Registered: Aug 09, 2008
Total Posts: 1935
Country: United States
I recently bought a CY Sonnar 135/2.8 (AEJ, "ninja star" aperture @ f4) on the B&S board. This lens tends to be one of the less well reputed items in the CY line, especially being overshadowed by the 100/2 (and 100/3.5, 85/2.8 sonnars). But it was cheap, so I picked it up for a try, and got my first break in the rain to take it out this afternoon. For the price, I think it's actually a rather nice lens.
Build quality is great; it's a moderately heavy, dense, and slightly front-heavy. The lens has a "Leica-style" pull-out hood, and Zeiss was kind enough to keep 55mm filter threads by using a steeply angled front name plate (handy for consistency with most shorter CY lenses). Sharpness is uniform and decent at all apertures (not a super-resolving heavyweight, but little more could be gained on my 5D); slight lateral CA is only sometimes visible (generally well controlled). There will be magenta/green fringing in front / behind the focal plane; the plane of focus is not as "clean" and sharply delineated as with, e.g., the Planar 100/2. Vignetting is unobjectionable, and mostly gone by f4. I'll let some photos do the rest of the talking:
