Jupiter-3, Black or Chrome? CHROME!

[Ron (Netherlands)]

1953 KMZ J-3, wide-open on the M8.

Stopped Down, F4.

Thanks Brian, lovely pictures, indeed quite sharp. Other question, could you direct us to a table with some serialnumbers of J-3's indicating the years of manufacture. thanks (btw was looking at nr. 5600367, guess it is from about 1956)

 

[Sonnar Brian]

With few exceptions, the first two digits are the year of manufacture, and the serial number of the lens follows. The various manufacturers kept the format: first two digits indicate the year, and numbers in sequence for each of the manufactuers. I have overlapping SN sequences from KMZ Trapezoid and ZOMZ Triplet.

 

[Brian Legge]

That 1956 GOMZ is gorgeous. That really jumps out at me - exactly the type of behavior I'd wish for in one of these lenses.

 

[uhoh7]

The Black 50/2 J-8 is made by KMZ.

Completely different story on the Black J-8: I have had many that are optically as good as their 1950s versions. I have had several Black J-8's that compared well with the Nikkor 5cm f2.
.

Relieved to hear that, since I just bought a black j-8, but have not seen it yet 🙂

@millis1974 very nice subject for your 50 tests.....striking the the tighter DOF with the 1.1 vs Canon 1.2 LTM. The nokton could use a click bewteen 1.1 & 1.4, hehe

 

[kawabata]

I am quite happy with the 1984 Valdai optical block I mounted on my J3. It is one of these new old stock blocks on ebay. Brian we chatted about this on ziforums.

Recently I made some tests on close distance by mounting the J3 on a Canon 5D DSLR. Here is a 1:1 crop wide open. It certainly is very sharp in the center. I did a similar test for my 1963 Lytkarino J-9 which was less impressive.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

I have found wider variation in the later J-3's than earlier ones, with some exceptions. It seems that some of the manufacturing switch-overs had some hiccups. I have a 1956 and 1957 Triplet-Logo (GOMZ/ZOMZ) that are not as good as those that followed, and no where near as good as the '53~'56 KMZ's. I've sampled ~100 J-3's over the years. Certainly not enough to be statistically significant- just enough to form a bias.

 

[ampguy]

Never used a black J3. Love the Sweeney modded '70s chrome/aluminum. Taken with the NEX at ISO 6400:

Here's the J3 at ISO 12,800: