The impact of the back focusing and focus shift
Now, I’d be lying if I said the same about an unmodified Jupiter-8. But, as with the ZM the issues in my experience seem to be both subject and technique dependant. Take this shot for example.
Just an experiment to see where focus would sit if I shot a subject at distance at f/2. As you can see, the back focusing has placed the plain of focus behind my intended subject matter.
As you can see in this crop, the plane of focus sits behind them
The back focusing is magnified by the focused distance resulting in a basically unusable photo. Initially I thought this was an issue only when shooting at wider apertures, but having experimented a little I’ve found it to be a problem with focusing on more distant subjects with apertures even as small as f/8.
I’ve found to get the best out of the unmodified Jupiter-8 when stopped down, zone focusing can reap better results. A bit of thought to potential subject distance, combined with a rough understanding of the back focusing issue can quite readily allow general snap shot, f/8 and be there style shooting. It just takes a bit of practice and added thought.
I can’t remember the aperture this was taken at, but I zone focused and got a pretty decent result
Portraits and bokeh
The Jupiter 8 being a 50mm “standard” lens is quite versatile and can be used for many different purposes and portraiture is not an exception. It is just long enough to take nice upper torso portraits while showing some of the environment around the model thus giving a little bit of context. Also as you can see, it can produce a nicely blurred background which is essential for the separation of the model.
Yolanda (Catalonia) Kiev 4, Jupiter 8M, Fuji Superia 200, Canoscan 9900
PepLluis (Catalonia) Kiev 4, Jupiter 8M, Fuji Superia 200, Canoscan 9900F
These portraits were taken in a restaurant in mixed light and with maximum f/2 aperture. The depth of field is certainly shallow enough and the background is pleasant in my opinion.
The next photo has been already published in my Kiev-4 post but with heavy post-processing including black&white conversion. The original version looks like this and notices the character of the bokeh at f/2.8.
Pista bácsi(Szentendre, Hungary) Kiev 4, Jupiter 8M, Fuji Superia 200, Canoscan 9900F
I didn’t like the photo because of the dark foreground, so I created this processed version in black and white with aggressively increased contrast.
Pista bácsi (Processed) (Szentendre, Hungary) Kiev 4, Jupiter 8M, Fuji Superia 200, Canoscan 9900F
Final words
All in all, I really love these lenses because of their great character, bokeh and overall image quality which together leads to a unique classic look. It is true that they are not the only and probably not the best Zeiss Sonnar type of lenses ever made but surely the Jupiter 8 is the cheapest to start with.
You can find many more advanced versions made by Zeiss, Nikon, Canon, and others. Even today you can find new Sonnar type lenses by many manufacturers and of course, you can get a new Zeiss Sonar T* 1.5/50 ZM which was reviewed by Ken Rockwell here.
These lenses are not perfect but they have a unique fingerprint on the images and it is only a matter of taste to love or hate. I am definitely will carry this or similar lenses with me all the time.
I hope I could transfer a part of my excitement related to the Jupiters, Sonnars and their siblings and you will have great moments with them too.
Morning lights (Girona, Catalonia) Kiev 4, Jupiter 8M, Fuji Superia 200, Canoscan 9900F
Wrapping up
There are of course many ways any lens can be shot outside of what I have demonstrated here, many of which would probably cause an unmodified Jupiter-8 to trip over when mounted on a Leica camera. But that’s an easy point to make. What I wanted to show here was that even without modification, a Jupiter-8 can be used to good effect.
It seems to me, that to really get the best out of an unmodified Jupiter-8 on an Leica mount rangefinder, either taking an educated approach to zone focusing, or just shooting wide open with your subject within a couple of meters is the way forward. The best thing about this is, closer up, wide open shooting is what takes most advantage of the Jupiter-8’s inherent Sonnar feel anyway.
For me this all comes back to my definition of a perfect lens. The Jupiter-8 is far from perfect, even mounted on a native Russian camera it still “suffers” from most of the “issues” I’ve talked about here. But, using it in a specific way – even on a camera it’s not meant for – can result in some really lovely images given the right sort of subject matter.
I really love the results I have achieved shooting mine, and whilst I wouldn’t be in anyway comfortable recommending it as an ideal all-rounder, if you’re aware of the limitations and character traits imposed by back focusing issues, wide open softness and the like, the Jupiter-8 can still make a for a very viable choice when mounted on a Leica rangefinder.
