Erwin (who is a good friend) and I tend to disagree on some lenses.He likes MTF curves and testcharts, I use the lenses as I would any lens. Aimless wanderings and shooting, usually with 250-400 asa film, handheld too. Some lenses works better this way than others. The Biogon 35mm f2 is one of them. It is a bit of a handful, but I like the way it "draws" on to film.
The ZM lenses and the VC lenses are "new" designs, based on older configurations, but with updated glass-technology and coatings. In many ways they are state of the art wehen it comes to design. Leica has been massaging existing designs for decades and are somewhat limited as to how much they can squeeze out of it. Their recent offerings are very good - the 50f1.4 Asph, the 75f2 Apo and some of the wider ones are getting revamped, the 28f2.8 Asph is one and also the f2.5 line (35/50/75). Their problem is that many of their lenses are, however good they are, not superior to the offerings from Zeiss or VC - and their prices are too high for what you get.
Both Zeiss and Cosina has ventured into a realm that Leica has not touched. "Classic" lenses that replicate the performance of "legends" like the pre-asph Summilux as well as offering a variety of f stops and physical sizes to fit the user.
We, as rangefinder users, have bever had it so good. The choices are bewilderingly large, but you can get just about anything you need and want, not just what Leica thought you should want!
Rangefinder users are a small (but rather vocal) bunch. I suspect that the entire RF market world wide would not even fill the average soccer stadium! The Leica name is forefront, but a large portion of that is because there is a huge amount of used stuff being cycled around. The Zeiss and CV prducts are showing up now, but they are still a small market compared to the trade in used Leica.
