The Biogon usually handles flare better than this. Perhaps there was a big, greasy fingerprint on it this day. Keep your optics clean.

A couple of bits of gearheadedness to pass on:

• Colin pointed out a little propaganda-review of the ZM Biogon 35 over at Zeiss’ website (PDF version here).
• Jeff Ascough on Cameras and the Desire to Upgrade. Jeff Ascough is arguably one of the best wedding photographers in the world, a dedicated M shooter, and he isn’t buying an M8. His three criteria for new gear purchases are insightful.
• Olympus has released some more notes on the long-upcoming E-3. I’ll be curious to see if this thing ever makes it to market.

Editor’s Note: Two typos in a six line post is exactly the kind of accuracy and attention to detail for which I strive (2 points to whomever can point out the overly pedantic bit of grammar in this post). Would you believe that I used edit and index books for a living? Sigh . . . I gotta stop trying to write this stuff before my coffee kicks in.

Hexar RF, XM Biogon 35, Efke 400 @ 250, Tmax Dev

Efke 400 Pulled to 250

In my continuing investigations of Efke 400, I shot a couple of rolls at 250 and developed them in Tmax Developer diluted 1+5 at 70 degrees for 5 minutes with 10 seconds agitation every minute. This seems about right for the film speed, but I was kind of surprised to see very little difference in either grain or tonality from shooting at the box speed. There’s nothing wrong with Efke 400 rated at 250, but at least in Tmax Developer, there doesn’t seem to be anything gained from the loss of speed.

Hexar RF, ZM Biogon 35, Efke 400 @ 250, Tmax Dev

Ekfe 400 Grain Pecularities

One of the things I’ve noticed about Efke 400 is the interesting grain structure. It isn’t that Efke 400 is particularly grainy, but the structure of the grain is kind of unique. Notice in both of the posted pictures that the evident grain isn’t limited to little white speckly bits. There’s some black in there too. HP5, which has a similar amount of grain, shows its grain mostly as little white bits. I’m not sure what that means, but after only a few rolls, I feel like I can already distinguish an Efke shot from something shot on another film quite easily, something which isn’t entirely possible with other 400 speed films. This would seem to make Efke a good choice for someone wanting a unique look.

Unrelated Optical Note

I didn’t expect the shot of the spiderweb to amount to much, but the Biogon’s excellent flare control allowed it to capture a really difficult subject. I’m always impressed by this lens.

Quick Optical Note: For the last 9 months I’ve been alternating back and forth between using the ZM Biogon 35 and the 50 Hexanon. I’ll stick one on the camera and leave it there for a month or two or three, and then, when my mood changes, switch to the other. One of the interesting outcomes of this is the cycle of surprise - as in “Wow, that lens is really good” - that comes when switching back to the other one. After going through this a couple of times, I’m fairly comfortable with saying that the Biogon is the better of the two. Both are excellent, but the Biogon just seems more consistently snappy and three dimensional. Despite my preference for the 50mm focal length, if I had to choose one lens, I think it would have to be the Biogon. Of course, with the long contrasty days of summer coming on, the slightly duller Hexanon may retake the lead.

Kate in the Kitchen, OM-1, 50mm F1.8, Delta 400 @ 800, Xtol

I’m thoroughly impressed by this cheapie little lens. You can often pick up bargrain grade copies of the Olympus 50MM F1.8 for $15-30; I got mine with an OM-1 for something like $60. Here’s what you get for the cost of a couple of pints of Dragon’s Milk at the Blind Pig.