This is far from the end of the Jupiter-8 story for me. I’m really looking forward to experimenting with a modified copy when it lands back with me after it’s time with Brian Sweeney. I’m also a little intrigued by the idea of learning how to do the focus modifications myself… god only knows, enough people on social media have told me how easy it is!!
More soon…
Hamish
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Portraits and closer subject matter
This all said, if like me you’re more inclined to take photos of closer subject matter wider open, the issue – at least in my experience – feels a lot less bothersome. My desire to discover an older Sonnar type lens for my photography in part spelled from wanting to take photos of my kids with ever so slightly less of a modern punch than that which I get from my modern ZM Sonnar. This isn’t to say that I don’t like the shots from the ZM when taking photos of my kids, just that sometimes I like something different – the slightly lower contrast and propensity for gentle flare are traits I just love in these older Sonnars!
Recently, photos of my kids have made up a larger percentage than anything else that I’ve been taking, and shooting the Jupiter-8 has been pretty much central to this photography. In theory the back focusing should cause an issue. In practice, I’ve found the it hasn’t really impacted on my photos in any meaningful way – at least not to an extent that I’ve felt dissatisfied with the results. Most of these photos were shot at f/2, and most within a few meters.
It is true that if you look very closely, it is possible to see that the lens has back focused a little bit, but not to the extent that the photo is ruined – at least not by my measure.
What strikes me is that since the Jupiter-8 isn’t necessarily bitingly sharp wide open anyway – and perhaps because of the spherical aberrations – it’s harder in the final image to see such a defined plane of focus as you might with a more corrected optic. This lack of definition to the plane of focus gives the back focusing a bit of wriggle room to not “ruin” the image through more strongly apparent misfocusing.
Of course some people prefer perfect focus more than others, and it’s fair to say that if you are one of those people you might well be reading this, looking at my soft photos and scratching your head. For my tastes and desires though, these images are plenty sharp enough for the subject matter. To my eye – as I’ve said countless times on this blog – the overall look and feel of the picture counts a lot more than perfect sharpness.
This applies to photos that don’t include my kids too…
Spherical Aberrations and the Jupiter-8
To add even further fuel to the fire of potential ill focus, the Jupiter-8 isn’t especially sharp when shot wide open. This isn’t a unique issue of course – most lenses are slightly softer when shot wide open. But, the Jupiter-8 does have slightly more of an issue than most. Look closely at an image shot wide open with a Jupiter-8 and fairly often you will often find yourself admiring a slight “glow” to what is otherwise the in-focus subject.
This is quite likely to be caused at least in part by spherical aberrations. To a certain degree this can cause the subject to feel slightly soft, and when you make that close inspection you might be inclined to think that the subject appears ever so slightly ethereal.
A crop of the above – the contrast exaggerated the glow here
The rough with the smooth (/soft)
Of course, what’s important about all the above not how demonstrable these traits are when the lens is tested, but how much of an issue they are in real terms, i.e. when the lens is shot in the field. The other big factor here is to what degree any individual is likely to find this issues a real problem within their photography. This can both come down to style, to chosen subject – and more specifically with this lens – subject distance. As such, when shooting with my unmodified Jupiter-8 collection, where I have attempted to force the lens to fall over a little for demonstration purposes, largely I’ve just used it to take photos of my family and mates, which is where I think it works best…
(The rest of the images in this post were taken with one or another of the Jupiter-8 lenses in the picture at the top of the post – I can’t remember which for each photo. Even when I try and do a proper lens test, I cant get it right…..)
Flare
Flare can be a real issue but not because of the formula rather the ancient coating used for these old lenses.
This example (left) shows what could really happen when the sun shines (almost) directly into the lens. Although the sun is not in the frame (It was upper a bit) it did ruin the shoot by this ugly flare. This could have been way better by the usage of a lens-hood or by shooting from a different angle.
I know I have already written down here a couple of times but it is never enough to emphasize: Always use lens-hood for vintage lenses when possible unless you want to get more flares (which could be fun for some).
3D-ness and character
The following image is taken by me with the lovely Kiev 4 rangefinder and it was on the very first roll I have ever shot with that camera.
First of all, I really love the 3D like the character of this image, the backgrounds fall to be blurred slowly while the model is quite sharp. I don’t remember what aperture I used but it must have been around f/4, so in theory, this effect could be even more emphasized by a wider setting. On the other hand, I like that the background is recognizable.
