1951 J3, Sonnar?

[thafred]

Hi Guys,

After I finaly got my Jupiter-8 to work with my Bessa (Focus´is spot on at every distance what a sweet lens!!! ) I decided to look out for A Jupiter-3 ....Found a sweet looking one at the Bay and now after reading alot on the web I´m wondering if by any chance the lens could be one of those real Sonnars (or KMZ using original Zeiss glass) My indicators are that the barrel seems to be made of brass rather then aluminium and the lens seems uncoated also the Year of manufacture is 51 as indicated by the ser. no.

Don´t misunderstand me, I am perfectly Happy if this is "just" a usual J3..but curiousness is creeping in

I have not held it in my hands :-( but I hope next week the lens plus the FED-2/Ind-22 I purchased will arrive safely...

Thanks for any information!
Fred

 

[Paul T.]

If it had Zeiss glass, it would have a different construction and be marked 3K or Zorki Sonnar. Only the very first ones have Zeiss glass - apparently the way to tell is to unscrew the rear lens group and look for a Zeiss serial number, which will be neatly stamped, rather than inscribed.

 

[raid]

I doubt that it is a real Sonnar. It does not have the "wings" on the aperture ring. My 1950 J-3 had "wings" and a heavier mount, and was the worst performing J3 I have ever handled. I suspect the used a new batch of glass when the old batch ran out, and forgot to recompute the prescription. That's my WAG. It is an early 1950 lens; maybe they got the bugs out by 1951.

Brain: Are you saying that your 1950 J-3 is a Sonnar design with Zeiss glass but it is a bad performing lens?

 

[Paul T.]

Hold on - do we know that ANY Zorki LTM lenses had Zeiss glass? I've only seen this before in reference to Contax-mount lenses, where Zeiss Jena were actually mass-producing the lenses in question. The Zeiss production of LTM lenses was so small that surely there were no substantial stocks to be taken to the USSR.
Attached is a photo of a rear lens group from a Contax mount Zorki Sonnar. If the glass were produced by Zeiss, it would have a serial number which corresponds to Zeiss records, and would be stamped. This example, scribed by hand, is almost certainly of Soviet manufacture.

 

[Paul T.]

Ah, interesting. So your lens has a Zeiss s/n?

 

[rxmd]

I doubt that it is a real Sonnar. It does not have the "wings" on the aperture ring. My 1950 J-3 had "wings" and a heavier mount, and was the worst performing J3 I have ever handled. I suspect the used a new batch of glass when the old batch ran out, and forgot to recompute the prescription.

I read somewhere (here, to be precise) that one of the general problems with some Russian LTM lenses is that they are designed for the Contax, whose focusing thread is designed for a slightly longer focal length than the Leica. This would not be a problem at infinity, and not at higher apertures because depth of field covers the focusing inaccuracies, but with an 1,5/50 or 2/85 lens wide open it starts to be a problem. Basically this problem would arise with any Russian lens that is based on a Contax formula and produced in LTM mount, but it would be most noticeable at wide open apertures. Dante Stella argues that this, and not the manufacturing inaccuracies, is the main reasons why fast Soviet lenses such as the LTM Jupiter-3 are said to be more "soft" wide open than similar LTM lenses from Canon etc. Maybe this was more of a problem early on when the Russians were still closer to the original Zeiss manufacturing process. If this is the case, then it doesn't appear all that desirable to use an early "Zeiss" LTM Jupiter 3, except for the historical and collectible appeal.

Philipp

 

[thafred]

I thank you all very much for the usefull information in this thread!
Got the lens in the mail yesterday and it is a russian one (the numbers that are engraved look like if someone did it with a kitchen knive)

However, I adjusted it with a thicker spacer to focus with the Bessa and it performs beautyfull! At 1.5 its low contrast but quite sharp at all apertures!

We were on a walk and she got her new glasses (like I did ..perfect)
Pictures are on Lucky SHD 100 in T-Max. two of them are wide open!

Thanks again for all the Help!