It’s not as tactile as the Leica but fits neatly in the hands and with all the controls in the right place, importantly, the Rolleiflex is about 400g or so heavier. A pleasure to use, super smooth mechanics and deathly quiet. The Rolleiflex like my Leica M2 is pure German engineering at its best. The rest is the experience of the box in which the lens lives. In short, the lens of the 2.8C is awesome.
That, however, is quite an entirely different story. Of all of them only three lenses stand head-and-shoulders above the others, two I have mentioned here, and the third is the lens in the Fujifilm GA645 Zi. Believe me, I have had so many lenses and cameras over the years that to recount the tale would be extremely embarrassing. There are two other desirable qualities that I have to mention with this lens, 1) The bokeh, it’s very, very smooth and 2) its “feel”, that ineffable quality that sets this lens apart from others that I have used. There isn’t that much difference in sharpness at f/2.8 when compared with the sharpest apertures of f/5.6 or f/8. The Planar is sharp wide open then just gets better as you close down. In my opinion and experience it’s only pipped by the Hasselblad Carl Zeiss 120mm f/4 Makro. It’s one of the best lenses I have used on any camera film or digital. 61 years old and still going strong! The taking lens is the awesome 80mm f/2.8 Carl Zeiss Planar. This particular copy was hand made in 1953 to Rollei’s exacting standards. The last few Sundays I have been out and about with my Rolleiflex 2.8C.