I have not done any serious post processing apart from crop and a tiny bit of contrast increase, so this lens/film combination is capable to produce similar images without any super scientific computerized evilness.
Note the flare effect on the top right corner of the frame! I know Sonnars must be less prone to flare but in reality, these old lenses have got a not too effective coating to compare to modern standards. Therefore the lens hood is a must if you (like me) prefers to shoot in back-light.
My Kiev-4
My Kiev-4 is made in 1965 and sold (first) in 1966 in Budapest for 2400 HUF – 500 HUF discount (for unknown reason) which was a ridiculously high price at the time (I will figure out how to convert it to today’s values). Hungary was a part of the Eastern block and there was only 1 company which sold photographic equipment in the country called Ofotért. The funny part is, I have got a catalog of this company from 1979 and this camera was still listed for 2140 HUF.
The warranty was 1 year and the camera is still working! I have the original box, invoice, warranty, lens caps, ever-ready case and the camera itself with a Jupiter-8M lens. The M stands for the feature that the aperture values click as you change them (quite advanced technology).
How did I get it
I always wanted a usable and good looking rangefinder. I usually don’t demand much in terms of usability as I am a camera addict, so what I really wanted can be summarized as accurate shutter speeds, interchangeable lenses and a viewfinder which is combined with the rangefinder and bright/big enough to let me enjoy the rangefinder characteristics. My other concern was of course price because a Leica or even an original Contax is way out of my scope.
I did not know too much about the Kiev until one day I have found one in a very good shape (almost mint condition) on a Hungarian auction site, similar to eBay. The camera was listed with the excellent Zeiss Sonar copy Jupiter-8M lens, the original box, and documents including the original warranty, which is, of course, had expired way before I was even born. It was so attractive that I couldn’t resist. After a few hours of research, I decided to buy it and I haven’t regretted my decision so far. The whole package cost me 14.000 HUF. If there was no inflation some could think the camera actually gained some value, but in fact, it is now below 50€ at the time of writing and I think it is extremely low for such a beauty.
Breaking the Jupiter-8 in half
The first part of this process is to split the lens into two assembled parts. I am making some assumptions here, as I only have access to my three late model Jupiter-8s, but looking at the above referenced post, it seems to be the case for all of these lenses that they very easily split. The optical part with the aperture makes up one assembly, with the other assembly making up the outer shell of most of the lens as well as the focusing helicoid.
Splitting the Jupiter-8 lens into these two assemblies is all you need to know to experiment as I have. There’s no need for screwdrivers, or any of those other fancy lens disassembly tools.
To split the lens you just need to take a firm hold of the focusing ring in one hand and a firm hold of the aperture ring in the other and unscrew it – just as if it’s a small jam jar.
Collimation needed(?)
I was so pleased with what seemed like a positive result that I didn’t even notice the whole other section lower down in the post on Helino-photo (scroll way down) that talks about the necessity for further modifications. I just assumed that I’d happened upon a spacer ring that was just the right amount (somewhere between 0.1-015mm) bigger than what was in there, and that was the end of the story; it was all that was needed to “fix” the lens perfectly for shooting it on a Leica rangefinder. You can’t blame me for this mistake either – a whole load of people on the social medias had said to me – or at very least had alluded to the idea – that shimming was all that was required.
But, according to that post, shimming is only half the battle. The impact of the amount of shimming required to give perfect focus at 1m will also give the lens minor front focusing issues at distances. The chap who wrote the article talks about how he found this to be a problem after shooting his shimmed lens for a little while.
As he goes on to describe that, to achieve a Jupiter-8 lens that focuses perfectly on a Leica rangefinder, there is a potential requirement for removing elements and filing stuff down. It’s also apparently possible that even after undertaking this process, the lens – depending on variance in focal length – might not even be able to be perfectly modify for a Leica rangefinder. After finding what appeared to me to be a success myself, I read all this with a touch of bewilderment.
Focus shift
The above back focusing is an issue isolated to using the Jupiter-8 on a rangefinder camera it wasn’t designed for. Unfortunately using the Jupiter-8 on a camera it wasn’t designed for isn’t the only cause of back focusing in these old Sonnar-design lenses. This design of lens is also prone to the oft-fretted-over issue of focus shift.
