50mm lenses

[Sonnar Brian]

I had a Jupiter-9 in LTM that was calibrated for the Leica RF. The focus scale did not quite go to infinity, but it physically stopped where my Canon 7 RF indicated "infinity" should be. It was accurate at minimum focus at F2. The optics were GREAT but the focus helical had a rough spot that set it apart from Contax and Nikkor lenses. It was the "black Export" version. Anyone using Russian lenses should check the close-up wide-open and infinity focus before taking any significant shots with the lenses.

I use my Jupiter-8m and Helios-103 on my Contax IIIa and Nikon S2. I changed the flange-to-film distance using shims on the S2 to work (better) with the Contax lenses.

I had a Jupiter-9 in chrome for the Contax Mount cameras. The helical was so sloppy that it moved back-and-forth more than 0.5mm at a fixed distance.

 

[Pherdinand]

It's not a matter of lack of intelligence or handyness of the workers/designers. It's the way things worked in that time.
There was not much motivation to do the job right for the assembly line folks in a stinky communist factory. I still remember those times (not in USSR but in Romania where i lived - more or less the same thing), it did not matter *how* you make the things only how many and how fast. The "plans" (the "5-year plan" was the most famous bullsh|t invented) required n pieces of, say, Jupiter-8 lenses to be made in a certain time. If something went wrong (and usually it did), like, the components were not delivered in time or some tools were broken/missing or a technician got ill, then the plan still had to be made - either by speeding up the process and producing cr@p, or by lying on paper about the numbers. The latter often ended up in serious problems for certain persons who were supposed to control the paperworks, therefore in industry it was not often applied (it worked in agriculture though); the former never ended up in any problems since nobody really cared what the end result's quality is.

The MIG's, space technology and other hi-tech equpiment were an exception, since they were required to eventually WORK, not by the average population but by the government, and their number of production was very low. Therefore the risk of catching you if you didn't do it well was much higher and to bribe the quality controller would have been next to impossible - there you have the best motivation one can imagine.

 

[Pherdinand]

I have a story/anecdote related a bit to the above quality-control issue.
We lived in a flat in a 4-story building when i was a kid. 4 rooms, 2 toilets, apparently quite luxurious but some things just never worked in those appartments.
A neighbour of us had one of his toilets never working. It was just impossible to flush it without flooding the place. He tried every cleaning method possible, nothing worked.
After 10 years of living there, he decided on a major CLA of his appartment and called the specialists - masons, painters - of the neighborhood. They also picked up the cemented toilet seats to finally repair it. One of the masons was between the workers who actually built those appartments long time ago.
Under the infamous defective toilet seat, in the hole, they have found two unopened, intact bottles of beer, half liter each. The old mason apologized: he remembered that during the work they were drinking beer and suddenly a control person showed up, so he quickly had to hide the beer bottles somewhere. Then they've forgot about it and put the seat down above the bottles.

 

[GeneW]

Gene, if the J-8 thread is anything to go by the J-8 might become the next Canon P: increasing in value and becoming rarer by the day. 🙂 Maybe we here on RFF can stock up on J-8s, keep them away from the public, push the J-8's reputation to the sky, and sell them at a profit in some years to all those new J-8 addicts? 😛

LOL, Remy 😀
A better investment than Microsoft!

Gene

 

[rbiemer]

Frank,
how about a beautiful woman wrapped in newspaper standinig in front of a brick wall?😀
Or, more seriously, some thing fairly scenic with some trees at close and far distances?
Or how about Hudson bay?😀
Really though, I think most any thing except test targets will be good.
Rob

 

[peter_n]

It's not a matter of lack of intelligence or handyness of the workers/designers. It's the way things worked in that time.
There was not much motivation to do the job right for the assembly line folks in a stinky communist factory...

Pherdinand you make an interesting point. There was some discussion in another thread about the "quality" yield on J-8 production and I had read that the best yield was from the late 50's to the mid 60's. One rationale for this was that the morale of the ordinary Soviet citizen was fairly high at that time.

Great story about the beer bottles, BTW. 🙂

 

[back alley]

i have read that it was also a matter of what was available material wise. sometimes the metals were soft and sometimes hard. one piece was better because it was made of a harder metal and would last longer than the peice made from the softer metal.