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I never owned or used a Planar 50/1.4. I am sure that it is a great lens, but 1.7 is not that far behind on performance, and I would imagine that they are probably equal when stopped down.
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I don't have the 50 f/1.7, but I have the 50 f/1.4, and it is indeed a superb performer. Sharp as a tack. I don't recall that I would talk about its 3D performance, but at f/1.4 it may well do so. It just wasn't anything that I looked for after I was stunned by its sharpness.
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I almost bought a Yashica FX 103 program to use instead of my Contax, but the only reason I did not is that I too am saving up for a 5D II, which I hope to purchase in two years. Every little bit helps, so in the mean time I am living through the glitches - or just using my Pen Ft which is a camera that is truly fun to shoot.
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I too had a Contax 139Q, and I loved it, right up to the moment it died. That was after about 6 or 7 years. In its defense, it had been in the house where we had the house fire.
I couldn't afford to get it fixed, but some time later, I found the Yashica FX 103 was sort of its Yashica twin. It has the same otf flash metering which is astounding in its performance when using dedicated flash. It also has aperture preferred, and plain shutter preferred and the shutter preferred where it picks the best combination on shutter preferred. All in all a very nice camera. They usually sell for a good price, but expect the ebay prices to spike for a while as soon as people read this. That happened twice after I praised the FX 103 on another forum.
BTW, if you like, the FX 103 also takes a winder, just like the 139Q. I have a couple for the Yashica as well as a Contax for when that worked. Personally, I don't care much for them. They don't work any faster than my thumb, if as fast, and add weight.
I really like the FX 103's I have. They have already lasted longer than the 139Q did. Of course they haven't been through a house fire while I had them, but no telling what they were through before that.
They tend to suffer from the same covering problems as the 139Q and other Contax cameras of the time. I just peeled the thin part all the way off and used shoe dye to make it all look the same. Some day maybe I will give them another coat but don't see any reason to now. The mechanics and lenses are what I was after.
The 50 is all I have been able to aford in T* lenses. But as has already been mentioned, most of the Yashica Yashinon lenses are quite good. So are many of the old Vivitar TX lenses.
