Jupiter russian lens

[truls]

I got a Jupiter 8, russian copy of old Zeiss lens. It was too dark for testing this evening, som tomorrow I will follow up with some samples.



It fits nice on Leica III. The lens is black, a later version? Also it was very clean inside. Will be fun to try out, I never had such a lens. Anyone else have experience?

[Stephen]

It is the standard Russian better class lens, if good condition, and if well built, it rivals any other quality make. It looks like the last black finish type, mainly fitted to the Fed 4K as the better option over the Industar.

A series of models were offered from the end of the war till about 1980, in aluminium at first, many variants, then the black versions, by which time the design had settled down.

It should deliver the goods, they are usually sharp, contrasty, and generally behave like the Zeiss Sonnar design it was based upon. It is not exactly a Sonnar, as it was recalculated by the Russians after the Wartime lens glass supply ran out. The recalculation improved the edge performance, especially at full aperture.

I very much doubt that vintage Leica lenses would be as good, it should be better than 1950's Leica equivalents.

As usual with Russian lenses, it all depends on the assembly being correct, but the Russian took far more pride in these lenses than the cheaper types. It was the top flagship model, and few other cameras makes around the world came near to offering such a good lens.

As with the original Sonnar lens, it is a bit softer at full aperture, but comes in at F5.6 to full sharpness. Colour rendition is particularly good with the Sonnar type lenses.

For black and white it does respond to a yellow or stronger filter, and likes a hood fitted if possible to maintain contrast into the sun, due to the large front glass area.

A truly classic lens for any M39 fit camera, and supplied by Zeiss in M39 fit during the war, as Leica were deemed to be running away with sales at the expense of Zeiss. Leica were ordered to use Zeiss lenses to provide work for the Carl Zeiss plant. They took the Contax fit units and added a focusing thread body etc.

If used on a Leica it is best to trust the focus scale on the lens as accurate, if you find the rangefinder does not quite match. The Leica body will be accurate, and the cam at the back of the Jupiter can be adjusted to match the body. Without re-adjustment, just use the scale on the lens, which should be quite accurate.

Stephen.

[truls]

Thanks for the nice info Stephen! Yes, I believe the russians did a better job with the Jupiter lens. According to Camerapedia there are 8 different Jupiter lenses. The lens is correct at infinity on the Leica III. But I will keep an eye on the scale when shooting film.

I did a small digital test today, bad weather, snow! The lens seems to be somewhat soft, so I have to do some more testing and shoot some film strips to get a better evaluation.


The front of the car.


100% crop, left f.2.0, right f.8.0

Yes, I would say a bit on the soft end. There seems to be other issues as well, aberration?

[philbirch]

Truls, yours is a much later model. I had an older one with the blue/black lacquered finish and it seemed to perform better than this version when compared.

Having said that, I use this one more because its smoother and easier to use than the older one which has stiff sticky focus. Its easy to pixel peep but I tend to resist that these days. As is mentioned in another thread, micro camera shake can affect sharpness a great deal.

[Stephen]

Also in terms of testing a lens the subject is all wrong! Too much white in the shot by far, and that might throw the results way off. The digital camera may try it's best with snow, but sometimes falls short, even when corrected for the light.

Also shots in snow almost always "ghost", the brilliant white light out of the frame is considerable and hits the front element crosswise, out of the framed view, but reducing the contrast and even causing flare. Only a deep hood will work with snow, although modern multi coated lenses are generally better.

The ghosting can enhance a shot as well in snow, but ruins, say a sharp shot of icicles across a snowy background, especially in colour. And in colour any aberations and fringing show bad!y with all the strong white light.

Snow shots are an art in themselves, I prefer to take the shot exposed for the snow, and take other shots of details like icicles and then
Photoshop them together!!! And the spraygun on widest dispertion and low pressure, with white, makes the best airborne snow!!!

Snow shots also respond very nicely to sharpening, but always treble the image size first and apply the sharpening, then re-size, it works far better than plain sharpening, which produces pixel clusters. The clusters are smoothed a bit by the size reduction.

By the way the same applies to all sharpening in Photoshop or the Gimp, increase the pixel count massively before sharpening, the size reduction afterwards produces a better look, with fewer digital artifacts and marks.

Stephen

[philbirch]

Nov 13, 2014 9:05:39 GMT -5 Stephen said:

Also in terms of testing a lens the subject is all wrong! Too much white in the shot by far, and that might throw the results way off. The digital camera may try it's best with snow, but sometimes falls short, even when corrected for the light.

Also shots in snow almost always "ghost", the brilliant white light out of the frame is considerable and hits the front element crosswise, out of the framed view, but reducing the contrast and even flare. Only a deep hood will work with snow, although modern multi coated lenses are generally better.

The ghosting can enhance a shot as well in snow, but ruins, say a sharp shot of icicles across a snowy background, especially in colour. And in colour any aberations and fringing show bad!y with all the strong white light.

Snow shots are an art in themselves, I prefer to take the shot exposed for the snow, and take other shots of details like icicles and then
Photoshop them together!!! And the spraygun on widest dispertion and low pressure, with white, makes the best airborne snow!!!

Snow shots also respond very nicely to sharpening, but always treble the image size first and apply the sharpening, then re-size, it works far better than plain sharpening, which produces pixel clusters. The clusters are smoothed a bit by the size reduction.

By the way the same applies to all sharpening in Photoshop or the Gimp, increase the pixel count massively before sharpening, the size reduction afterwards produces a better look, with fewer digital artifacts and marks.

Stephen

The resizing is a good idea. I have done this in the past with small images but it never occurred to me to make it part of my workflow.

[truls]

I was not aware of the snow effect affecting the lens performance, it sounds sensible. That is good news, and I will experiment to get better result. I did not apply any sharpening to images, digital images are initially sharp enough. I often sharpen film scanned images, as they gain better quality on screen.

[Stephen]

Using sharpening is contentious, but works well for ice and snow, it adds sparkle to the edges, such as hanging icicles.
Stephen.

[Dave]

For what it is worth, I counted my Jupiter lenses, most of which came with USSR cameras: 6 Jupiter 8's, 50mm f2; 3 Jupiter 12, 35mm; 2 Jupiter 11's 135mm; 2 Jupiter 9, f2 85mm; 1 Jupiter 3, 50mm f1.5. Some of these are bayonet mount, intended for the Kiev line, and some are screw mount. I do not do any format testing of a lens, Jupiter or otherwise. I simply use it. If I can get a good image that prints to roughly 8x10 cropped as I may desire, that is good enough for me. I am not saying that testing is wrong. I am just stating how I see it. I have never found any of these lenses to be less than satisfactory. Perhaps I am not selective enough, but there I am. Dave