Jupiter 8 equal to Jupiter 3?

[Mephiloco]

The only 'problem' with the jupiter 8 is it's 'cheap' construction. I have never had a single problem with either of mine, they're easy to take apart and tweak etc, but when compared to other lenses they do feel 'flimsier' due to the material. It is worth noting that they are sonnar designs and significantly cheaper than EVERY other 50mm you can put on a leica (for the most part).

In my opinion, to get a better performing 50mm at f2 you're going to have to spend a large sum of money, considering that a Jupiter 8 holds it own against vintage and modern summicrons (depending on who you ask, personal preference etc) and pretty much any other lens you can name. Faster than f2 is a different story.

 

[FrankS]

How about this:

The J8 is the best bang for the buck in a 50mm f2 lens,
and the J3 is the best bang for the buck in an f1.5 lens?

 

[uhoh7]

and the J3 is the best bang for the buck in an f1.5 lens?

no, the CZs in contax mount are the best bang by far--less than 200 in many cases, with much better quality.

Russian lenses are a pain in the arse, and any CZJ 50/2 will outshoot a J-8, esp wide open.

Half the russian lenses I have bought are totally unusable.

In the long run it is far cheaper to just get a good western lens. This I've learned the hard way.

If you like to tinker, then they are great. If you prefer to spend your time shooting.....

As most here know, the Amedeo adpater converts the Contax and Nikon mounts to M very well.

 

[goamules]

...and any CZJ 50/2 will outshoot a J-8, esp wide open.

Half the russian lenses I have bought are totally unusable.

In the long run it is far cheaper to just get a good western lens. This I've learned the hard way.

If you like to tinker, then they are great. If you prefer to spend your time shooting......

Care to prove the first statement? All the Russian lenses I've bought are totally usable. But I've only tried an Industar 10, Industar 61 and 26m, Jupiter 3 and two Jupiter 8s. I haven't tried the 8s on film yet, but none of the others has needed shimming or tweaking, other than lubing one. I don't have a CZJ 50/2 but how do you mean it would outshoot a J8? The Jupiters have compared fine with my Canon 50/1.8 and Canon 50/1.5, the latter being of course a Sonar also.

 

[Doug]

How about this:

The J8 is the best bang for the buck in a 50mm f2 lens,
and the J3 is the best bang for the buck in an f1.5 lens?

I think that's a fair assessment. The CZJ lenses go for higher prices, while the J3 & J8 are essentially the same item. Early-on, they were identical, assembled out of German parts by experienced workers, and then as needed new parts were made in Ukraine by the German workers on German equipment installed there by the Russians. Gradually, as I understand it, quality control suffered worse as factory production quotas got higher priority.

I have several Contax/Kiev mount J8 lenses, all of which work just fine, though they were crazy cheap. I also have a 1.5/50 Opton Sonnar that needed a CLA after coming from south Asia, and it's a lovely performer too.

 

[rxmd]

How about this:

The J8 is the best bang for the buck in a 50mm f2 lens,
and the J3 is the best bang for the buck in an f1.5 lens?

I'd tend to agree. Maybe in 50mm f2-ish the Helios-103 is an even better bang for the buck, at least if you're on the Contax/Kiev system.

However, I don't agree with the harsh statements that some here make about quality. There are lots of bad Soviet lenses around, but also a fair number of good ones. Simplistically speaking, the good ones end up being kept and used, while the bad ones end up getting resold. Consequently, the source where you buy them from matters more than it would with other gear. Buying Soviet gear on places like eBay has a higher probability of failure. Best to buy them from places like here, where there is some amount of trust and where people have been using the lenses and can make a statement whether they're good or not. People who claim that "half the russian lenses they bought are totally unusable" most likely been buying them simply from the wrong sources over and over again.

 

[David Hughes]

Is this a private fight, or can any one join in?

Is this a private fight, or can any one join in?

