Early Russian Lenses, What Features to look for.

We have a native Russian-speaking fellow on the board. Won't he step in with a translation? Eliminate the educated guesses with an accurate translation. "Shrugs."
 
Working on a recent acquistion, a 1956 Jupiter-3. A good example of the late KMZ production, fixture for optical block appears to be anodized aluminum, not the alloy or occasionally brass fixtures that I have seen on earlier production years such as 1950 to 1952. Sonnar Brian has probably seen hundreds of these
 
Not sure if this is the best thread to post, but I wanted to put it somewhere. Lens is in good cosmetic condition, focus was very stiff but also
gritty and crunchy.


I fgured that there was probably sand in it somewhere. Removed the 3 tiny grub screws holding the focusing ring in place and found tiny little metal shavings either from cutting the divots where the grub screws are seated or from drilling and tapping the screw holes. You can even see the curlicue where the drill bit was allowed to skid before biting into the metal, pretty funny!. These aluminum shavings have been there for 67 years after leaving the KMZ factory. Enough to make the focus crunchy
 
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Tried to disassemble the focusing helical to remove old fossilized grease, could not budge these screws that limit the helical travel. Even using a tight-fitting screwdriver they were stuck tight, and I quit because I was starting to deform the screw head. Can't take apart helical, so default to plan B.
 
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Since I could not take the helical apart, I squirted some lighter fluid into the helical and worked it back and forth. I used a tiny needle to pick out as much waxy hardened grease as I could. I then applied a small amount of grease to the exposed parts of the helical, working it back and forth from close-focus to infinity several times.

 
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I even got the thing back together! Focus is now smooth, not stiff or crunchy. Seems to be a pretty good lens. Wide open at about 2 meters. I did the one-meter wide-open test, it appear that the lens back-focuses about 5mm. Close enough for mirrorless Sony and Nikon, will probably not fiddle with the shim.
 
dexdog said:
Tried to disassemble the focusing helical to remove old fossilized grease, could not budge these screws that limit the helical travel. Even using a tight-fitting screwdriver they were stuck tight, and I quit because I was starting to deform the screw head. Can't take apart helical, so default to plan B.
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I've seen that before. I soak the fixture in alcohol for a few days. The old grease is like glue.

Unscrew the fixture for the rear triplet- check the shape against the lens being a v1 or v2 KMZ J-3. I have both from 1956.
 


ZOMZ J-3 Left, KMZ Version 2 Right.

The rear triplet is a "Version 2", has the guide ring and threads up front. Looks similar to the ZOMZ lens.
 


The pre-war, wartime, Transition Sonnars, and v1 KMZ J-3 have this style fixture for the rear triplet.
I believe that all KMZ Jupiter-3 lenses with this style rear fixture use German glass. The change to Russian glass required changes to the optical groups.
 
I have two KMZ 1955 J-3's with the v2 rear fixture, and a 1956 KMZ v1 and a v2. I suspect the German and Russian glass versions of the J-3 were made concurrently until all the v1 parts were used up. It's not a clean cut-over. My 1956 KMZ V1 is the latest I've seen of its type.
 
I checked my other two 1955 lenses, 5501060 and 5503616, they both have the v1 rear fixture. Seems odd to me that the factory would use a mix of parts throughout times of production, but makes sense if they wanted to use as much of the seized materials as possible.
 
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Seemed odd to me at first- also has I've read that 1954 marked when the Schott glass was exhausted, and Russian glass was used thereafter. Thinking about it, makes much more sense that production would occur concurrently as old parts were used up. I also suspect it is why KMZ relinquished production of the J-3 to ZOMZ, the v2 is not as good as the original.
 
Another old Jupiter-3, from 1951. Glass is in excellent condition. Had 5 thin shims totalling about 1.63mm. Several shims look home-made, pretty sure someone has been inside this lens in the past. The focus ring indexes OK, but aperture ring is almost 180 degrees off. Using the measured one meter/wide open test, the lens back-focused about 8 inches, too many shims. Tinkering with it for about 20 minutes, a total of 1.33 shims is pretty good, only back-focuses about 5 or 6mm. Good enough for mirrorless, and saves me the hassle of trying to make a shim 0.4mm thick.

 
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The fixture for the optical block appears to be brass. The lens is a heavyweight at 171 grams, where the all-alloy versions are usually about 145 grams. Bonus is that the glass appears to be from a 272 series CZJ Sonnar. Thiele's book gives a production batch of 3000 completed January 29, 1943. Re-thought the sims, got the overall thickness down to about 1.31mm using masking tape, which is dead-on at one meter.
 
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Cool find. Always a good sign to see brass on the filter ring. I wonder, though: wouldn't too many shims push the lens block out too far, resulting in front focus? I don't understand how taking out shims would fix a back focus issue...
 
I may be mis-using the terms. In the original condition, when the distance scale was set at one meter, the lens achieved sharp focus about 1.2 meters. In this arrangement, the point of focus was behind that indicated on the distance scale. Very similar with both Sony a7iii and Nikon Z6
 
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