Industar-61 or Jupiter-8...

Kent

Kent

Finally at home...
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... which one do you prefer?

I'm shooting with a FED-3b (M39LTM) and either lens can be mounted.

(corrected)
 
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I like them both, but my Jupiter-8 gets more use. I like the extra stops and its image quality.
 
Aperture click stops and non-rotating front element favor the I61...you can use a square hood. And some find it a bit sharper. I wish it were collapsible. As it is, slightly bigger than my J8, it sits. And the panda one is (I think) really ugly. But I love all my Soviet lenses...they're like little treasures.
 
Both lenses are very good lenses if not excellent.
I am expecting in the mail an I61 in Contax mount and a 5cm/2 Sonnar with a J-8 rear element. Should be interesting to use this hybird lens. After all, the J-8 is a clone of the Sonnar.
 
raid said:
Both lenses are very good lenses if not excellent.
I am expecting in the mail an I61 in Contax mount and a 5cm/2 Sonnar with a J-8 rear element. Should be interesting to use this hybird lens. After all, the J-8 is a clone of the Sonnar.
Click to expand...

Those both sound interesting. Let me guess; BS hybrids?
 
Of course they are!
The J-8 should nicely complement or improve the performance of the pre-war Sonnar.
 
Thanks for your thoughts, gentlemen.

I've had the I-61 for some time and just got the J-8 some days ago.
The first roll with the J-8 is finished. Now, I'm eagerly waiting for the pics...
(BTW, I've got the silver version, and it's right, the front ring doesn't turn.)
 
Hi Kent,

My I-61L in Contax mount arrived today in the mail. It looks very cool. The top is black while the "host" barrel is shiny chrome.

The 5cm/2 Sonnar also arrived.It is a pre-war Sonnar in which the rear element was messed up [KEH ugly]. I donated a J-8 to the cause, and the rear element of the Sonnar is replaced by one from a J-8. Brian wrote me that his tests show the lens to be sharp.
 
Early I61s the silver versions don't have click stops. The later black 80's version does. It's a very sharp lens. I need to do a comparison between the two.
 
gb hill said:
Early I61s the silver versions don't have click stops. The later black 80's version does. It's a very sharp lens. I need to do a comparison between the two.
Click to expand...
Are you confusing this with the I-26M? They didn't have click-stops till late on but I thought all I-61s did (I'll stand correction here though!)
 
gb hill said:
Early I61s the silver versions don't have click stops. The later black 80's version does. It's a very sharp lens. I need to do a comparison between the two.
Click to expand...

I'd like to see a comparison of I-61 with J-8.

*edito: I have a J-8 in silver and like it, could be sharper sometimes though.
 
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Given all the discussion about the quality of FSU cameras, it's interesting that their lenses have pretty good reputations. Since most of them date from the time when black & white was much more common than color, it seems that, as in the case of Leica lenses, a lot of people comment more about their b/w qualities than they do about color. Could this be because of chromatic (color) aberrations? More recent types of glass have mitigated such problems to a large degree.

It's always assumed that a lens is to a camera as speakers are to stereo - whatever else you may have, that's the center of attention. So the general thrust is that Soviet lenses are mainly dependable and quite useable. Hard to go wrong with most of them.
 
I personally find the Industar a better lens for black and white (as I like the extra contrast), plus the non rotating front element is good as I use a square hood. The Jupiter gets more use as a colour lens and for portraits (or where bokeh is needed, as I find it more pleasant on this lens), the rotating front element can be a pain, but its not too much of a problem to rotate the hood.
 
I have two J-8 and one I61. One of the J8 is clearly not calibrated, the other one seems ok but not very sharp at least wide open.
The I 61 on the contrary is very good.
 
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