On a recent trip to Hanoi, I took along grandpa and grandson Zeiss on that trip.

Grandpa Zeiss is a pre-war Super Ikonta B 532/16, equipped with a Zeiss Opton T f2.8 lens which was top of the line at the time.  Grandson zeiss is a newly acquired Sony RX100 II, equipped with a Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T f1.8 lens.

Let’s see how they perform.  The 70 year-old grandpa that I acquired in a flea market in NYC years ago performed solidly with Ilford XP2 Super.

The Zeiss lens was super sharp as shown in the photos above.  The first generation rangefinder is difficult to focus in low light conditions.  For portraits, the dof at f2.8 is so narrow that a sharp eye is a must.  Corner sharpness is not particularly good at f2.8 but for a classic portrait, the face or faces are usually in the center anyway.  Down to f4 and above, the lens is sharp as a pin.  The size of the camera is also quite small (for a medium format folder) and bringing it around was easy.  The only complaint about this camera is the film advance system that limits only 11 shots per roll (rather than 12).  This is fixed in the later version.

The newly acquired Sony RX100 II is a powerful little machine.  Practically no noise at ISO3200 and a large aperture of f1.8, this little camera can handle most situations.  This camera reminded me that taking photos should be easy (just like my 5d) and you can concentrate on composition rather than metering, focus etc.  I particularly like the High Contrast Mono mode (HC BW) which I have taken the photos below with that.