Orion 15 problem

konicaman

konicaman

konicaman
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Hi guys

Sorry to bother you again, but I have a strange problem with an Orion 15, that I bought last november from dudlik_spb on FleaBay (he, of course, is not very willing to deal with the problem 6 months after the purchase - in a way I can´t blame him). The lens looks fine, but the pics turn out really weird. Maybe one or more lens elements missing, or...???

orion15_1.JPG


orion15_2.JPG


orion15_3.JPG
 
I've seen an Orion-15 with a missing front element behave like that.

Would not form an image at all. Put a white piece of paper on a table, hold the lens under a lamp and see if it forms an image on the paper. It should, with the lens held an inch or so above the paper.
 
Nope - just a with circle (more or less - you can see the shadow of the aperture blades). Tried the same with an Industar - perfect image of the bulb and the reflector...
 
I think your lens is missing the front element. Try comparing pictures on Ebay or other sites with it. I could not tell you who has been using them for what- but I saw one just like this.
 
So- it looks like it is missing the rear element!

I knew one of them must be missing.
I'll go edit some English into the Title of that thread.
 
I have an Orion-15 right in front of me which works perfect. It seems you either got a wrong rear element that was stuck instead of the original one or it is not correctly assembled. At least my Orion-15 looks different from the rear. I will post a macro later.

You never know what you get on the evil site. Recently I bought a J-3 dated by 1951, but the rear element was nothing close to a Sonnar element! The whole lens was a big fake and worth nothing.
 
One of our RFF members bought a CZJ Sonnar 5cm F2 with a rear element from a Planar formula lens in it. Somebody made it look complete, it would not form an image. I replaced the rear element with that from a J-8, and it worked out nicely.

You could replace the rear module of the 1951 J-3, they are fairly interchangeable. Some shimming required. Do you still have the J-3?
 
Here is the pic of the Orion-15 rear element. It should have the same construction as yours, although my Orion was made in 1965 (but in the same ZOMZ optical plant). Sorry, a quality of this snapshot is not top notch, anyway you may see what the heck is it.
 

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Brian Sweeney said:
One of our RFF members bought a CZJ Sonnar 5cm F2 with a rear element from a Planar formula lens in it. Somebody made it look complete, it would not form an image. I replaced the rear element with that from a J-8, and it worked out nicely.

You could replace the rear module of the 1951 J-3, they are fairly interchangeable. Some shimming required. Do you still have the J-3?
Click to expand...
Hi Brian,

Perhaps, it sounds rather odd, but in the past six months I bought something like six J-3 lenses from the 50's produced by 2 different manufacturers (Krasnogorsk and ZOMZ) in order to test them and prove to the fellow Sonnar shooters that Russian made glass is severely undervalued.
I hope it does not sound like a Jupiter acqusition syndrome...
My J-3s came from different places like Czechia, Ukraine and Russia. The fake one I bought from one very well-known seller from Prague (although he is Russian or Ukrainian...)

There is a broad misconception and most photographers think the Russian glass is of poor quality. This is not correct at least for the lenses from the 50's and early 60' when each lens (yes, each lens!) made by the above mentioned plants had to pass QC and was made up to strict specifications. I have a couple of lenses that still have the papers where lens specifications and the lens individual number are inked and confirmed by QC dept.!

The problem is not with the poor quality glass produced by "drunk" Russians, but with the poor quality of the cameras! I am sure that most of the lenses were later adjusted to the cameras and maybe numerous times. Since they are quite simple for disassembling many Russians in the Soviet times did calibration (or collimation) on their own. There were plenty of books those days explaining how to do it yourself.

To make things even worse some modern evilbay sellers started to make fake engravings on the front ring, and charge 5 times more for such crappy work.

To tell the fake from original J-3 made in the 50's one should check the color of the coating. Up to 57-58 it was light violet almost without blue notes like in the original Sonnar. Later the coating became more purple and bluish. I am sure you know what I'm talking about. I will post my findings in the next two weeks when I get some free time to finish the tests.

Sorry for writing the off topic. Re, Orion-15 - it's a great lens for the daytime if it has all its elements in place :D and it still keeps its value!

Cheers,
Vassily
 
I've an Orion 15 and the rear element looks like the one shown by xoDox not yours. I'd send it back for refund if it wasn't as shown and described.
 
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Now wait just a second here, that sale was back in November and we don't know how the lens was represented in the listing, and if there was a return period that our OP simply missed.
 
xoDox - yes that is quite clearly not the right rear element on my lens. Funny thing is that the front element looks a bit weird too. Damn - always test shoot the gear as soon as it is unpacked...

It was (of course) presented as "in perfect working order", but 6 month is a long time. Guess I'll have to consider it a learning experience :bang:
 
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