This weekend with a 35/2.8 C-Biogon & 35 Sumicron v. IV

B

Benjamin Marks

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Both shot at f:2.8, both shot on the Oly E-P2. Different ISO ratings (perils of "Auto").

Can you tell which is which?

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Both are freaking fabulous lenses.
 
Top one's the Biogon-C.

Edit: I should say why I think this. The Bokeh King's bokeh is not king at wider apertures. At f/2.8-4 the Biogon-C deposes the king, and this pair of images shows it. (Going to be embarrassed if I'm wrong!)

Edit 2: Wasn't wrong.
 
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Zeiss is top, like many have said the 35/2 IV is hardly the bokeh king. It is an f/2 lens with harsh double-lined bokeh especially at f/2. It is a nice lens, but no one should rightfully call it the bokeh king and while the f/2.8 C-Biogon has nice smooth bokeh I don't know how you could consider a lens so slow the king of bokeh when it rarely will have much out of focus.
 
Focus was on the eyelashes (they tend to "pop" in the Oly's EVF). And there's no putting anything over on this group. The top pic is indeed the Zeiss. These were converted to DNG by Adobe Bridge and then imported and tweaked a little in Lightroom before being down sized and down-rez'd for web posting. You could probably make the blacks or contrast and color cast a pretty good match in PS or Lightroom, but the out of focus areas are what give the game away. I just got the C-Biogon from Tony Rose and it is impressively sharp, even wide open. Really an amazing little gem of a lens.

Ben Marks
 
At 2.8, the Biogon-C has the best (smoothest, most neutral) bokeh of any 35 I've seen or used, and it is sharp, contrasty, has almost no distortion, a very flat field, little astigmatism, and hardly flares at all. Here's another one from the Biogon-C @ f/2.8, in a very tough lighting situation. Noisy background, lots of light sources in the image, and the lens's behavior is immaculate. It's just a stunning little optic.

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Nishiki Market, Kyoto. M6, Biogon-C wide open, Ektar 100.

When people talk about the "character" of lenses, and I think of the Biogon-C, I'm reminded of a scene from Michael Mann's crime film, Heat. Near the beginning of the movie Detective Hannah, played by Al Pacino, is at the scene of an elaborate armored car robbery. One of his underlings asks him what he thinks the thieves' M.O. is. "The M.O. is, they're GOOD!" says Hannah. That's the nutshell review of the Biogon-C.
 
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Mister E said:
Zeiss is top, like many have said the 35/2 IV is hardly the bokeh king.
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In its domain, at ~5.6 and medium to long focus distances, that's precisely what it is. Mike Johnston (who coined the term "bokeh king" in the first place) has been clear from the start that the v. IV's bokeh is spectacular in specific applications, and falls apart when opened up or at close focus.

It is an f/2 lens with harsh double-lined bokeh especially at f/2. It is a nice lens, but no one should rightfully call it the bokeh king and while the f/2.8 C-Biogon has nice smooth bokeh I don't know how you could consider a lens so slow the king of bokeh when it rarely will have much out of focus.
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With all due respect, I completely disagree. Bokeh is not about throwing as much as possible out of focus. That's trivially easy, and, honestly, rather boring: just get a 300/2.8 or an 85/1.4 and be done with it. The more interesting and challenging aspect of bokeh is rendering partially out-of-focus information as well and as cleanly as possible.

That's what the 35 Biogon-C does, and it's what the v. IV Summicron does, when used within its sweet spot.
 
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Hmm. When I logged in to check the thread status, the second of the images to which I linked on flickr was gone. After visiting Flickr, it has just as mysteriously reappeared. Wahappan? Did I not wait long enough for the linked image to load? Odd.

Semilog, I really don't have another medium speed 35mm lens to compare this to. I have the C/V 35/1.2, which also has nice out-of-focus areas, and the C/V 35/1.4, which is a different sort of beast entirely, AND the 35/2 Biogon, which is a very nice lens in its own right. But the 2.8 C-Biogon is really something special. And it is tiny - I will have to put it on the scale to see whether it or the 35/2 Summicron IV is smaller. I have to say at f2.8, I prefer the C-Biogon.
 
I think the Summilux 35/1.4 pre asph has much better bokeh than both of these combined, but I haven't tried it on a 4/3 camera, only Epson APS-C, M8, and 24x36mm
 
This thread is giving me yet another GAS attack. I hope a reasonably priced C-Biogon does NOT come up on the classifieds anytime soon...

Anyone got B/W with Biogon??
 
semilog said:
Making photographs. What did you think the point was?
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What's the point of using a small sensor camera to compare lenses designed for the 24x36 format?
What's the point of comparing lenses based on different subjects shot at different iso settings?
What's the point of this thread?
 
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