one of the studios at UT's College of Fine Arts. It looks like "Monochrome" because it was taken with black and white film and printed on double-weight paper...

B at the easel. 1980.

Tri-X. Canon F1. 50mm f1.4 FD.

A quick post about the lens adapters I've been wading through...

from a previous year's Eeyore's Birthday Party.

I take too much for granted. When I bought the Voigtlander 40mm f1.4 M mount lens last October I just figured everything would work well with an inexpensive lens adapter to mate my new lens with a Panasonic S5. I looked for one that was guaranteed to work at infinity. It did. And beyond. The lens adapter maker compromised focus range for being able to reliably get to infinity. That meant that the adapter was a little bit "thin." Sure, I could always hit infinity focus but that thin-ness meant that the lens would happily focus beyond infinity and would do so by sacrificing both some of its close up performance and any semblance of accuracy for the lens's distance scale. Without a true stop at infinity and no accuracy to the focusing ring one loses the ability to just rack to the stop at infinity with any assurance of sharp focus and also results in the loss of hyperfocal distances focusing or estimated focus settings based on distance. The lens still worked with the camera and made nice images but the adapter took away benefits that I, for one, would have enjoyed. 

When I got home I bought a couple other adapters in the lower price ranges and each delivered much the same results. Since I played with three different adapters I came to the (erroneous) conclusion that the Voiglander lens was out of calibration vis-a-vis focusing. I actually disassembled the lens (partially) to see if I could correct it but it was beyond my capabilities. I was luck to have taken photos during disassembly and luckier still to get it all back together and working as before. 

This past week I got two (new to me) Zeiss M mount lenses and thought that they would show me once and for all where the focusing culprit lay. They did. The focused perfectly on a friend's M10R but once again, using my adapters gave me the same results I was getting with the Voigtlander lens. 

I finally borrowed a Leica brand M to L adapter and tried again. Bingo. Right on the money. That adapter resolved the issues I'd encountered earlier. I was a bit deflated. I love the idea of $25 adapters but I loathe the idea of $450 lens adapters. One of our readers here suggested the Hoage macro M to L adapter which can adjust to closer focusing but also is known for accurate infinity focus. Another "feature" is the price of $89 instead of $450. I ordered one which came yesterday afternoon. 

And it worked. It worked as well at infinity (hard stop) as the Leica adapter. I could choose just to use it there and be done with it but I also tried out the close focusing ability and was happy to see that it cut down the minimum focusing distance by about half. I don't expect to need that feature too often but it was nice to have. 

It's nice to have that all sorted out. I have the one Hoage Macro adapter right now but will probably order a second one so I can have an adapter for both the 28mm and 35mm and use them on two cameras at the same time. But maybe I'll just be lazy and parsimonious and stick with one. .. ... ....

I am equally happy to report that neither the 58mm Voigtlander lens nor the 40mm Voigtlander lens (both adapter from Nikon F to L mount) don't suffer the same issues. They are able to go to a true infinity and then also to match up on the focus rings to estimated distances. Fiasco dodged by sheer luck, I guess.

Wanted to share this right away in case someone was toying with following my cheapskate example. $89 seems to be the baseline for accurate performance with M to L adapters... Tragic. But useful to know.

 

Street Photography?

More like rural highway at dawn photography. From an old ad campaign from the 1990s.