Hi,

It seems to me that I've managed for the last 40 odd years with a mere Summicron and somehow survived. It could be because I use f/2 and wider for about 2% or less of my shots. Looking at the EXIF from digital cameras the same figure applies. So it seems to me that you have to think carefully before digging deeper into your pocket. And with the money saved you could get another lens. (Try costing the f/2.8 35's, 50's and 90's against the Summicron version to see what I mean.)

IMO there's too much emphasis on headline or attention grabbing lenses fastest apertures and not enough emphasis on how they work when used normally. That's why I know I'll see little difference regardless of whether I use the f/2.8 Elmar on my M2; the '31 f/3.5 Elmar; the Jupiter 8; the Summicron and so on. The photographer and then the technician who deals with the film in the lab cause the main differences, FWIW.

As for Russian lenses being a pita, I've tried most of them on a variety of cameras and don't see much wrong with them in normal use: I've even used a Cosmic Symbol with slide film. I did have some problems using a screw thread Elmar on a FourThirds digital camera with a cheap (ebay) anonymous adapter once but I've not got around to saying Leitz lenses are a pita and don't think I will.

I've also noticed that a lot of people condemning them fail to mention what body it was used on and how it was being used. A few facts and figures might just help this debate along, or as I suggested, do people like fighting?

Regards, David

PS And looking at the opening photographs why would anyone bother to pay extra?

 

[40oz]

IMHO the J-3 is almost literally a J-8 that opens one stop wider. That's kind of the amazing thing about the Zeiss design and Ukrainian manufacture. As a rule, a faster 50 suffers optically vs. a slower example. Despite price tags, the faster version is just about never a "better" lens except for speed. Except for the Sonnar/Jupiter.

IOW, if you have a J-8, you're set. If you need one more stop, get a J-3. I use aperture to isolate the subject a lot and never use a flash so I found the J-3 a useful addition, but everybody has their own needs.

 

[raid]

The Zeiss 5cm/1.5 is known to be "better" than the 5cm/2, and this has been mentioned as an abnormal case since usually the slower lens is better at the smaller apertures.

 

[Bill58]

I'm NOT very good at math, so I just mostly shoot at f5.6 w/ all my lenses. Suits me fine.

 

[raid]

The J3 is a clone of the CZJ 5cm/1.5, which is in my opinion a superb lens, and the J8 is a clone of the CZJ 5cm/2 which again is a superb lens. I have both CZJ lenses and then the J3 and the J8. I have compared them all with many other 50mm lenses. The J3 and the J8 have variations in production and in condition, but there may be a smaller variation for J8 lenses than for J3. The edge for the J3 is at 1.5, obviously.

With the right shimming, both the J3 and the J8 are very sharp overall.

 

[raid]

I cannot tell these lenses apart, but I voted for Pic 2 from the J3. I expect the J8 to have a sharper background at same aperture.

 

[Dez]

Conventional wisdom is that you need to check and probably correct the shimming of a J3, but I don't typically hear that for a J8. I have three LTM J3's, and I had to re-shim one of them which was way off. The other two were OK. I have a few J8's as well, and I don't recall ever needing to reshim any of them. Were the J8's better made somehow, or is the error in the focus mount just that more noticeable in the one stop faster lens?

Cheers,
Dez

 

[goamules]

Shooting another J-8 this weekend.

 

[Axel]

Lensmakers have to do a lot to get al lens one stop faster.
And they have to do a lot again to achieve a good optical performance when
they have built a faster lens. So my understanding is that when a J3 achieves the
same optical performance than a J8 it is a lot of luck thanks to the work of the
manufacturer.

I have two Jupiter 8 lenses and both are delivering a very good optical performance
compared to my summicron.
The mechanical performance is, compared to the summicron, very far off.

My opinion is: when you need a fast lens and you can make friends with
very cheap mechanics (and haptics) get a J3 and save 70 percent of your money.
When you can go with f/2.0 and mechanic and haptic above buy a J8 and save more money.
When you want a lens that feels in use like a Leica or a ZI you must spend money and get a summicron or a CZJ.

For me the three posted pictures are all good. I estimated the second pic as the one of the J3 because of the
slight different rendering of the unsharp zones than the other both.