• Build Quality: Typical pre-af major manufacturer build quality. In other words, this thing is rock solid.
• Size: Like many OM lenses, the 50 f1.8 is pretty tiny, although in this case it’s only a touch smaller than a comparable normal lens from the competition. I already manage to get my finger in front of the element fairly often, so I wouldn’t want anything smaller.
• Ergonomics: Despite being 30 years old at this point, my copy has smoothly damped focus and positive detents for the aperture.
• Distortion: There’s a tiny bit of barrel distortion, but nothing else is too glaring.
• Sharpness: Even up close (under 3 feet is close for an RF user) and wide open, there’s more resolution than you need for hand-held shooting. When I first got this lens I took a few frames of a book page while playing around with that whole “you can focus closer than arm’s reach with an SLR” thing. The 10 point type was clear, so I figure it must be pretty sharp.
• Flare: Flare really doesn’t seem to be a problem for this lens. Mine is about as full of dust and crud as you would expect from an abused thirty year old, but it can still shoot into the light with little problem. See here for some examples.
• Bokeh: Bokeh from this lens is smooth and pleasant. Point light sources come out fairly lopsided, so there’s definitely some under-corrected spherical aberrations.
• Tonality: Shadows are bit dark with this lens particularly in OOF regions. Other than that, the tonality is smoooooooooth.
• Subjective Image Quality: Apart from the slightly crunched up shadows, this lens has got a great look. It’s a fairly literal lens, but unlike a lot of its contemporaries it doesn’t seem to have been designed for absolutely maximum sharpness and contrast. It’s far more imaginative than something like the Nikon 50 F1.4 AIS, which is a nasty little lens despite its technical abilities.

To see some samples, type OM-1 into the search box or click here.

After reading my recently re-published review of the Hexar AF, a correspondent susggested that perhaps a 40mm lens would solve my ‘35 is too short, but 50 is too long’ dilemna. It’s sound advice, but not as simple in practice as one would hope, nor perhaps as useful a compromise as math would seem to indicate. Despite it’s mathematical suitability for the 35mm frame, the 40mm lens is not an easy focal length to come by. Excluding some truly rare lenses, like Colin’s screw mount 40MM Olympus, I can come up with only three 40mm lens solutions for interchangeable lens 35mm cameras (there are however, nearly as many fixed lens options which I won’t cover here for reasons that will become clear):

• The Leica 40 F2 SUMMICRON-C and it’s somewhat controversial Minolta variant, the 40 F2 M-ROKKOR.
• Voigtlander’s Nokton 40mm F1.4, the fastest 40 in the East or West.
• The Olympus 40mm F2 for the OM cameras.

Here are what I see as the salient points of each in turn.

Leica 40 F2 SUMMICRON-C

The Summicron-C enjoys enjoys exactly the kind of reputation that you would expect of a good, bargain priced performer in an otherwise agonizingly expensive line of excellent lenses. Its virtues (or its price) are such that people are willing to file down a part of the lens mount so that it will bring up the slightly less less-than-ideal 35mm frame lines on standard M mount bodies. I’m not afraid of the file, but this seems an incredibly cumbersome solution, since in the end you have a mangled lens that still doesn’t bring up framelines that match it’s perspective with even the woeful accuracy we’ve come to expect from rangefinders. Sorry, but I think RF composition is sufficiently fraught with uncertainty already.

I could buy a CL or CLE to mount the thing on, thereby avoiding the mangling and the uncertainty. Economy is not entirely in favor of this option, and although the CL is an interesting camera, I need another 35mm RF like I need another $700 credit card charge for, well, another 35mm RF.

Voigtlander’s Nokton 40mm F1.4

The CV offering, like nearly all CV lenses, has a spotty reputation, which probably means that it wipes the floor with the Summicron-C, but you can never tell with these religious things. Like the Summicron C, the 40mm focal length requires either some file work or a special camera body, Voigtlander’s own R3 in this case. I once played with an R3/40 combo in a Tokyo camera shop, and despite the grumblings in certain forums (and the inevitable counter grumblings), I didn’t find it to be a particularly crappy camera. It actually seemed pretty nice in the way that an FM2 seems pretty nice; solid enough and straightforward in way that would never hamper shooting. But that life size VF is a problem for the diminishing population of glasses wears, of which I’m an obstinate part. And, as with the Summicron-C/CL combo, I don’t really need another $700 35mm RF. My Hexar’s fill that roll quite nicely with money left over, although that whole f1.4 thing would be nice for the author of a certain oddly name site.

