Dan Kerin

Zeiss 50mm F/2 Planar 

The Zeiss 50mm F/2 Planar is a semi fast 50mm lens available for Leica M – mount. The lens has a full metal construction and only weighs 230 grams. This makes using it as an everyday carry lens a breeze as it does not add too much overall weight to the M system while retaining excellent performance. The lens has the classic Planar lens design with six elements in our groups, as well as ten aperture blades that go from f/2 to f/22 in third-stop clicks. This allows for some very nice out of focus areas and excellent colour rendering. In addition to this this lens features Zeiss’ T* coating which reduces flaring and other artefacts. 

In practice this lens must be one of the sharpest lenses available for the M mount (at the time of writing 2017). Throughout the range from f/22 all the way to f/2 the whole image is very sharp with minimal sharpness fall off on the corners. I found this lens performs very well when using colour film due to its accurate colour rendition and lack of aberrations and flaring due to the T* coating, though it also performs exceptionally well for black and white photographs giving a rich tonal range and tack sharp images. The focus is smooth and while some people may like the 3rd stop aperture clicks I personally could take it or leave it. I can see the appeal if you like getting the exposure 100% spot on however I find myself wanting to capture the moment first so as long as I am within a stop I don’t mind too much. The other thing to mention is the focus ‘bump’. Personally I would prefer a tab or no bump at all. You cant really grip this as you would a focus tab and I found there would be times my finger would slide off as it only sticks out a little.

Overall I think this is a great little lens and a great option for Leica M shooters. While Voigtlander does have similar offerings in this price range I still think the Zeiss is going to be sharper overall but might lack character in comparison.