Hi,
I wish I had the time to sit down and type what I'm thinking about this but I haven't.
Zeiss lenses had a brilliant reputation, based imo on their binoculars which were a result of collaboration between Abbe at the Jena University, Schott the chemist and glass maker and Zeiss. The binoculars made from about 1895 bear comparison with many made these days, I've a pair from 1904 (the Mk II version) and 1910 and it is easy to see how good they are by using them. They'd be even better if I could afford to have them cleaned etc.
Naturally every aspect was patented, which stopped others copying them. This happened when Leitz and Zeiss went head to head over cameras in the 30's. The Contax was over complex because Leitz' better design was patented and so Zeiss had to reinvent everything for their camera. It also explains why Leitz never copied the RF and VF in one that Zeiss had.
Of course the second world war changed all that, German firms lost their exclusive rights - which is why the Japanese then copied things and shot ahead. And WW2 accelerated research into glass etc and here I'm going to stop because the reality gets messy due to politics and so on.
Getting back to cameras; testing lenses gives numerical answers but theory and practice are not the same. I'm old enough to know that what I like and what you like could be the same and could be widely different. Worse still, resolution isn't the only thing that counts and all the other factors (even the film, lab and subject) can mess things up when making comparisons.
Then there's all those people who think they can easily take a lens to bits and put it back again who don't even realise that there's a front and a rear to each piece of glass and so on. So it's a messy business. And often failed repaired lenses get sold on and add more damage to the reputation of the original makers.
You can see this in the words people use to describe them and what they don't say either. How anyone can expect a 60 year old second-hand lens to work brilliantly in a body it wasn't designed for escapes me but they do. Again I blame the second-hand sellers; they describe cameras as Leica copies when they are developments of a 1930's Leica copy. So people expect them to mix and match and they don't always. This doesn't surprise me, both Leica and FED/Zorki have moved on from the 1930's and in different directions for different reasons: some involving the politics of other countries...
My experience of a couple of dozen ex-USSR lenses (dated from the 1930's to the late 80's) is that they bear comparison with most of that era and produce very pleasing results today, even in the wrong bodies. Looking at prints is my test: ask me for an opinion of a wine and I'll suggest a corkscrew and glasses are needed. But many people think it can be done by looking at the price and reading the label...
Anyway, with any make of second-hand lens or body, its provenance is very important. And if you can't get it then pay someone to check it and so on. But it's easier to use Leica lenses in Leicas, FED's in FEDs and so on. And regards crossing them over as an experiment.
Get a J-8 adjusted for a Leica and you'll upset the next buyer of it who will try it in a Zorki and curse the makers and ruin their reputation a little more.
Regards, David
PS And another thing, a few years ago there was an open day at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge, not the American copy but the real one. I gave a talk one evening on binoculars and so on and afterwards was talking to someone from the IoA or else the RGO. He was saying that they'd been asked to do some tests on various optical items and was very impressed by the (then) Russian stuff. A bit old fashioned but delivering the goods was his opinion and some of it, he said, couldn't really be bettered. Point made?