Olympus Zuiko 40mm F2

This leaves the Olympus 40mm F2. You can tell this is the best choice for me because it gets the nearly last word. Olympus users have a kind of quiet fanaticism that comes from knowing that there gear is just as good as that German stuff, but not nearly so expensive. When it comes to the Zuiko 40, they give up the whole quiet thing and go for the straight fanaticism. Must be quite a lens. For my uses, it would seem to have three distinct advantages:

• I already have a body - a beat up, but much appreciate OM-1MD, on which to mount it.
• There are no framelines to get wrong.
• Since I would only need the lens, it would be a more economic solution, slightly. The 40mm is one of the most expensive lenses in what is now an incredibly cheap line, but it would still be cheaper than the Leica or CV offerings.

This is certainly the most attractive option. I’m rather fond of my OM-1 despite its obvious age an quirky ergonomics. Another lens for it, would give me another option when I want the direct view of an SLR, although truth be told, I should probably buy a T/S lens for it instead. I’m not quite sure that I’m old enough to start futzing with T/S lenses though, which seem decidedly retiring in some way.

Complications

All of this assumes that I actually want another lens. Despite my frustration with the either-or-ness of the 35/50 dichotomy, I’m just enough of a hairshirt calvinist to appreciate the creative potential of that tension. Recently I’m beginning to appreciate the role limitations play in my photography. I’ve come to suspect that having too many choices aborts the whole process just at that point where choices come into play. It’s at least part of the reason I remain uncomfortable with digital; that maleability which so many photographers have found so liberating seems an entanglement to me. Would the betweenness of the 40 present me with a similar problem?

I do have some evidence that it would. Due to the paucity of 50mm equivalent lenses for cropped from digitals, over the last couple of years I’ve used three lens/camera combinations that ranged from 42 to 46. Particularly with the 42, the perspective seemed schizophrenically tweenish, and not in the chameleon way often ascribed to the 50 by the zoom-with-your-feet folks. Perhaps these experiences were not a fair trial given my discomfort with digital in general. Perhaps the perspective is worth another try. Perhaps I should just save my money for a Mamiya 6 with it’s 75. Doesn’t 75mm on a 6×6 frame work out to something like a 40mm?

Intro

In July of 06 I went to Tokyo on a much needed vacation from teaching English to Korean preschoolers. After mentioning to Guy that I wanted to look for a copy of the elusive Konica Hexanon 35, Guy was kind enough to show me around to a bunch of camera shops. Down in the basement of Map Camera, I found the sought after Hexanon, but also a slightly used and much cheaper ZM Biogon 35 F2. Economy won the day, and I walked out the door with Biogon and no regrets. I’ve used my Biogon 35 almost every day since. Here’s my 20 roll report.

Overview

• Build quality & Handling: The lens feels very sturdy. It mounts securely. I’ve not noticed any wear on the finish, and mines been bouncing around in coat pockets etc for 5 months.Focussing is smooth. Aperture detents provide good feedback. It’s a little larger than many 35 f2 RF lenses, both in depth and width, but it’s still small enough that I sometime have problems with my fingers getting in front of it.
• Sharpness: Altough there are at least two reviews online that state this lens is too soft wide open, I’ve not found this to be true. For handheld work, there’s no practical difference in sharpness between F2 and F4. On a tripod, with a totally motionless subject, I’m sure that it’s softer at f2 than at f8, but when I use f2, its usually because I’m handholding at 1/15 or 1/30. There’s plenty of resolution at f2 for that kind of work. And yes, the field is nearly entirely flat and it is sharp all the way out to the corners.
• Contrast: At F2 the lens is slightly less contrasty than at F4, although it’s nothing you can’t change in printing or in Photosop. In really contrasty light, shoot it at F2 and you don’t have to worry so much about over juiced highlights.
• Highlight Rendition: For my uses, if I don’t have to adjust my developing, I figure the highlight rendition is pretty neutral. I’ve not made any adjustments for this lens.
• Flare: Flare is extremely well handled. I don’t have a hood for mine, but I’ve seen some mild veiling flare only twice. Also, on one occasion, with the setting sun pouring in through a nearby window, I did manage to get some gnarly flare, but it was kind of an interesting effect.
• Bokeh: I like it. This lens is smooth and sharp at the same time in an uncommon way. I’ve never seen anything that is exactly like it. I think part of it has to do with just how sharp it really is wide open.
• Gut Reaction: This is an amazingly competent lens, and one that is hard not to like after you shoot with it for a while. It’s got a quiet personality, but there’s very little it can’t do. That corner to corner sharpness and the soft transition between in and out of focus give it a very realistic rendition even wide open without seeming overly harsh. It’s not a lens that’s going to overwhelm the other choices you make as a photographer, but it is one that will give you a lot of raw material to work with.

