The Best of the Best

So what are the absolute killer lenses I've used? These selections are heavily wide-angle, normal-oriented, because that's what I use 95% of the time. Here's the short list:

LEICA 35mm 1.4 ASPHERICAL FIRST VERSION

This is the all-time daddy. Fantastic sharpness, contrast and color, even wide-open. Some vignetting but it looks pretty cool. Basically zero flare. It's so good, I wanted to take all my pictures with this lens and for several years almost all the pictures in my portfolio and I showed in exhibits were shot with this tiny bad boy. The second version is probably about the same in terms of performance (although considerably cheaper), a couple of my friends had it and it seemed comparable although I never owned it.

LEICA 28mm 2.0 ASPHERICAL

Very sharp and contrasty lens even wide open. Sharper at f/2 than most lenses at 5.6
The best 28 I've ever used. Period.

ZEISS 28mm 2.0 for CONTAX SLR

Not quite as good as the Leica M 28, but great "Zeiss" look with terrific color, that sort of 3D Zeiss effect in terms of the sharp vs. blurry areas. Hard to find but the best SLR 28mm I ever had.

ZEISS 35mm 2.0 ZF

I'm using this now on my D700 and it's excellent. Not quite up there with the Leica M, but rangefinder optics have a physical advantage anyway. It's very sharp, excellent shooting into the light, holding contrast, great color, focuses easily, with just the right amount of throw.

CANON 35mm 1.4 L EF

For a non-Leica/Zeiss SLR wide-angle, this is about as good as it gets. All the big-time photojournalists are using this lens. Sharp at 1.4, it vingnettes quite a bit but this can look pretty good sometimes. Even on the AF bodies, it's easy to manually focus if you prefer.

CANON 50mm 1.2

Super-shallow depth of field, which can be great for effect, but can also cause focus problems in both MF and AF because of calibration issues with particular bodies, but really sharp when it's in.

ZEISS 21mm 2.8 for CONTAX

Annoyingly bulky, but great optics. Very little distortion for a 21, great color,
sharpness etc.

ZEISS 50mm 2.0 ZF

A macro, which I basically never use, but optically terrific in every way, even at 2.0.
The focus throw in the normal focus range is fairly compact, making it easier to focus, in my view, than the Zeiss 50 1.4, which perhaps because it's a 1.4 has less snap into focus because of an annoyingly long throw.