Although it’s quite hard to determine the degree of focus shift when using a Jupiter-8 that already suffers from back focusing, it’s probably fairly safe to assume that the plane of focus will also move backwards because of the shift as you stop down. I took these extra couple of images whilst I had my fridge magnet set up going on. It certainly looks that focus shifts backwards.
f/5.6 – Focus well shifted to the ‘F’f/11 – focus looks to have moved further back still
The credit
First off, let me just point out that I have been very lucky when it’s come to “re-shimming” one of my Jupiter-8 lenses for use on a Leica rangefinder. I also can’t take any credit for the knowledge or knowhow when it comes to doing it. As such, I feel I need to apportion credit before I get stuck into this. If you read anything about Sonnar lenses online, you will probably have guessed that the basis of this information has filtered down to me from Brian Sweeney. But, whilst I am talking to him about the work he is doing on another Jupiter-8 for me, I didn’t get this information directly from him.
After posting about the Jupiter-8 on Instagram Alex got in touch to talk to me about the problem of shims (I’ll get to that in a second). At the time, I hadn’t properly explored how to do this modification and as such hadn’t found any useful info on how to do it. We chatted a little and he linked me to a very useful bit of content on ‘Helino-Photo‘
The post he linked to – “Jupiter-8 vs Jupiter-8 (vs Carl Zeiss Planar 50mm F2 ZM ) on a Leica M6” gives you all the information you need to conduct this process “properly”. So short of duplicating it entirely I thought for the large part a link to it here with a bit of further explanation from me about how I have worked with that information would probably be all that was required.
What’s especially useful about that post is that it links to a series of other bits of content online that detail the specific information. Those bits of content are largely written by – you’ve guessed it – Brian Sweeney.
A multiple lens test
When I was thinking about this post I felt it made sense to write it around two or three lenses rather than one. With one lens I could just be lucky and have one that focuses well, with two or three, that’s less likely.
There are two reasons I chose these later model black Jupiter-8 lenses. The first is that they were cheap and very easy for me to get hold of. The one with the green lettering is mine – I loaned it to a mate about 2 years ago, and got it back for the purpose of this post. The one with the serial number on the front belongs to my mate Alex. The last one (mounted on the M9) is a very nice copy I recently picked up from a shop in town.
The second reason is that I’ve read that these black later model Jupiter-8 lenses can be more prone to quality control issues – I felt that I wanted to at least try and experience some of the potential issues that can come along with buying these lenses.
The back focusing in my three Jupiter-8s
The difference in the three lenses I have here speaks volumes for the potential “problems” that can be found in buying these lenses. Two of them had wobbly/loose focusing rings, and all three had the same problem with the aperture ring. Two of them are fairly crappy feeling in terms of their focusing mechanisms too – Alex’s is quite stiff, and my old one is about as lose as you can imagine. The focusing on the one I recently bought in town is juuust right!
Physical condition aside, interestingly, they all back focus by as close as dammit the exact same amount. I never do test shots, it pains me… but on this occasion I felt I should force myself. These are crops from my M9. I used my 1.4x vf mag to focus each lens on the dip in the top of the sideways B. As you can see, focus is shifted backwards by about 1-2cm to the edge of the F. This was shot at 1m.
Un-cropped – ignore the green/blue at the bottom, I had left a lens correction profile on the m9 switched on
The “Shimming”
Once you have the two assemblies separated you will find there are one or two spacer rings in place within the lens. These will either be around the outside of the optical part of the lens, or sat lose inside the focusing part. These spacer rings are located within the lens so the original manufacturer could – I guess – finely adjust the lenses for accurate focus.
As detailed on Helino Photo, since the register distance of a Leica camera is ever so slightly longer than that of a Russian RF, by increasing the thickness of these spacers, thus increasing the focal length slightly, it is possible to correct the minor back focusing that’s visible when close focusing at f/2. When I say “ever so slightly” – at least according to the above referenced resources – We are talking about 0.1-0.15mm thicker; that’s about the thickness of a lighter weight sheet of paper. Adding this 0.1-0.15mm to these spacer rings is what people are talking about when they suggest “shimming” the Jupiter-8. Unfortunately, this bit is not as easy as might sound, and the outcome isn’t always 100% positive either…
The focusing issues
Before I get any further I should probably touch on the cause of the Jupiter-8s focusing problems on a Leica rangefinder camera. This issue comes from the fact that Jupiter-8 lenses weren’t actually made for Leica cameras, they were made for Russian copies which have a very slightly different register. On top of this, as you will read on pretty much every page about Russian lenses and cameras the quality control wasn’t all that great, so there is also some potential for lens variance to deal with.