The Pictures

Zeiss VS Leica

Konica and Voigtlander have both shown that the hardest part of building a better M mount lens or camera than Leica is getting anyone to believe you. The Hexar was dogged from day one with reports of questionable reliability and incompatibility with Leica lenses. By extension, the lenses are often still viewed as suspect. The Voigtlander gear has had it’s reliability impugned from day one as well, although it’s apparently OK to buy one of their fun lenses - like the super wides or snapshot lenses - as long as you have your Cron V4 on hand for the serious stuff. Of course, since Cosina also makes the Zeiss Ikon gear, the reliablity and quality of construction of the ZM stuff must therefore be suspect as well. Or so the forumers would have you believe. The Biogon is the only piece of ZM gear that I’ve used for any amount of time, but if it is any indication, the rest of the Zeiss Ikon line must be superb. But, alas, it isn’t made by Leica. Oh well.

So is the Biogon as good as a Leica lens? I don’t know. Define good. Good like the overly contrasty snaggle tooth bokeh of the Asph Cron 35? Good like the also overly contrasty, highlights pushed to heavens, show me every zit sharpness of the 35 Lux Asph? Or good like the no sharpness except in the center oops my my aperture ring no longer has detents Cron V4? No, it’s not good like any of those.

Conclusion

Zeiss promotional literature calls the Biogon “The Powerful All-Rounder.” Unlike a lot of marketing copy, that appellation lies very close to the truth. It would be hard to choose a better lens for travel or the desolation of desert island.

Other Views

• Erwin Puts’ Criticism
• Erwin Puts’ Praise (The Zeiss lenses obviously confuse the man with their combination of excellence and non-Leicaness)
• Sean Reid’s Review of Fast Lenses for the RD-1 including some test shots showing the flat field and corner sharpness of the Biogon

Cosina Voigtlander 35mm F1.2 Nokton

There really isn’t much out there on the net about the CV 35 f1.2. There’s a review by Irwin Puts here, and there are some scattered things on photo.net, but none of it does the lens justice, so I thought I’d give it a shot.

Build Quality

Man, is this thing heavy? It reminds me a lot of the Nikon 105 2.5 AI, and it’s about the same size; the Nokton is just a bit shorter with hood attached. The focus is smooth and well damped, but still fairly quick. Just about right for a lens with such shallow DOF. The aperture ring clicks positively, and the shade hooks on solidly (leave it on). At least on my Hexars, the lens doesn’t mount quite as solidly as my leica and konica lenses do. It’s not sloppy, but you can tell that the camera and lens are 2 seperate things. I suspect that the finish is the weak link in terms of build; after a month of use the paint is already starting to go.

Peformance

I’ll consider wide open performance below. Stopped down smaller than 2.8, peformance is as good as you or I are ever likely to need. Are there sharper 35’s out there? Probably. Will you notice? Probably not.

Contrast seems pretty neutral with this lens. For apparent sharpness freaks this may not be ideal, but it makes for much easier scanning as highlights tend to be better controlled. The neutral contrast also renders skin pleasingly.

Color rendition like contrast is also neutral. Combine this with the neutral contrast and you have a lens that will take on the character of the film you put through it more so than some lenses with a more defined optical signature.

Bokeh-smokeh

The Bokeh of this lens is very similar to that of Hexanon 50 f2, although some Nokton shots exhibit slight doubling of some OOF elements. It’s nothing as extreme as say a Nikon 50 1.4 AIS, but it’s there at times.


But this one goes to 1.2

This is of course the main reason to buy the Nokton; it’s the fastest 35 ever (I think). Puts says it’s “in practice close to a third stop” faster than “a good 1.4/35″. My sample at least seems to actually be faster than 1.2 in the center; I might even go so far as to say it’s a 1.2 on the edges and closer to 1.0 in the center. Of course it follows from this that there is detectable light fall off on the edges; there is. If you want to use the extreme edges of the frame wide open, you might want to over expose by half to one full stop.

