Hi funkaoshi,
Before I bought my Jupiter 3, for my Kievs, (non Leica mount) I opened a thread asking for the practical side of purchasing an f/1.5 while there is a high quality Soviet lens for Kiev mount, the Helios 103, which is f/1.7. At that thread I remember our friend Xayraa33 predicting I will end using the Helios - which became true.
The behind the scene story is as follows: a really good German Sonnar f/1.5 (the prototype of the Jupiter 3) may climb up to over u$ 400 these days, and some times quite over. Hence that this is a highly priced commodity, with its own subindustry of falsifications. Fortunately, as far as I have read, Sonnar falsifications are detectable by clear cut signs.
This brings us to the Jupiters 3, the next cheaper alternative. The problem here is not the falsifications, but that there are a lot of Jupiters-3 which are.... (how may I define it?)... ok, not up to the expectances, or their due performance. So you cannot really know what are you going to get after you buy one.
In all the abovesaid I have referred to the Jupiters 3 taking their due performance as revealed ONLY at f/1.5
Knowing all this background beforehand I decided I will make only one try of Jupiter 3 purchase at a medium price offer, and I think I went somewhat higher than medium price. And I lost in my bet.
But as I re-read your post you are not specially looking for the wide aperture, so you can make a trial at the US seller Fedka.com, whose optical products never deceived me, nor I got any email about a bad lens from other friends. But I will strongly recommend a J-8 with fixed cliks, since they are double aperture scaled.
And of course if we are speaking about Leica mount cameras, there are a lot of alternatives, including the new lenses of Cosina Voightlander.
Cheers,
Ruben
Hi funkaoshi,
Before I bought my Jupiter 3, for my Kievs, (non Leica mount) I opened a thread asking for the practical side of purchasing an f/1.5 while there is a high quality Soviet lens for Kiev mount, the Helios 103, which is f/1.7. At that thread I remember our friend Xayraa33 predicting I will end using the Helios - which became true.
The behind the scene story is as follows: a really good German Sonnar f/1.5 (the prototype of the Jupiter 3) may climb up to over u$ 400 these days, and some times quite over. Hence that this is a highly priced commodity, with its own subindustry of falsifications. Fortunately, as far as I have read, Sonnar falsifications are detectable by clear cut signs.
This brings us to the Jupiters 3, the next cheaper alternative. The problem here is not the falsifications, but that there are a lot of Jupiters-3 which are.... (how may I define it?)... ok, not up to the expectances, or their due performance. So you cannot really know what are you going to get after you buy one.
In all the abovesaid I have referred to the Jupiters 3 taking their due performance as revealed ONLY at f/1.5
Knowing all this background beforehand I decided I will make only one try of Jupiter 3 purchase at a medium price offer, and I think I went somewhat higher than medium price. And I lost in my bet.
But as I re-read your post you are not specially looking for the wide aperture, so you can make a trial at the US seller Fedka.com, whose optical products never deceived me, nor I got any email about a bad lens from other friends. But I will strongly recommend a J-8 with fixed cliks, since they are double aperture scaled.
And of course if we are speaking about Leica mount cameras, there are a lot of alternatives, including the new lenses of Cosina Voightlander.
Cheers,
Ruben
