I used to own the 40/2 Zuiko pancake lens. It is a sharp lens, but
I didn't find it very nice to use. It is only slightly thinner than
the 50/1.8 and 35/1.8 and 28/2.8, and achieves this extra thinness
relative to those other zuikos by having the ring for setting the f-stop
and the ring for mounting filters being 1 in the same. this means that
if you adjust f-stop, you throw off hte position of a polarizer, and
certainly graduated filter holders can only be placed on the lens after
f-stop is set, and only at 1 fstop if you want the filter holder tight
on the ring.
Once I observed these limitations of the 40/2, I came to consider the
lack of a separate filter ring to be a significant liability, and
considering that this is the only savings in thickness compared
to the 35/2.8 or 50/1.8 Zuikos, I found that the 40/2 is best left to the
collectors and sold the only I had. For applications that don't require
polarizers or graduated filters or if you just like the 40mm focal length,
then the savings of about 5mm of thickness might be worth it, but
probably not at today's prices.
If you look in Ansel Adam's book, "the Camera" on page 9 there is a photo
of Georgia O'Keefe and Orville Cox, and Ansel's caption says...
"I used a 35mm Zeiss Contax and 50mm lens to make this photograph....
A conversation was in progress, and I waited for a moment of peak interest;
the 35mm camera is ideal for such photographs. It is interesting to note that,
although this photograph was made over forty years ago (1937) with old
thick emulsion film, it enlarges well and has excellent tonal qualities."
And on page 14, a portrait of Alfred Stieglitz c. 1940 with the caption...
"I used a 35mm Zeiss Contax II and a 50mm Tessar lens..."
Then on page 20 is the famous photograph Moon and Half Dome, Yosemite Valley,
and the caption... "I made this photograph using a Hasselblad camera with
250mm Sonnar lens and an orange filter. With the camera secured to a tripod,
I waited until the moon rose to a favorable position for a balanced
composition. I made several exposures, at intervals of about 1 minute, and
the movement of the moon between exposures gives each a somewhat different
aesthetic effect. The moon moves surprisingly fast through the sky, and
exposure times must be quite short to secure a sharp image when using
a long lens."
Ansel has this to say about 35mm...
"The modern small camera can function as an extension of the eye in
'reaching out' into the world. The flow of life, the rapidly changing
relationships of objects and realities, seem to come into an embrace
with the photographer's eye and imagination. This view of the world is
far more fluent than is possible with a view camera. Yet it is this very
fluency that is the greatest challenge of small-format photography, for
the photographer is called upon to assess the moving elements of a scene,
and integrate them into an effective still photograph in fractions of a
second.
The increasing degree of automation found in small cameras can serve as
an aid in this process, since it permits greater concentration on subject,
and less on mechanics...."
j. albert
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