Are images at 1.2 sharp? Sharp enough. Really, really sharp? Don’t be stupid. If you want maximum sharpness, you aren’t likely to be shooting in environments were 1.2 would be necessary. But in the really dark places, the Nokton shines. There’s really nothing quite like being able to shoot a portrait up close at 1.2 and 1/4 sec on 400 speed film. Faces float up out of the shadows (the vignetting helps here, kind of like a built in edge burn). If there’s any light - moon light, candle light, cell phone light - you can get the shot.

In comparison to . . .

Author’s Note: Keep in mind that I’m talking theoreticals here; I haven’t used any of the lenses below. I can’t afford them.

The Noctilux: The Noctilux might be a half stop faster (see above), but at 50 mm it’s also going to be a bit harder to hold steady. You might have to go to an 1/8th or 1/15th instead of 1/4 of a second. The Noctilux also doesn’t focus as close, and it can create even shallower DOF (+ or - depending on your POV). Oh, and comparing new prices, the Nokton is a 1/3 of the price. Used it’s probably 1/4 the price of the Noctilux.

The Summilux: The latest summilux is probably a better perofrmer than the Nokton; it better be since it costs $2800 new. Occasionaly you see a bargain grade Summilux going for less than $1200. A pre ashperical Summilux might be a pretty good competitor for the Nokton as far as value goes, although I supspect the Nokton is a better performer. In any event, neither Summilux goes to 1.2.

Canon/Nikon LTM Fast 35’s: Both Canon and Nikon made fast 35’s in LTM. In good shape, these are likely to be more expensive than the Nokton, and they won’t focus closer than 1m.

Conclusions

Is the Nokton the perfect 35? No. It’s heavy. It’s huge for an rf lens; after living with it for a month, I think this is my main complaint. The Nokton takes up more room in my bag than my 28 and 50 combined.

Why buy it? For what it is, it’s the only game in town. In practical terms, it’s the fastest lens available; it’s nominally 1/2 stop slower than the Noctilux, but at 35mm it’s also possible to handhold it a stop lower. Nokton = at least a .5 stop gain over the Noctilux. In my sample I suspect that in the center it’s closer to 1.0 than it is to 1.2, so its lead might be even larger. And we can’t forget that with a new price around $850, the Noctilux is a much better buy than any other fast RF lens available. If you can get one used - likely since like the Nokton it’s a big lens that’s heavy and hard to use effectively - it’s an even better buy.

Update

I ended up selling this lens after using it for a couple of months. There wasn’t anything wrong with the lens, although the weight of it was always a drag on the shoulder. After close examination of a number large prints I did for a friend’s wedding, I decided that I couldn’t accurately focus this lens on the Hexar RF bodies that I use. I could get close, but close isn’t really good enough for 1.2. I don’t know the underlying cause of the focus problems. It was only noticeable uder 2 meters with the lens close to wide open. This is tough territory for an RF under the best of conditions, and it’s just as likely an indication of my own inabilities as it is of some problem with the lens or camera.

Cosina Voigtlander 35mm F1.2 Nokton

There really isn’t much out there on the net about the CV 35 f1.2. There’s a review by Irwin Puts here, and there are some scattered things on photo.net, but none of it does the lens justice, so I thought I’d give it a shot.

Build Quality

Man, is this thing heavy? It reminds me a lot of the Nikon 105 2.5 AI, and it’s about the same size; the Nokton is just a bit shorter with hood attached. The focus is smooth and well damped, but still fairly quick. Just about right for a lens with such shallow DOF. The aperture ring clicks positively, and the shade hooks on solidly (leave it on). At least on my Hexars, the lens doesn’t mount quite as solidly as my leica and konica lenses do. It’s not sloppy, but you can tell that the camera and lens are 2 seperate things. I suspect that the finish is the weak link in terms of build; after a month of use the paint is already starting to go.

Peformance

I’ll consider wide open performance below. Stopped down smaller than 2.8, peformance is as good as you or I are ever likely to need. Are there sharper 35’s out there? Probably. Will you notice? Probably not.

