1951 J3!! + lens test

[adrianzg]

i was quite skeptical of the russian lenses and was searching around for an early jupiter-3. chanced upon the 1951 J3 on the bay, it looks interesting as it has the tabs on the aperture ring. bought it and i have it in my hands. all i can say is that i'm impressed!

can someone pls explain to me the significance of the tabs with regards to the age of the lens? i've searched online and could only find stuff talking about the optics of the early j3s being from zeiss. what about the other parts?

i've compared it to my prototype zeiss zonnar and it feels much lighter, the aperture feels "cheaper" and the focussing is not as smooth.

here're some photos from the seller:

 

[adrianzg]

wide open test 1:

100%:

 

[Sonnar Brian]

Chances are the aperture ring is German in origin, and that it is made using German glass. I can see the LTM focus mount is Russian, not German. The 1950 LTM J-3's had German parts for the focus mount.

Here are some photo's of my 1949 ZK Sonnar, the predecessor of the J-3.

http://ziforums.com/showthread.php?t=306

http://ziforums.com/album.php?albumid=145

If the focus is rough, it probably needs a lube job. Although- some of the early "cross-over" lenses were a bit rough.

 

[adrianzg]

i compared them to a canon 50mm 1.5 and a zeiss sonnar prototype. physically, the canon and zeiss are of the same height, the jupiter is about 2mm taller. here're the photos, all wide open:

canon:

zeiss:

jupiter:

the zeiss and the canon are very similar, the jupiter has lower contrast, more shadow details are retained..check out the foreground blur in the right hand side. the canon and the zeiss are pretty creamy. the jupiter is slightly different..

 

[adrianzg]

bokeh test:

canon:

jupiter:

 

[adrianzg]

the jupiter focuses to 1m. but i discovered that i can use the ltm adapter to get the j3 to focus closer, with rangefinder coupling!

at 1m:

leaving focus at 1m, screwed the lens out of the ltm adapter till when the rf coupling stops. i then focused again:

try it! i works really well on the jupiter! 🙂

 

[adrianzg]

Chances are the aperture ring is German in origin, and that it is made using German glass. I can see the LTM focus mount is Russian, not German. The 1950 LTM J-3's had German parts for the focus mount.

Here are some photo's of my 1949 ZK Sonnar, the predecessor of the J-3.

http://ziforums.com/showthread.php?t=306

http://ziforums.com/album.php?albumid=145

If the focus is rough, it probably needs a lube job. Although- some of the early "cross-over" lenses were a bit rough.

thank you so much for the information. your online tutes helped me with the shimming of the lens for perfect focus. 🙂

 

[ruslan]

You have interesting way to press shutter release and left eye viewfinder!

 

[ferider]

Nice. If the glass is original Zeiss you will see coating rings on the inside elements. Zeiss only coated the center of the inside elements.

That close focus trick is cool. Never thought of it. Just make sure the lens doesn't fall off 🙂

Ruslan, that's the right way to do it with or without soft-release. 🙂

 

[Sonnar Brian]

Now I want a 1951 J-3 in LTM. I suspect that is the first year of issue for the new-style focus mount. The 1950 J-3 still uses the German Focus Mount. Ahhh another search for Ebay...