An all time favorite of mine, the Zeiss Tessar. Like the Helios 44-2, it offers a lot for very little investment. It has its own signature look, stunning colors, a beautifully smooth background blur. And it's light and compact.

The rendering of this lens is one of the smoothest I know, almost matte-like, and the lens can focus as close as 0.35m, which makes it as versatile as as the Meyer Optik Oreston and the Zeiss Pancolar, but not as luminous. In my opinion tough, the character of this lens and its minimum focusing distance make its smaller f2.8 aperture irrelevant unless we are shooting in very low light conditions.

I have tried different copies of this optic and found them inconsistent in quality and sharpness, until I found the one I have kept: a type II zebra from the early 70s, which is very sharp already when used wide open.

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Why use the Zeiss Tessar:

1) Vintage rendering, unique character

2) Sharpness

3) Beautiful Zeiss colors and black and white rendering

4) It produces "Bubble bokeh" when used wide open

5) Minimum focusing distance of 0.35m

6) Compact and light

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Weaknesses:

1) Some people might find the preset lever activated aperture mechanism inconvenient when focusing

2) The construction of the lens is not very sturdy

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