Contrast seems pretty neutral with this lens. For apparent sharpness freaks this may not be ideal, but it makes for much easier scanning as highlights tend to be better controlled. The neutral contrast also renders skin pleasingly.

Color rendition like contrast is also neutral. Combine this with the neutral contrast and you have a lens that will take on the character of the film you put through it more so than some lenses with a more defined optical signature.

Bokeh-smokeh

The Bokeh of this lens is very similar to that of Hexanon 50 f2, although some Nokton shots exhibit slight doubling of some OOF elements. It’s nothing as extreme as say a Nikon 50 1.4 AIS, but it’s there at times.


But this one goes to 1.2

This is of course the main reason to buy the Nokton; it’s the fastest 35 ever (I think). Puts says it’s “in practice close to a third stop” faster than “a good 1.4/35″. My sample at least seems to actually be faster than 1.2 in the center; I might even go so far as to say it’s a 1.2 on the edges and closer to 1.0 in the center. Of course it follows from this that there is detectable light fall off on the edges; there is. If you want to use the extreme edges of the frame wide open, you might want to over expose by half to one full stop.

Are images at 1.2 sharp? Sharp enough. Really, really sharp? Don’t be stupid. If you want maximum sharpness, you aren’t likely to be shooting in environments were 1.2 would be necessary. But in the really dark places, the Nokton shines. There’s really nothing quite like being able to shoot a portrait up close at 1.2 and 1/4 sec on 400 speed film. Faces float up out of the shadows (the vignetting helps here, kind of like a built in edge burn). If there’s any light - moon light, candle light, cell phone light - you can get the shot.

In comparison to . . .

Author’s Note: Keep in mind that I’m talking theoreticals here; I haven’t used any of the lenses below. I can’t afford them.

The Noctilux: The Noctilux might be a half stop faster (see above), but at 50 mm it’s also going to be a bit harder to hold steady. You might have to go to an 1/8th or 1/15th instead of 1/4 of a second. The Noctilux also doesn’t focus as close, and it can create even shallower DOF (+ or - depending on your POV). Oh, and comparing new prices, the Nokton is a 1/3 of the price. Used it’s probably 1/4 the price of the Noctilux.

The Summilux: The latest summilux is probably a better perofrmer than the Nokton; it better be since it costs $2800 new. Occasionaly you see a bargain grade Summilux going for less than $1200. A pre ashperical Summilux might be a pretty good competitor for the Nokton as far as value goes, although I supspect the Nokton is a better performer. In any event, neither Summilux goes to 1.2.

Canon/Nikon LTM Fast 35’s: Both Canon and Nikon made fast 35’s in LTM. In good shape, these are likely to be more expensive than the Nokton, and they won’t focus closer than 1m.

Conclusions

Is the Nokton the perfect 35? No. It’s heavy. It’s huge for an rf lens; after living with it for a month, I think this is my main complaint. The Nokton takes up more room in my bag than my 28 and 50 combined.

Why buy it? For what it is, it’s the only game in town. In practical terms, it’s the fastest lens available; it’s nominally 1/2 stop slower than the Noctilux, but at 35mm it’s also possible to handhold it a stop lower. Nokton = at least a .5 stop gain over the Noctilux. In my sample I suspect that in the center it’s closer to 1.0 than it is to 1.2, so its lead might be even larger. And we can’t forget that with a new price around $850, the Noctilux is a much better buy than any other fast RF lens available. If you can get one used - likely since like the Nokton it’s a big lens that’s heavy and hard to use effectively - it’s an even better buy.

Update

I ended up selling this lens after using it for a couple of months. There wasn’t anything wrong with the lens, although the weight of it was always a drag on the shoulder. After close examination of a number large prints I did for a friend’s wedding, I decided that I couldn’t accurately focus this lens on the Hexar RF bodies that I use. I could get close, but close isn’t really good enough for 1.2. I don’t know the underlying cause of the focus problems. It was only noticeable uder 2 meters with the lens close to wide open. This is tough territory for an RF under the best of conditions, and it’s just as likely an indication of my own inabilities as it is of some problem with the lens or camera.

In response to a question on photo.net, I was prompted to finally finish my review of the ZM Biogon 35 F2. The review is now available here: Zeiss ZM Biogon 35 F2 Review