Reliable sellers for J3

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sfrankel

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Any reliable sellers on ebay or elsewhere for a Jupiter 3 or Jupiter 8 lens? I am interested in getting a sonnar type lens in leica thread mount for use on a microfourthirds camera.
 
Welcome to the forums. I don't really do Leica or Leica clones, but I understand Fedka is well respected for such things.
 
I bought a Jupiter-3 from DVD Technik in Kiev (http://www.dvdtechnik.com), made at KMZ in 1956. I paid 55 EUR at the time (2006). I've had several J-3s, but this is the only one I've kept:



He doesn't have any J-3s at the moment, but he has a newer (black, 1975, Zagorsk) J-8 for $30. Shipping can get expensive though.
 
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The newer or in fact NOS J8's are said to be far inferior to the early lenses. I have purchased 2 lenses from fedka and one was just OK but I got a Fed 50 collapsible uncoated that was perfect. Fedka has one J3 listed that is WAY too pricey for me....J3's are getting hard to find even rougher versions.
 
Reliable J3?

Reliable J3?

I have had very good luck with a number of large Russian or Ukrainian dealers on ebay. You just need to ask the right questions about the lenses, i.e. fog or cleaning marks, before you buy. As is the case for most FSU camera gear, older is usually better if not so old that the lens is worn out. I have found that the newer black J3's have inferior coating and therefore poor flare performance.

For any fast FSU lens you get, you will almost certainly need to adjust the shimming. While the J3 and J8 lenses are usually optically very good, they are not very consistent, and there just was not enough quality control put into them in the factory to expect them to focus accurately wide open. No panic, the job is very simple, and there are several list members who will give you easy instructions on how to do it. You will need an LSM camera with a removeable back, like a Canon or a Bessa R, a loupe and some matte scotch tape. An old waist-level finder from an Exakta is a better approach if you want to be fancy. Once you go through all that, you will have a really good lens.

So my message is that unless you want to pay the premium to a dealer who does the reshimming work for you, there really isn't all that much difference between the different dealers in old FSU gear, and if you apply a bit of ingenuity, you can get a very good lens with very little expenditure.

Cheers,
Dez
 
"LSM camera with a removeable back, like a Canon or a Bessa R"

Thats where I hit problems. I want to shim a few lenses for a Leica IIIc but my only removable back LSM camera is a FED 2. 😉
 
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