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When I purchased my 0.85 magnification viewfinder Leica M6, I decided that a 50mm lens would be the best fit for it, so I picked up this Zeiss Planar T* 50mm f/2 ZM lens.
Looking at the packaging this is a very typical Zeiss M mount lens box. White with black and blue accents. I ordered this lens from Japan and it seems like Zeiss has included a sticker stating that this lens is exclusive for the Japanese market. This of course isn’t so because this lens is available in many other parts of the world. I heard from other owners of this lens that their boxes have a similar sticker but with the name of their country. This just seems like Zeiss is trying to appeal to whichever country they are selling this lens to.
As you can see, this lens is rather small. It weighs only 8.1 ounces/230 grams but you can still feel the heft and quality thanks to the all metal construction. The length of the lens is pretty much equivalent to the size of the rear cap. So if you own a Leica M mount lens and wonder how big this lens is, just look at your rear lens cap and you can get a good idea.
On the front of the lens is the model and technology etched into the body. As indicated by the T*, this lens features Zeiss’s proprietary T* multicoating which helps to prevent flare and ghosting for improved contrast and color fidelity.
This lens utilizes 10 aperture blades and as indicated by the aperture ring, this 50mm has an aperture range from f/2 to f/22 that opens and closes in third stop increments. The aperture ring does click, so for those who are interested in using this lens for video, just be aware of that.
This is of course a manual focus lens so there is a manual focus ring. Like other Zeiss M mount lenses, this one features a focusing nub. I have the Zeiss 35mm Biogon so am used to this design. It is better than not having anything at all, but I still prefer to have a traditional two pronged focusing tab.
For those who zone focus, this lens of course also has a depth of field and distance scale right behind the focus ring. As you can see here, this lens has a minimum focus distance of .7 meters or 2.3 feet, which is sort of standard for a rangefinder lens.
And that’s really all there is to this lens. Like other manual lenses, it’s pretty straight forward. Aperture and manual ring, pretty much all that you really need. I obviously own the black version but if you’re interested, there is also a silver version.
One annoying thing about this lens is that it does not come with a lens hood. That is actually sold separately and cost about $84.
As previously mentioned, I recently picked up a Leica M6 with 0.85 magnification and specifically picked this lens for that camera. Prior to picking this lens up, I did some research to see how other M mount users felt about using a 50mm lens with a 0.85 viewfinder and there seems to be a lot of argument for it being both a good match and it being not. A lot of it came down to wether or not you wear glasses, which I do. Some people say that it’s hard to see the 50mm frame lines with glasses. I ultimately decided to just go for it because if you think about it, the M3 featured a 0.91 magnification viewfinder and was designed with a 50mm in mind. If people managed to use a 50mm with the M3 viewfinder, then I'm sure that I can manage with the 0.85 viewfinder.
So far, I’m pretty happy with this purchase but of course image quality means more than anything with a lens. I'll just have to get more time in with it before I can really make a review of this lens.
