ZEISS BIOGON ZM T* 28mm

Cosina/Zeiss M-mount wide-angle lens, Biogon ZM 28mm / F2 review and photo examples

Gallery

The photo examples were taken with LEICA M8.

Review

Biogon 28mm F2.8 ZM is a Carl Zeiss branded lens manufactured by Cosina.

The 28mm ZM lens was announced at the same time as the 50mm, 35mm, 25mm, and 21mm lenses, but it was released a little later than those.
Since it has the same lens format and the same aperture as the Kyocera Contax G Biogon 28mm, it is assumed that the design was refined before it was sold in order to differentiate it from the Contax G 28mm.

The lens construction shows a commitment to symmetry, with the Contax G 28mm having 3 elements in the front group and 4 elements in the rear group, with one lens in the rear group, but this Biogon ZM lens has 4 elements in the front group. , the number of elements in the rear group is symmetrical with four elements.

The back focal length is also short, and the length from the cape surface is 37 mm, which is compact in the length direction, and the design is favorable because it does not take up too much space when attached to the film Leica M. The chevron-shaped focus knob, which is common to ZM lenses, has a good finger grip and is easy to focus.

I haven’t used it with a full-frame sensor, but as far as I can see with the M8, there is no distortion. I feel that high-resolution depiction is a common characteristic of ZM lenses. You can get as close as 0.5m, so you won’t have any complaints when using it with a mirrorless camera. I bought it on the border between a film camera and a digital camera, but I regret not using it with film. I had a lot of 28mm lenses, so I got the first generation Elmarito 28mm, but I sold it because I wasn’t using it as often.

BIOGON 28ZM
Figure taken from ZEISS History product

BIOGON G 28
Figure taken from ZEISS History product

Specification

Items	ZM BIOGON	G BIOGON	ELMARIT-5th
Focal length(mm)	28	←	←
Max aperture	2.8	2.8	2.8
Min aperture	22	22	22
Lens Construction	8elements in 6groups	7elements in 5groups	8elements in 6groups
Min distance(m)	0.5	0.44	0.7
Lens length(mm)	37	31	30.7
Max diameter(mm)	55	56	52
Filter Size(mm)	46	46	39
Hood	25/28 common bayonet type	46mm screw-in type	Screw-in type (Old type is hook type)
Weight(g)	220	150	175
Release date	2005.4	1994	2016
Price(Yen/No-tax)	￥95,000	¥57,000	¥355,000