fsu lenses - black finish vs. chrome finish

[Dez]

Hi,

And think of the hours we then spend going through the heap of old cameras to check what we've really got! I don't know why I do it at times...

Regards, David

Well, yes, but there is always the chance of finding lovely things like your pictured cameras. There is always that tantalizing possibility; the tricky bit is to be able to avoid also spending a fortune on lesser, but still desirable stuff. In my case, that needs a bit more work.

Cheers,
Dez

 

[Ron (Netherlands)]

After a long search finally found a very beautiful black J3 from 1987. It has beautiful amber coatings.
Was 1987 its last year of production?

 

[raid]

The chrome J3 from the early 50's and earlier may have German glass in it. It may be a personal favoritsm for age and the hope to get a lens with history that makes me choose silver over black J3 lenses. I followed advices given to me by Brian whenver I bought an FSU lens.

 

[Ron (Netherlands)]

The chrome J3 from the early 50's and earlier may have German glass in it. It may be a personal favoritsm for age and the hope to get a lens with history that makes me choose silver over black J3 lenses. I followed advices given to me by Brian whenver I bought an FSU lens.

Since I already have 5 of those lenses, I really liked to get my hands on- in my view much rarer and finer made - black ones. And I am not fond about the scratched up 1949 - 1953 lenses that are supposed to have German glass.
Further I am not a 'Brian' follower in this respect. Not that he doesn't know about what he is talking about - and many claim he is a fine technician as well -, but I am not in favor of drilling holes into barrels, making them unusable for my FSU camera's. And his lenses are in another aspect not perfect anymore since they can't focus at infinity.
That said: the post 1958 lenses perfectly focus on all of my Leica's whereas the pre 1959 lenses do not - of course this is what the Brian-lenses are about. But rather than altering such a lens, I prefer to use a nice 1960 or 1987 lens on a Leica with perfect Russian glass... guess it is - indeed - just a matter of taste 😀

That said: even Brian was not so fond about scratched up German glass since he replaced more than once the glasses of an earlier - German - one with later Russian glass. Guess he tried to make the earlier J3 better than they came from the factory.....but the later ones in my view were certainly the better ones: better barrel design, better coatings, different glass...

Further I never had a J8 in my hands that didn't focus on my Leica's whereas Brian claims he had to work on them as well - perhaps his camera wasn't that well collimated.....

 

[raid]

Since I already have 5 of those lenses, I really liked to get my hands on- in my view much rarer and finer made - black ones. And I am not fond about the scratched up 1949 - 1953 lenses that are supposed to have German glass.
Further I am not a 'Brian' follower in this respect. Not that he doesn't know about what he is talking about, but I am not in favor of drilling holes into barrels, making them unusable for my FSU camera's. And his lenses are in another aspect not perfect anymore since they can't focus at infinity.
That said: the post 1958 lenses perfectly focus on my Leica's whereas the pre 1959 lenses do not - of course this is what the Brian-lenses are about. But rather than altering such a lens, I prefer to use a nice 1960 or 1987 lens on a Leica with perfect Russian glass - than a drilled barrel with scratched up glass....guess it is just a matter of taste 😀
That said: even Brian was not so fond about scratched up German glass since he replaced more than once the glasses of an earlier - German - one with later Russian glass.

Hi Ron,

My "maybe German" glass lens is pristine, and it is in LTM from the start. There was no drilling, and Brian never saw that lens. It is a sharp lens without any shimming done to it. I never advocated "scratched glass" lenses, did I? I have a black J-8 that came to me either for free of for little money. I also have a white ZK in pristine condition optically, which is a lens that was produced just before the J3 with German glass.

 

[Ron (Netherlands)]

Hi Ron,

My German glass lens is pristine, and it is in LTM from the start. There was no drilling, and Brian never saw that lens. It is a sharp lens without any shimming done to it. I never advocated "scratched glass" lenses, did I? I have a black J-8 that came to me either for free of for little money.

Indeed you didn't, but the many lenses of Brian I have seen did have scratches, and the ones that were offered to me were full of scratches. I never saw one with perfect glass, unless you talk about original sonnars, I did misundertand you - sorry just read you were talking about an original ZK).

But if you talk about Brian I can only recollect him as someone drilling into lenses and putting extra shims into them to get them working. Never read that he used untouched lenses....

 

[raid]

Brian does more than drill holes into lenses, Ron.

He moves optical parts from one lens to another. I have an old LUXON 50/2 for the Braun Paxette camera. Brian removed the glass, and he placed it into the barrel of an LTM lens for me. I had a Sonnar 50/2 with damaged lens glass. He removed the rear element, and he inserted an FSU rear glass element, followed by shimming the lens to be very sharp.

Both Brian and Roland (Ferider) "inspected" for me the ZK on ebay, and they advised me to buy it. There are numerous similar cases in which almost always Brian advised me not to buy a certain lens on ebay because of flaws that I did not see. The most recent assistance from Brian was trading an Elmar 5cm/2.8 with ruined optics for a custom made Contax mount Tessar 5cm 3.5 rigid T with wonderful glass.

Since I got an Amedeo LTM-Contax adapter, it opened the door for me to buy J-3 lenses in Contax mount. They are usually lower priced than LTM J-3 lenses.

 

[Ron (Netherlands)]

Brian does more than drill holes into lenses, Ron.

He moves optical parts from one lens to another. I have an old LUXON 50/2 for the Braun Paxette camera. Brian removed the glass, and he placed it into the barrel of an LTM lens for me. I had a Sonnar 50/2 with damaged lens glass. He removed the rear element, and he inserted an FSU rear glass element, followed by shimming the lens to be very sharp.

Both Brian and Roland (Ferider) "inspected" for me the ZK on ebay, and they advised me to buy it. There are numerous similar cases in which almost always Brian advised me not to buy a certain lens on ebay because of flaws that I did not see.

Since I got an Amedeo LTM-Contax adapter, it opened the door for me to buy J-3 lenses in Contax mount. They are usually lower priced than LTM J-3 lenses.

Thanks Raid for clarifying that. And I didn't want to contest his expertise and technical abilities - but again I am not fond about the way he works on the jupiters - my reasoning was stated above, and I prefer the later ones (must admit I was also in the race for getting hands on one of the very early nickel ltm Sonnars, but missed it 🙁)

 

[raid]

Now I am interested in black FSU lenses.

 

[cameosis]

After a long search finally found a very beautiful black J3 from 1987. It has beautiful amber coatings.
Was 1987 its last year of production?

wow, awesome, ron! we're just eight copies away: mine is 870432!!!!
nice one, cheers!