awilder said:
Judging by some of the responses I wonder if I've by posting some comparison shots if I've struck a nerve in a few of the respondants. My purpose was not to put down Zeiss ZM but to point out some interesting performance differences. I threw in the Sonnar because even recently I've seen posts inquiring about this lens and lets face it, with the intoduction of the ZM lines there's plenty of posts inquiring about ZM lenses and how they perform. Since the ZM body has yet to be released to the public or press for extended review naturally a lot of questions abound about the body and lenses. My post was certainly not meant to be a full resolution test on the lens (although I could have posted multiple scans of each tested aperture) but to give a brief comparison to other popular or coveted lenses in the M of the normal focal length range. I suppose some people assume if a lens is compared to a Leica it's automatically considered a put down. I was simply offering a comparison with actual posting of image differences to illustrate what I detected as near equal performance with the only difference possibly due to an optomechanical approach in lens design, not an inherently bad optic.
Well, not having yet posted, I'd say you have not struck a nerve, but merely first at any nerve/synaps curious to have a look and compare: thanks.
I just received developed film from my "tests" of the ZI Planar, with a few similar shots made both with it and my Summilux. I am truely stunned by the Planar. See, I like the Summilux and have so for 12 years using it... and then came the CV lenses, first the 4/25, then 1,4/40 SC and 2,5/75... wow, great glass these CVs are! But nothing could get the image my--similarly 12 year old--35 Summicron can. The first impression confirms I ought to sell/trade the Summilux, despite the slight speed advantage over the Planar... I'll be mulling this over in the next weeks. I'll also attempt to get some scans of the Planar's best moments(thus far) up for your review(Please note that I am not an LPM/resolution shooter, so my images will not approach the finer objectivity presented by awilder).
My take, in words, the Summilux and Planar are of a different sort and not worse or better between them. "Bird in hand," I do not need to sell the Summilux, but between them, I'd choose the ZI Planar as a keeper... I realize these are very personal, non-scientific, and first impressions, but the Planar just fits more closely to what I want seen... hmm, somehting in my gut tells me "Hang on there fella, don't do something stoopid!"... high-class problems... there's a LOT of great glass out there!
rgds,
Dave
