In 2002, Rollei made the commercial decision to commission an improved version of the Cosina-Voigtlander Bessa R2. This was known as the Rollei 35, which includes a reproduction of their three most successful lenses:

1) The 40mm f/2.8 Sonnar that had incorporated the original compact Rollei 35S

2) The improved 80mm f/2.8 Planar with HFT coating as used on the Rollei GX/FX Medium Format Camera

3) The 50mm f/1.8 Planar as used on the Rollei 35 series of SLRs, which never made into actual production.

The Rollei Planar 80mm f/2.8 was designed by Carl Zeiss and made in Germany by Rollei of Braunschweig. This 80mm lens is based on the design of the famous twin lens Rolleiflex 2.8GX/FX TLR, which is an amazingly sharp and high resolution performance lens.

Despite being marketed as an Leica M mount or Rollei M RM mount lens, this lens is actually a Leica screw mount lens sold with an LTM to M adaptor. Therefore, it can be mounted on earlier screw mount cameras as well. Unlike the Rollei Sonnar 40mm f/2.8 HFT, which had an option of an external 40mm viewfinder, there is no external 80mm viewfinder by Rollei for this lens.