Choosing between Carl Zeiss 50 f/1.4 T* ZF Planar vs Rollei 50 f/1.4 HFT Planar: Is there a real difference?

This might be the most redundant lens assessment I’ve done to date. When you put the Carl Zeiss 50mm f/1.4 T* ZF Planar and the Rollei 50mm f/1.4 HFT Planar side by side, you quickly realize one thing—they’re practically twins. Both are based on the same optical design, and despite being produced under different branding and coatings, their performance is shockingly similar.

I always suspected their shared optical formula would lead to similar results, but I didn’t expect just how closely they would match in practice. In 95% of real-world shooting situations, these lenses produce images that are virtually indistinguishable—down to their micro-contrast rendering even when shot at different aperture.

Full Image shot at f/4

100% crop in the middle

100% crop in the right

100% crop in the left

So why even bother comparing them? Well, an accidental situation ended up with me owning the Zeiss version. While I have always been a fan boy of the Rollei Planar because of their colour rendition. So I thought I would dissect into the details—or more accurately, in the coatings to see which I would end up keeping.

The only difference between the Zeiss vs Rollei Planar comparison is on their flare control. The Zeiss lens, with its T* coating, offers marginally better flare resistance in some niche situations. It renders slightly more neutral and “natural” looking images in certain scenes, but this often comes at the cost of losing some mood or atmosphere—a trade-off that’s highly subjective and might not suit everyone’s taste if you are using a manual lens for their characteristics.

I think it's obvious here which is which.

Meanwhile, the Rollei version, with its HFT coating, can introduce a bit more flare but often gives the image a warmer, slightly more emotional tone. Again, it’s subtle. If you’re not comparing the images side-by-side, you may not even notice.

100% crop at f/1.4 on both lenses

Due to the optical design, both lenses does suffer from spherical aberration wide open, and the Zeiss may have a touch more of it. Personally, I find that stopping either lens down to f/2 or f/2.8 does dramatically improves performance and they are mostly gone by f/4 with excellent micro contrast across the frame. Unless you’re specifically after that dreamy, soft look—think black mist filter—you’ll want to avoid shooting wide open.

Carl Zeiss 50mm f/1.4 ZF T* adapted to Leica CL, it does look sexy right?

Mechanically, I would say the Zeiss is a slightly ahead. It feels more robust, better engineered, and aesthetically complements my Leica CL better than the Rollei. But let’s be honest—mechanical feel doesn’t affect the image output.

Flare control of both lens

Comparison at infinity

Night scene shot at f/1.4

Close up performance and bokeh assessment

For this test, all images were shot on the Leica CL with zero post-processing, viewed straight in Lightroom’s default profile. No tweaks, no presets. Good luck guessing which image came from which lens.