Elmar 35mm hazy compared to Jup-8

[john_van_v]

This is my only 35mm m39, and I have taken nice pictures with it, but they are hazy. M39 wide angles are in short supply, and hence expensive.

Is this lens easily dismantled, and is the glass fixable?

Below are equivalent shots taken with this Elmar followed by Jupiter-8 (first) and the Elmar. You probably need to see them bigger, but the difference is visible in the paint on the tower. As you can see it was seriously overcast, and you can't tell, but I was pointed North (in the Northern Hemisphere, just to be accurate 😉 )

The 35mm is vastly better than the 50mm compositionally, and the haze adds effect, but still...

 

[john_van_v]

These pictures were also taken w/ the Elmar

 

[John Shriver]

Is the contrast only low at wide apertures? The 35mm Elmar isn't really a very good lens, the 35/3.5 Summaron blows it away, and is normally cheaper. They stretched the Tessar formula to too wide an angle in that Elmar. High price of the Elmar is due to rarity, not function.

Also, the Elmar is probably uncoated, which further reduces contrast.

The haze should be visible if it's there. Open the aperture all the way, shine a flashlight in one end, look in the other end. Haze will show.

Do it yourself cleaning of a lens with such small elements is not something I'd recommend. Well worth paying a professional about $75 to do it.

 

[john_van_v]

Is the contrast only low at wide apertures? The 35mm Elmar isn't really a very good lens, the 35/3.5 Summaron blows it away, and is normally cheaper. They stretched the Tessar formula to too wide an angle in that Elmar. High price of the Elmar is due to rarity, not function.

Also, the Elmar is probably uncoated, which further reduces contrast.

The haze should be visible if it's there. Open the aperture all the way, shine a flashlight in one end, look in the other end. Haze will show.

Do it yourself cleaning of a lens with such small elements is not something I'd recommend. Well worth paying a professional about $75 to do it.

Perhaps you are right about the Elmar being second rate (Contax was the better choice for lenses during that period), but according to accepted theory, coating should not be a contrast issue under an overcast sky. I f you know something... I assumed contrast, such as in Jupiters (all of them for me so far) is (or was) in the magic of the glass (lost with the fall of the CCCP).

As far as haze necessarily being visible, forget it. I have a Sigma zoom that was my only lens for nearly a decade that took fantastically bright and colorful pictures under all conditions (hard to believe, I know, but it is true).

I have an extreme humidity problem in my cabin accompanied by wide temperature changes during Spring and Fall. The resulting condensation condition putt moisture on the glass inside the lens making useless anywhere except shade. (I thought I could just buy another Sigma... but not so, that one was made on a good day.)

I keep my lenses in soft beer coolers now to moderate the temperature swings and I bought a gazillion silica packets to put in the zip locks they live in. (Beer coolers are great! Everybody thinks you brought beer, instead of thinking "look at that asshole photographer"🙂)

 

[Sonnar Brian]

When shining a light through the lens, the internal haze should be evident. It will greatly reduce contrast and muddy color. With that stated, the Elmar 3.5cm F3.5 needs to be stopped down to F5.6~F8 for most use. I had the Nikkor 3.5cm F3.5, Elmar copy. Was best at F8, unlike my 3.5cm F2.5 and 3.5cm F1.8 Nikkors that were great wide-open.

The Canon 35/2.8 is a good, inexpensive alternative. Basically, same formula as the Summaron.

 

[john_van_v]

Just to go a little further with the m39s, I used an Industar 2.8 for the first time, and it was very hazy pointing toward the Sun (South), and clear away from the Sun (North). In comparison, I can point my Jupiter -8 directly at Sun reflections in the water, and only the Sun splotches are hazy (and white of course). The Industar lens seems brand new, so the Jupiter must have vastly superior coating.

The only lens that out-shoots the Jupiter into the Sun is the Schneider-Kreuznach on my Kodak c875 point and shoot, which is adequate if there is good light. Kodak has discontinued these lenses after something like a century-long relationship that survived WWII--showing that our world is collapsing around us as we talk.

Here is writing, actually a cheat sheet, on the last thought: Capital Structure: http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:John_Bessa/Capital_Structure

 

[john_van_v]

The Canon 35/2.8 is a good, inexpensive alternative. Basically, same formula as the Summaron.

I guess I should look out for that one, though I would like a Jupiter. I have a Canon 135mm, which is an exceptionally front-heavy lens. I have not directly compared it with my Jupiter 12 (135m), but I suspect it has less contrast, but more clarity.

My J-11 is so contrasty that it acutually blanks out the film. Here with fast Superia:

Fedglass (on Flickr) shows pictures he took w/ a Jupiter on dollar store file, which are excellent. I wonder if the Jupiter philosphy was to make a lens that would produce good pictures on any film, anywhere. Sort of like the MIG jet figher, which had venetian blinds that closed the engine intakes on the bottom of the wings because many of the Communist and Thrid World strips where they would land were gravel.

 

[John Shriver]

Coating increases contrast even when no bright lights fall directly on the lens. Poorly corrected lenses don't just have low resolution, they also have low contrast because the light rays that don't go to the right (sharp) place go somewhere else. Veiling flare is a term used for such problems.

The period Leica manuals for the Elmar 35/3.5 and Hektor 28/6.3 say not to use them wide open unless absolutely necessary. They both have resolution, contrast, and vignetting problems wide open. But I have both, as they are "interesting" lenses. But I'd never use either as the primary lens of that focal length!

 

[john_van_v]

Coating increases contrast even when no bright lights fall directly on the lens. Poorly corrected lenses don't just have low resolution, they also have low contrast because the light rays that don't go to the right (sharp) place go somewhere else. Veiling flare is a term used for such problems.

The period Leica manuals for the Elmar 35/3.5 and Hektor 28/6.3 say not to use them wide open unless absolutely necessary. They both have resolution, contrast, and vignetting problems wide open. But I have both, as they are "interesting" lenses. But I'd never use either as the primary lens of that focal length!

I am going to need to see actual citations with optical science to accept this. I see that very expensive sunglasses actually brighten already bright view (as they are sunglasses), and I am surprised by this, as it seems impossible.

But both Brassai and Sweeny show evidence that that is not necessarily what is happening. I say Brassai because his uncoated lenses where as sharp as the excellently coated Zuikos that I use for water refelctions. You must see his nighttime street photography that he did, presumably, with French wooden equipment, that could not have possibly had coated lenses!

If Leica CYA'd by recommending low aperature, then it is a sucky lens.

I looked over my Industar 2.8 pictures more closely, and, yes

1. they have less coating and hence more flare,
2. seem add to haze that is caused by being in a cloud
3. seem to be very sharp, but
4. lack contrast when pointed at clouds in the North, which a Jupiter would have lit right up

So I don't really know where it stands wrt to coating yet, because this information seems contradictory. That is why everybody respects Brain -- the discipline necessary for science, as opposed to the metaphysics we use as photo-journalistic artists

I posted some of these pictures, as well as my exihibit material on flickr (CLICK)