The different register means that in theory the unmodified Jupiter-8 lens will back focus. If you’re unsure what back focusing means, in very simple terms it’s when the point of focus in the lens sits further away from the camera/lens than where the rangefinder says it is. In theory this should be the same for all Jupiter-8 lenses, but because of the quality control variance from one lens to the next, it’s said that the extent of this back focusing can vary.
The problem of the “shim”
My first instinct was to search eBay for shim washers. There are plenty available at between 0.1 and 0.15mm thicknesses. What isn’t available off the shelf is this thickness at the approx 27.75mm internal diameter and 29.75mm outer diameter that’s needed. I spoke to my engineer mate Tom about this and he informed me that this wasn’t a standard size so I’d have to make something myself, cut something down or have something made.
Internal diameterExternal Diameter
I tried making shim washers out of tin foil. Some swear words later I gave up. Paper, same deal. Cutting stuff that’s this thin to this size is harder than I thought. The next idea was to have something made. I spoke to a local-to-me company that specialises in such things. They informed me that to make it a viable job for them I’d need to order at least 100 units at approximately £4 a go, this was starting to look like a no go.
I then figured out that I didn’t know the exact thickness of shim I needed. I could have a few thicknesses made of course, but I could see a somewhat excessive bill just to fix part of the problem that causes a minor focusing issue in a lens that cost me £5! The only option seemed to be to buy a bigger shim or two and trim them down. That was until I realised I might well have the solution staring at me in the face.
Looking back at the fluked result
It was at this point I decided I’d quite like to buy myself a set of vernier callipers and try and work out what was going on. A few quid and a couple of days later with vernier in hand I was able to take accurate measurements. In measuring the original rings compared to the one I have in place, you can see that the difference between the original rings and the ring I am now using is actually only about 0.05mm.
What it seems I had I unwittingly managed to do was to adjust the lens by such a tiny amount that I hadn’t quite adjusted even as much as is technically required. That 0.05mm adjustment was enough to make a small but positive enough improvement to give me the impression that my close focus at 1m was true, and that distance focusing even at f/2 had improved enough to appear to be largely fixed too.
Have a look at on my last post – as he says “depth of field” is subjective. If you have any notion of what “circle of confusion” means, you will understand this anyway. As I talk about in my previous post, the “sharpness” obtained from a Jupiter-8 lens when shot wide open is questionable by most standards anyway. As such, my very minor adjustment seems to simply have brought the lens closer to my expectations and subjective requirements throughout the range of focusing, rather than technically solving the issue. Which – to me at least – is both a satisfying and interesting outcome to the experiment. The best bit being, I achieved this outcome without having to do anything specifically difficult like filing down bits of metal….
A few shots I have taken since the mod:
In this crop of the above you can see that where I focused on the middle upright of the frame, there is still an amount of back-focusing
Of course, I have no real idea how repeatable any of this is – I suspect it was somewhat of a fluke me finding a spacer ring out of another lens that was such a tiny amount different. What I hope I have shown though is that even without going to the nth degree of perfectly modifying a Jupiter-8, some distinct “improvements” can be achieved – especially to the close focusing accuracy.
One tip – I’m not sure how relevant it is – but if you are looking to follow my path, the spacer I used to modify this lens was from another Jupiter-8 of exactly the same type; they were both late model black lenses with white text on them (rather than green). It’s probably also worth pointing out that this mod has the undesirable impact of the aperture scale not lining up with the marker properly – but again, there are some pointers on Helino-photo for fixing this issue too (I haven’t bothered).
Ultimately, I hope there is enough information contained in this post and the content I’ve linked to shed a little more light on the process of adjusting a Jupiter-8 for use on a Leica rangefinder. The outcome isn’t exactly as I anticipated, but it’s been a very interesting learning curve nonetheless!
So what next? Well, I’ve just bought a Jupiter-3 from the 1960’s that appears to already focus quite well on my Leica. I am also awaiting the arrival of the Jupiter-8M the Brian has modified for me – which is looking very promising from the images he has sent me…
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Jupiter 8M Contax mount
The Jupiter 8M differs from the Jupiter 8 in only one thing! The 8M has stops/clicks while setting the apertures. This is a nice improvement indeed although some videographers might prefer the original version.
As I mentioned the Contax mount type has no focusing mechanism on the lens, therefore, it never needs lubrication and probably it was a bit cheaper to produce for the more complicated and expensive camera body.
