I’ll admit it. I do not get products sometimes.

Today I was reading a review of the Funleader Contax 35mm f/2 G. The short version is that this is a re-housing of the lens elements of an AF Contax G 35mm f/2 lens into a Funleader M Mount MF rangefinder lens body. Cool.

I was impressed by the review and the lens.

• A great review. Well written with great samples. It makes a good case for the lens.
• A good looking lens once complete.
• I really like M Mount lenses.
• The 35mm f/2 G is a fine lens. An excellent choice of optic.
• You cannot go wrong with Zeiss optics. Especially vintage Zeiss optics. They render with an almost perfect imperfection.
• There is a uniqueness to the proposition and I get it.
• The process is reversible also if I follow.

I cannot emphasize this enough. Great article. Great product. I have nothing against either.

Ok. Now back to Eric-ville. Where the Woods family crest is emblazoned with the battle cry, “Never pay retail!” So here is the thing. Or things.

• There are no inaccuracies in the review. I agree with everything stated. But there are a few things the review does not touch upon. Like…
• You know what else is a good looking lens? Any of the Contax G lenses as is. And I could never imagine myself disassembling one or purchasing a reconstituted one.

• While I do really like M Mount lenses (Exhibits a, b, and c), I also really like Contax G lenses.
• The 35mm f/2 G is a great lens, but I have not owned it. I currently chose instead to pick up the 28mm f/2.8 and 90mm f/2.8. If I were to get a faster f/2 G prime it would be the 45mm instead of the 35mm. Purely personal preference. Regardless it is not an option for conversion yet.

• You cannot go wrong with Zeiss optics. Especially vintage Zeiss optics. They render with an almost perfect imperfection.

• There is a uniqueness to the proposition and I get it. But that alone is not enough.
• The process is reversible, but there is another way.

None of those bullets are the real reason why the Funleader is not my cup of tea, even though it is a fascinating cup.

• I still shoot film using a Contax G1 (28mm and 90mm specifically). If I were to convert these lenses that would no longer be an option.

• While they are different animals entirely, Contax G and Leica M, they are contemporaries in my universe. I owned and sold them both. Contax is the only brand of the two that I missed enough to buy back into. The prospect of doing away with autofocus and auto exposure offered by Contax G to manual focus the same optics on film bodies is not an attractive one to me personally. Your mileage may vary.
• $1,200. I fully acknowledge that this is not a lot of money for an M Mount Zeiss lens. But add in the cost of this lens conversion with the prerequisite cost of a Leica M body and you are going through a lot of trouble and spending far more money to shoot with the same optics. For around the same amount I could re-purchase the three M Mount lenses I currently have brand new. I am not saying it is not worth the price. It is. This is just more than I am willing to pay.
• I noticed that the author tested adapted to a Leica SL2-s body. A rangefinder-less mirrorless. The author mentions that they hope that Funleader makes this for even more mounts like Sony E. But you could adapt this M Mount conversion lens to Sony as is with an adapter. Heck, you could even get AF if you throw in a TECHART M adapter. But what if we pass by the M conversion all together and adapt the glass directly to mirrorless?…
• For $29.95 I can buy a Fotodiox Contax G to Sony E adapter and have the best of both worlds for me. AF film shooting natively with a G body and MF digital shooting with Sony E.

…$29.95.

But does it work? Yes. Shots below taken with a Contax G 28mm f/2.8…

…and Sony E using the Fotodiox MF adapter.

And then there is film shooting w/ the Contax G1.

And while not a Leica experience it does make great use of these G lenses while retaining AF and AE for far less than what all manual film, AE film, or digital M Mount cameras will cost you. Another perk is that with the Fotodiox adapter you do not have to wait for a lens conversion release to adapt all of your G lenses. So another Contax G favorite of mine, the 90mm f/2.8,…

…can be used for film…

…or digital also.

There is another issue for me personally. If I were shopping for an M Mount 35mm f/2 lens this lens exists.

Definitely not a Zeiss lens but it shares the Contax G lenses focal length and aperture spec, costs considerably less, and renders a lovely image itself on digital…

…or film.

Lastly there is my biggest issue. Re-housing Contax G lenses.

• There are only so many of these lenses.
• If this catches on I imagine it will impact/inflate used Contax G lens prices.
• I really like the G lenses as is. I have a hard time signing on to dismantling a perfectly good Contax G lens even if the process is reversible.

So the re-housed Contax G lens recap:

• Great review.
• Impressive product.
• I will keep my Contax G1 and $29.95 adapter.