 

[goamules]

I agree with you Axel, there are slight differences. At the time I started this post, the J-3s were starting to climb in price. Today, they are even higher, but they're still not that high compared to a Leica or Zeiss F1.5 or F2 lens. I was just trying to let the poor college students and other photographers without a lot of money know that for $20-40 a Jupiter 8 is an outstanding lens. I got another the other day for about ten dollars. The look is 98% as good as a Jupiter 3 which costs $200, and perhaps 95% as good as the real expensive German lenses like a Zeiss ZM Sonnar at $1100.

For being so close, almost not discernible, from the thousand dollar lenses, I'm very happy to have bought a J-8 for each of my teenage daughters as well as myself for the cost of taking them out to dinner.

 

[janrzm]

Interesting little thread, I have a couple of J8's and a J3 which I use on my M's

Both are capable lenses and if you don't need the extra speed then a J8 will most likely do, however I'm firmly in the "speed" camp and am lucky enough to have landed what I consider to be an exception Jupiter 3 - http://aperturepriority.co.nz/2012/10/20/50mm-jupiter-3-f1-5/

For the money its a winner.

Cheers, Jason.

 

[johannielscom]

Conventional wisdom is that you need to check and probably correct the shimming of a J3, but I don't typically hear that for a J8. I have three LTM J3's, and I had to re-shim one of them which was way off. The other two were OK. I have a few J8's as well, and I don't recall ever needing to reshim any of them. Were the J8's better made somehow, or is the error in the focus mount just that more noticeable in the one stop faster lens?

Cheers,
Dez

It's often that the J-3's are off in focusing when shot wide open and close up. By the time you stop down to 2.0, the increased DOF almost covers the difference between the 51.6mms that a Leica standard lens actually measures and the 52.4mms that a Zeiss Contax derived lens such as the J-3 and J-8 actually are. If you focus on anything not close up but say 2 mtrs away, the again increased DOF will cover it completely. Problem solved! 🙂

Recently, I sold a Jupiter-9 2.0/85mm with an original Zeiss barrel, focus was corrected to Leica specs and close focus was 1.8mtrs. It was tack sharp without any shimming. As with all Sonnars, the complete optical block just unscrews from the helicoid. Just grip the front of the lens (try to avoid putting strain on the aperture ring) and the focusing ring and twist it right off. Once you've done that, adding a paper shim of the correct depth is peanuts. From my ad which is still online, see the optical block of the Jupiter-9 unscrewed here:

​

I've shimmed J-3s with a few twists of thick sewing yarn, then threaded the lens in to the correct position to focus correctly (test on a Leica M with the back door removed and a piece of Scotch tape stuck over the film gate), put a mark from helicoid to optical block so that I could line it up again. Split again, then add some Loctite to the yarn and screw the optical block back in to the marked position. Leave it to sit for three days and it's fixated. No fuss with figuring the thickness of the shim out, just trial and no error.

 

[thejameskendall]

The reason why the Sonnar 5cm/1.5 and its copy, the J-3, are sought after is precisely what you are finding: The speed advantage does not come at a price in terms of sharpness at the same aperture.

Indeed. It's also not noticeably heavier or bigger than the J-8.

 

[BNLee]

I guess you could say that the J-8 against J-3 price comparisons are similar to that of the comparisons of the 50 Crons against the 50 Lux prices. For the price of a typical 50 Cron Version 5, not the APO-ASPH version, it would cost about 1500 USD, whereas the typical 50 Lux ASPH would go about 3500 USD as of the fluctuating market prices today, more than twice as much. This is a similar situation for the J-3 and J-8, if people wanted that extra stop, they would go for the J-3 which is more than twice as much as the J-8.

Well as stated here, the optical performance of the J-8 is not that far off the optical performance of the J-3, which is also a similar situation with that of the 50 Corn and 50 Lux. Most people would go with the 50 Cron, which is cheaper and sharper, but people who has the means would go with the 50 Lux which has you know what... However, there are many claims that the 50 Lux is very sharp wide open too. It just comes down to the price you are willing to pay and how much light you want to pass through your lens whether Jupiter or Leica...