Construction and handling
My instance (1965) is made of steel which makes it heavier than the screw mounts aluminum versions despite the simpler mechanical construction. It also feels much more solid and the click stops on the aperture ring are very welcomed additions. Overall, this version just feels and handles better for me and does suggest a higher quality because of the steel barrel.
How does it look like
Jupiter 8M Contax mount
Jupiter 8M Contax mount aperture shape at f/4
Image quality
So what is the big thing with this lens (and any other Sonnars)? Of course, the way it renders the image is the thing for me. Many claims that the contrast is a bit lower than the Tessar type lenses and Sonnars are not outstandingly sharp wide open but fast apertures can be achieved, they deliver a wonderful creamy bokeh and less resistant to flare due to the few glasses to air transitions. All this sounds like a great portrait lens especially because Sonnars are typically short and medium telephoto lenses.
Well, this is the theory, but let the samples talk.
A fluked result
What’s interesting about my process and initial results was that I didn’t have the vernier callipers you can see in the pictures at the time of experimenting with this modification. As such, I just used a process of trial and error. It was this process of trial and error that lead me to the positive result I now have. I must admit, I only “tested” the lens with a few shots, and whilst it’s fair to say that it still didn’t appear completely “fixed” for Leica rangefinder shooting, it did appear a lot “better” than it had been. At close distances I seemed to be getting almost perfect focus. And at far distances the problem of back focusing had been quite dramatically reduced.
The above is a crop – I focused on the middle of the M. If you compare this to the results I was getting before the mod here, you will see why I was so happy.
Sharpness and contrast
The next two images are supposed to stand here as examples of how nice sharp, contrasty and colorful images can you get when the conditions are appropriate and of course you don’t mess up with the exposure.
Church (Szentendre, Hungary) Kiev 4, Jupiter 8M, Fuji Superia 200, Canoscan 9900F
Designer’s chairs (Girona Spain) Kiev 4, Jupiter 8M, Fuji Superia 200, Canoscan 9900F
The second shoot with the chairs is done through the glass of a showcase and you can even see my reflections on it, but still, I am very satisfied with the result especially the colors which I like the most. Fuji Superia is a consumer level “cheap” film, yet what it delivers is simply lovely to my eyes.
Salvaged spacer rings
As I’ve said, I don’t have one Jupiter-8, I have three. Having unscrewed them all I discovered something that I felt possibly alluded to the oft quoted variable manufacturing tolerances in Russian manufacturing, and more interestingly, how it might work out well for me. Two of my Jupiter-8 lenses had two spacer rings, and one of them only had one. Looking closely I could see there was a not particularly significant, but nonetheless evident difference in thickness between all of these rings. If I was lucky, I could just use a different combination of rings inside the lens I wanted to modify until I found myself with a better results focusing the lens.
Jupiter 8 L39 screw mount
The Jupiter 8 was made originally for the Contax copy Kiev cameras with the matching bayonet mount, but later it was made in many different versions for L39 (Leica thread) mount rangefinders.
The advantage of the L39 screw mount version over my original Contax mount lens is the ability to focus with the lens itself. On Contax system cameras the focusing is done by a mechanism integrated into the camera body and the lens has nothing to do with it. The only thing you can do with the lens is set the aperture.
| Focal length: | 50mm |
| Construction: | 6 elements in 3 groups |
| Angle of view: | 45° |
| Distance scale: | 1m – infinity |
| Diaphragm: | Manual; f/2 – f/22 |
| Filter size: | 40.5mm thread |
| Length: | ±45mm |
| Weight: | ±130g |
| Fitting: | L39 |
Specification table []
Construction and handling
My L39 Jupiter 8 lenses (1960, 1963) are made of aluminum alloy, therefore they are very light but at the same time vulnerable too. I never drooped any lens so far, and I hope I will keep this good habit.
The aperture rings on both lenses are a bit dry and have no stops or clicks, therefore, the aperture must be set with great care. The focusing rings are nice and smooth on both lenses, which gave me the impression that these lenses were lubricated once after their production. What I do like the most is the metal lens caps though.
The overall build quality is fair but nothing outstanding, yet pretty good for Soviet lenses. By the way, Jupiter 8 is one of the most reliable FSU (Former Soviet Union) lenses in terms of quality. Most instances are focusing good and have a nice optics while Jupiter 3 instances are a real gamble.