Great surpise! Leica M6 with Jupiter 8

[flallemand]

Hi Guys,
It's my first post here. I wanted to give my impression about this lens.
So here is my brief Leica M6 story:
I had the opportunity to buy a beautiful M6 few weeks ago and did not have the money to add a 35mm Leica lens at the same time. So I decided to spend the less I could on a lens just to try the camera (and start saving for an other lens).
So I bought a Jupiter 8 lens on Ebay for 30$ and a 10$ adapter (LSM-M).
There are few posts about how bad those cheap adapters are and some focusing problems of the Jupiter 8.

First of all, the adapter works just fine on the cam. The only complain is that the lens is not correctly align so the aperture ring is not centered at the top. The 50mm frame is correctly shown in the viewfinder.

So I shot my first roll. An Ilford HP5 400 pushed to 800 and I was extremely suprised by the results. The images look pretty sharp at all aperture. I am pretty happy about the decision that I made because I can enjoy the camera and save money at the same time without having to spend a 500$ on a lens just to play with it before upgrading to the lens I really want.

Here is a photo of the lens:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/fabricelt/27119249523/in/datetaken-public/

Here is one photo of the first roll:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/fabricelt/27663638936/in/datetaken-public/

 

[raid]

Congratulations on buying the M8 plus the J8. The image looks great.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Nice to know what you don't have to re-shim it. I have to re-shim my J-8 to get it sharp and beautiful on M4-2. To be honest, it is fine lens for bw prints.
I never have problems with 50mm frame lines cheap adapters from ebay. Only with 35mm and 135mm.
And I don't recall to have Leitz LTM lenses to be centered on M either 🙂

UPD: on your photo I could see what lens is focused at the bottom of the negative. And it is coutre d'jour ...
Here is one un-shimmed on Bessa R at f 5.6, focus on the bottle.

And one shimmed for M4-2 at f2, focus on the head.

 

[leica M2 fan]

I agree the J-8 is a super lens.

 

[Huss]

Hi Guys,
It's my first post here. I wanted to give my impression about this lens.
So here is my brief Leica M6 story:
I had the opportunity to buy a beautiful M6 few weeks ago and did not have the money to add a 35mm Leica lens at the same time. So I decided to spend the less I could on a lens just to try the camera (and start saving for an other lens).
So I bought a Jupiter 8 lens on Ebay for 30$ and a 10$ adapter (LSM-M).
There are few posts about how bad those cheap adapters are and some focusing problems of the Jupiter 8.

First of all, the adapter works just fine on the cam. The only complain is that the lens is not correctly align so the aperture ring is not centered at the top. The 50mm frame is correctly shown in the viewfinder.

So I shot my first roll. An Ilford HP5 400 pushed to 800 and I was extremely suprised by the results. The images look pretty sharp at all aperture. I am pretty happy about the decision that I made because I can enjoy the camera and save money at the same time without having to spend a 500$ on a lens just to play with it before upgrading to the lens I really want.

Here is a photo of the lens:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/fabricelt/27119249523/in/datetaken-public/

Here is one photo of the first roll:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/fabricelt/27663638936/in/datetaken-public/

The photo that you link to - the lady is out of focus but the writing on the ground in bottom of the pic is in focus - where it says 'marche'
Did you focus on the lady or on the writing?

It's a really nice composition by the way.

 

[flallemand]

The photo that you link to - the lady is out of focus but the writing on the ground in bottom of the pic is in focus - where it says 'marche'
Did you focus on the lady or on the writing?

It's a really nice composition by the way.

I actually did zone focusing because I couldnt take the time to manually focus the scene. I had to shoot quick to get this shot. It's maybe not the best exemple to show the sharpness and the presision of the lens.

 

[John Bragg]

Enjoy the Jupiter 8, it is a fine lens. Great example of how most 50mm lenses are the best value available for quality imaging.

 

[flallemand]

Nice to know what you don't have to re-shim it. I have to re-shim my J-8 to get it sharp and beautiful on M4-2. To be honest, it is fine lens for bw prints.
I never have problems with 50mm frame lines cheap adapters from ebay. Only with 35mm and 135mm.
And I don't recall to have Leitz LTM lenses to be centered on M either 🙂

UPD: on your photo I could see what lens is focused at the bottom of the negative. And it is coutre d'jour ...
Here is one un-shimmed on Bessa R at f 5.6, focus on the bottle.

And one shimmed for M4-2 at f2, focus on the head.

Great images!
As I answered to Huss, I actually did zone focusing because I couldnt take the time to manually focus the scene. I had to shoot quick to get this shot. It's maybe not the best example to show the sharpness and the presision of the lens. I did a quick scan without playing with the file (did not add focus). the negative looks sharper.

 

[ForestCap]

Glad you get good results. J-8 is a high value-for-money lens.

Your J-8 carries the newer KMZ logo on it, I guess it's from the 80s or even 90s. In a way it's good that it's newer. I have two older black J-8s and I never need to shim them for using on "Leica standard" bodies.

Hope you enjoy it more!


On film rangefinder:
Scan-150105-0006 by

On digital camera:
under the pear tree by

 

[flallemand]

Glad you get good results. J-8 is a high value-for-money lens.

Your J-8 carries the newer KMZ logo on it, I guess it's from the 80s or even 90s. In a way it's good that it's newer. I have two older black J-8s and I never need to shim them for using on "Leica standard" bodies.

Hope you enjoy it more!

Yes I heard that the first numbers of the serial number are the year that the lens has been made. In my case it is 88.

 

[LukeBanks]

Nice shot. I did the same recently and picked up a cheap J8 as a stop gap while I save for a 35mm. It's a surprisingly impressive lens if you get a good one. Mine took a good bit of cleaning to get it working but luckily no shimming. The few black and white rolls I've shot with it have been more successful than the colour have so far.

 

[newst]

A good J-8 is one of the best value for dollar lenses on the market. The problem is finding a good one. It isn't as much the quality control/lack of quality control attributed to Soviet era production as much as the level of abuse any individual lens may have suffered since it was produced.

It is great for B&W but works well in color also.



I do like me a good sonnar.

 

[raid]

The J8 is a copy of the vintage Zeiss 4cm/2, which is also an awesome lens.

 

[zuiko85]

No surprise you are happy. Many of us work with what we got/can afford/justify. There is no shame in that. Also on a budget, I'm probably going to get a 52 mm f2.8 FSU lens for my M4-2 to try out that angle of view.

 

[David Hughes]

Hi,

There are some bargains out there in the old USSR made lenses but you have to check carefully as there are some idiot owners (who like to take things to pieces) and greedy sellers out there too. Luckily that applies to all makes of lenses; I've bought and scrapped Leica lenses for that reason and kept and praised KMZ lenses.

BTW, the rule about the first two digits being the year only seems to apply to KMZ made stuff, like Zenits and Zorkis. I've examples from the 90's that were still using that format.

Regards, David

 

[mcfingon]

I had and sold a good example of a J8. One advantage is that you can use it on an older Leica (1951 in this case) as well as the M series.