NEW YORK NEW YORK – A new tool/toy arrived today: a Zeiss 15mm f/2.8 lens for my Leica M and Leica Monochrom cameras. I’ve actually been looking for a Leica R 15mm f/2.8 for a while (they are no longer being made), but they are scarce and collectable and thus expensive. A recent review by Irwin Puts, a tireless writer of technical reviews of high end camera lenses, claims that the the Zeiss 15mm, which is a new and extraordinarily complex design, performs as well as the Leica R 15mm. The Zeiss lens is expensive, but I found a slightly used one on ebay at a $1,200 discount from new. It arrived today.
I’m going to leave the new lens on my Monochrom for a week, which should force me to understand what its capabilities are. Initial impressions are very positive. The fit an finish are lovely. Out my window brick wall torture tests show effectively no linear distortion (usually a major issue with very wide lenses), and little or no chromatic aberration or purple fringing (ditto). At f2.8 there is some funkiness in the corners, which disappears by f5.6 – performance that is consistent with the lens’s MTF curves. It comes with a graduated center filter which I’ve kept on full time so vignetting is not an issue. Some of the “look up” shots from today have large areas of strong highlights which evidence excellent flare resistance.
One of the keys to shooting very wide is keeping the camera level and orthogonal to the plane of any buildings. This is actually hard to do visually (small errors translate into major geometric distortion) so I added a spirit level to the camera’s hot shoe. Since the Leica also needs an accessory finder for this lens I’m using a Thumbs Up product that provides a second hot shoe (which isn’t really hot) so I can use both the finder an a level. Here’s what the setup looks like.
Day 1,726 of one picture every day for the rest of my life.
On this day last year (day 1,361): Sunflower in Todi.
