Father Christmas brought a ZI

... or at least, I bought one with the 50 mm f/2 Planar. Yummy!

Robert White were impressively fast as always: I ordered it Thursday afternoon and it arrived at my place in Norway Monday lunchtime.

Now to go and burn some film. I can already feel the urge to buy the 21 mm Biogon & the 15 mm Distagon ... oh dear, my wallet looks a bit thin.

Does anyone have experience of the side grip or the leather case? Are they good/useful/not worth it?

cheers
Pete

I found the grip useful but not totally needed. I don't have the leather case but I did have one for my S3... it just keeps it from getting marked up which is a good thing. the only draw back is changing film, but I didn't tend to blast away with the camera anyway.
-rob

I have both the grip and the case and I find it them useful and worth the money. The camera system is great and the lightness in the wallet afterwards is made up by the incredible photos you will make.

Regards,
John

I hope you like the camera. I find the Zeiss Ikon to be a very usable camera and one that took just a few minutes for controls to be intuitive.

The one control that occasionally trips me up is the shutter release lock.

Otherwise, it's a fine piece of gear.

I have a Luigi case. At the time, the Zeiss Ikon case wasn't available. A case makes the camera a bit quieter, because it muffles the sound.

I have a two-lens set: 50mm Planar and 25mm Biogon. The only lenses I would like to add are the 21mm Biogon and the 85mm Sonnar (in my dreams).

I also have a 40mm Sonnar that I bought with a Rollei 35 RF. The Sonnar is a great lens. It's an LTM lens with an LTM adapter that brings up the 50mm framelines. I bought an LTM adapter that brings up the 35mm framelines, which seem to be a better match.

How do you find the Planar? I have heard good things about it.

No experience with this one yet, but I have used the 45 mm f/2 Planar on the Contax G2 for some time. That is wickedly sharp and extremely flare-resistant.

I've found the Planar to be a very sharp lens.

At medium distances (5-10 feet), you can get some geometric distortion (http://elekm.net/zeiss_ikon/photos/bw/12042005/lockedgate_640.jpg), so keep this in mind if you're photographing a doorway or window frame, for example. With most subjects, you won't notice it.

There really aren't many bad lenses on the market today when it comes to single focal lengths (so-called primes). Like the other Zeiss designs, images are sharp and smooth at the same time, and results are predictable.