jcolwell
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Hi Wilhelm,
I've owned many Zeiss Contax and ZE lenses. I intentionally stayed away from the 18/4 CY because its reviews weren't so good. Here's what Tom Shea had to say about it,
"18 f4.0. This is one of the older lens designs, but it works well. There is some light falloff and some distortion. It does not use an aspherical element. It is better for close range photography than at a distance. I like the very wide perspective for occasional dramatic shots. It is relatively inexpensive compared to its two more extreme 16 and 15 mm brothers, which I have not used."
Ref. Tom Shea on Zeiss / Contax SLR Lenses, http://photo.net/equipment/contax/shea-lenses
I wanted a good 18mm lens for mostly landscape situations when my TS-E 17/4L and EF 16-35/4L IS (then 16-35/2.8L II) are too big. Tom's comment about the 18/4 being well-suited for close range photography didn't work well for me, and so I bought the 18/3.5 ZE. The 18/3.5 ZE is quite a bit larger than the 18/4 ZE, but it's still significantly smaller than the Zeiss 21/2.8 ZE and CY, and it's a lot smaller than my Canon ultra wide lenses. The 18/3.5 ZE sometimes gets lost under the shadow of its big brother, the 21/2.8 ZE (which I also owned), but it still serves me very well.
If you want a smaller lens than the 18/3.5 ZE, then I think the Olympus OM 18/3.5 is worth consideration. It's also a fair bit smaller than the 18/4 CY. I compared the Oly 18/3.5 with the Zeiss 18mm f/3.5 ZE, Canon TS-E 17/4L, and Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II in this 2014 thread,
Lens tests, 17mm/18mm [2014-01-15] https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1267345/0&year=2014#12071912
If small size had been one of my leading criteria at the time I did those tests, I'd still have the Oly 18/3.5 OM.
All of the lenses mentioned in this post are in Lens$db.
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