Carl Zeiss Planar T* 35mm f/2 G

Put the Contax G Planar 35mm f/2 next to a Leica Summicron 35mm of the same vintage and the comparison gets uncomfortable for Leica owners. Plenty of shooters who have run both rate the Zeiss at least the Summicron's equal in the center wide open, and it cost a fraction of the Leica when both were new. The catch was never the glass. It was the body it bolted to.

The Planar name tells you the design. It is a double-Gauss, near symmetric, the layout Zeiss has leaned on for fast normal lenses for decades. On the G it renders with that clinical Zeiss signature: very sharp in the center at f/2, with the corners crisping up and the field flattening once you stop down to f/2.8 or f/4. Color leans cool rather than warm, contrast is high, and the micro-contrast makes a black coat read as fabric instead of a hole. T* multicoating keeps flare honest even with a bright source in the frame. Bokeh at f/2 is clean and a little businesslike. This is not a swirly, characterful lens. It resolves what is in front of it and gets out of the way.

The G system was Kyocera's autofocus rangefinder, the G1 in 1994 and the much improved G2 two years later, and 35mm was its reportage length. Travel and street shooters carried a G2 and this lens for the reasons people once carried a Summicron. A small, quiet body, Zeiss glass, and a 35mm view that takes in a room without bending the walls. It is a documentary tool first, a collector's piece second.

The honest weakness is focus, or rather how focus was driven. The G bodies move the lens with an in-body motor instead of a ring you can grab, and the G1 in particular hunts in low contrast and dim light. That same in-body drive is why adapting these lenses to mirrorless is a project rather than a click. Manual focus adapters work fine, but you surrender the autofocus that was the original point. Buy it for a G2, or buy it knowing you will focus by hand on a Sony.

Today it trades as the smart-money pick for shooters who want a Leica 35 look without the Leica price, which is exactly why values climbed once the adapter crowd found it. Cross-shop it against the 45mm f/2 Planar, the system's standout, before you commit to 35 over normal. One practical habit: at f/2 this lens earns its keep in dim interiors and blue hour, so meter for the shadows wide open. In Zone Light Meter, take the reading off the darkest thing you still want to see as texture and let the highlights fall where the negative wants them.