Which 50mm to keep - CV, Canon?

[tomasis]

cant comment on the cv, but I have a zm sonnar and an old opton and the zm is obviously way better on flare and has much higher contrast. I would never, however, think of using the zm sonnar without the hood, the lens tends to flare quite easily in my experience.

It is interesting, I remember you're using Summilux v2 too? I like the look of Sonnar, but I have to choose a fast lens based on flare resistance. So how ZM compares to Lux v2 without hood and with? I have same experience with Jupiter as you have with the new Sonnar. Before that I thought Jupiter might be wrong adjusted so it could flare more easily but it looks it is more due optical design. Maybe Zeiss designers had to compromise a lot to get optics in such small compact package as the Lux 35mm pre asph for Leica. As we see, it results less resistance of flare. Noctilux always tempt me of such high flare resistance and relatively high contrast at widest aperture. But weight issue... One has to give up some things to get other as well.

 

[raid]

I have a thread at RFF on comparing many 50mm lenses, with emphasis on flare. Take a look and get your answers.

Go to the last few pages of this thread:

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=60113

My old Opton came out flare resistant.

 

[WoolenMammoth]

I never used either of my sonnars to shoot lamps, but rather people on the street in an interview setting for a documentary project. I never used the lux on that project, just for studio work, so I dont think I could make a fair comparison. The "tests" I do on lenses usually involves using them for work for 6 months and seeing what it can do. All I can say about the zeiss is that I used it for months on the street and every so often would lose a photo to flare. Its probably not as doom and gloom as Im making it out to be, but it annoyed me. In retrospect, its really not the biggest deal, what really bothers me about the lens, and partly why I stopped using it so much for that project, was the shape of the iris. Shooting on the street in NYC, there are lights everywhere, cars, store windows, street lamps, etc. and with the zm sonnar you'd get the absolutely perfect shape of the iris in the bok on the street lights, nice and sharp too. I really grew to dislike that. If the individual blades where shaped differently, or if there were more blades, I might not have cared so much, but that's actually my biggest criticism of the lens after shooting several hundred rolls of film with it. Also, while the zm is not a large lens, its not so small either, its probably twice the size of the opton in contax mount.