I rented this lens from www.lensrentals.com.  It retails for about $1,800.  These photos were all taken with a Canon 5D Mark II and none of these were modified in any way on Photoshop.  These images are all straight out of the camera.

 

The build quality of this lens is of course very good.  However I repeatedly found the manual focus very difficult to use with people or any moving subject.  Much more difficult to focus accurately than with the much cheaper manual focus SLR lenses from the 1960s and 70s. 

 

 

Shooting straight into the sun, hardly any flair...

 

Inside, ISO 3200~:

 

 

Not much ghosting around the street lights:

 

Straight out of the camera, ISO 3200~:

 

Unbelievable image quality in tough situation, handheld 1/60 f/2.8 at 3200~:

 

Again, no lie, this is straight out of the camera with no polarizer:

 

Shooting straight into the sun, some ghosting this time:

 

 

Verdict: smokes Nikon or Canon's $400~ 20mm lenses.  Also costs 4-5X as much. 

 

 

You get what you pay for.

You get what you pay for.

 

Unfortunately the Zeiss stuff is impractical for bad-part-of-town and travel photography because the risk of getting them stolen is too great.  Also backpacking or long-distance cycling. 

 

If you're on a trip, you only want to take one lens.  For most people that would mean a zoom, but primes are much smaller, meaning you are much more likely to take it with you, which means you're going to take more photos and not get your camera stolen by the maid.  I haven't rented this combo yet, but I think the Leica M9 + the Leica 21mm is the best combination for the sort of photography people post on websites like this.  The 21mm lets you get pretty much the entire building in the shot, every time.   

I don't know much about photography but I can appreciate a high quality lens. I'm into home theater and the difference between a $2000 and $15000 projector is typically the optics. Good quality lenses are expensive. Great quality lenses are obscene. Though like any industry, the law of diminishing returns hits pretty quickly.

Unfortunately the Zeiss stuff is impractical for bad-part-of-town and travel photography because the risk of getting them stolen is too great.  Also backpacking or long-distance cycling.

 

This is a fact of life using pro gear in slums. Last time I was shooting in Toledo with a 70D and L lens, I was followed for blocks. I also had a cop flat out tell me, "Don't walk down this street with that camera. This is gang territory now, and you will get jumped."