Jupiter 3 or Canon 50/1.8?

[Brian Legge]

The price of a good J3 is approaching the price of a Canon 50mm 1.8 in good condition. Careful about making price a deciding factor.

Keep what you use.

Personally, I have both and use them equally. I have other lenses I'll sell before them. 🙂

 

[jarski]

I haven't seen a nice J3 LTM for sale here in a while. I just checked Fedka and yikes they are expensive there.

eBay has lens brand "Jupiter", currently over 100 items for sale. I doubt they are getting any rarer or expensive, or only in RFF.

 

[Brian Legge]

Sure, if you want to replace your J3 with one like this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/JUPITER-3-1...00700801?pt=Camera_Lenses&hash=item4ab1363981

😉

There are only a few J3s on ebay right now and most are... lets just say ugly. Clean ones are selling for around $160 at the moment, with some spiking as high as $300. People seem to be paying a premium for the black ones.

This is more or less the same price as clean Canon 50mm 1.8s. Those are in the $140-250 range

 

[varjag]

Narrow that down to Jupiter-3 jarski, and then find one that doesn't misfocus on Leica. Then we'll talk 🙂

 

[jarski]

Narrow that down to Jupiter-3 jarski, and then find one that doesn't misfocus on Leica. Then we'll talk 🙂

well those have *always* had some extra in price, and havent been as common, than the lottery lenses from eBay 🙂

 

[uhoh7]

As has been said, the Canon is Summicron quality, the J3 isn't.
Steve

I've got a 80's summicron and a canon 1.8 and you would NEVER mistake the 2--at f/2 not even close.

My canon 50/1.4 is sharper, and my pre war sonnar keeps up with it till the edges.

I think you underestimate good J3.

I have a J8 that brian once shimed, and the canon cannot beat it starting around f/4

canon 50/1.8

J8

my canon seems pretty clear--but copies vary no doubt.

However good J3 is sharp enough for anything seems to me, and has nice character. I'd suspect bokeh is way better.

Comes down to taste, copies and cases, I guess.

 

[varjag]

When one says "Summicron quality", it is best to qualify which Summicron. Both the Canon and J3 are definitely not inferior to the first (collapsible) Summicron as far as image quality is concerned.

 

[randomm]

I'd keep Canon. J3 is cheap to replace if you want one again.

link to good history source.

Cheap, maybe, but how long to find a good specimen... it took me almost a year.

 

[micromoogman]

To me almost all lenses are good @f5.6-8. Some are better when really blowing up the pic, but I never do that. Please post wide open pics from these two...I would appreciate that.

J3 lens. It's like new...almost.

Night shot J3, @f1.5

Winter pre-war Sonnar @f1.5

Canon @f1.8 (cropped)

 

[Sonnar Brian]

Canon 50mm F1.4 wide-open:

Tight crop:

GOMZ 1958 Jupiter-3, wide-open

100% crop:

I need to redo this quick test on the M9, above is on film with the Canon 7.

 

[luiman]

Canon 50/1.8 wide open

Jupiter 3 (not wide open)

Both are great lenses, but I prefer Canon.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

I've owned a couple of Canon 50/1.8's with perfect glass, but sold them. I kept the Canon 50/1.4, keep it because it is one of the few 6-element in 4-group F1.4 lenses ever made.

But- I end up shooting with the J-3 and pre-war Sonnars.

1955 KMZ J-3, wide-open on the M8.



On the Canon: shine a light through the rear, and look for haze. If yours is clean, it means someone serviced it and went through a lot of trouble cleaning out the old lubricant and putting in something safe. That makes it hard to replace.

This is from a 50/2.8, same type of glass used in the Black 50/1.8.

I've seen several Black 50/1.8's with damaged glass. Range anywhere from hazed coating, to etched surfaces like this one.

SO- if yours is clean, it will fetch a premium but not be easy to replace.

 

[micromoogman]

The J3 has an impressive contrast compared to the Canon 1.4. My SLR Canon SSC 1.4 is my overall 50mm fav. It's not the same formla as the RF counterpart?

 

[250swb]

I've got a 80's summicron and a canon 1.8 and you would NEVER mistake the 2--at f/2 not even close.

Congratulations on your 80's Summicron, it is good to know you like it. But stating the bleeding obvious is taking pride in ownership to an extreme. Of course most people (like myself) are talking about lenses of the same era, otherwise in discussions about a J3 you may as well throw into the equation the current 50mm f/1.4 Summilux ASPH which is after all only a fraction faster, but would wipe the floor with any other lens mentioned so far. It isn't a comparison that is very relevant.

Steve

 

[Sonnar Brian]

The Canon SLR mount lens is a different formula than the 50/1.4 RF lens.

http://www.canon.com/camera-museum/camera/lens/s/data/50-85/s_50_14v2.html

6 elements in 4 groups using high-index of refraction, low dispersion glass. (Not Thorium)

Slr lens is 7 elements in 6 groups.

http://www.canon.com/camera-museum/camera/lens/fd/data/50-85/fd_50_14_sscv1.html

I use a 50/1.4 SSC on my Canon F1 and the 50/1.4 SC on the EF. They are sharper than the Nikkors of the same period.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

The Jupiter-3 is every bit as sharp as the Canon 50/1.5, Sonnar formula lens.

The price on the latter has hit ~$600 or so. A clean J-3, good glass, accurate focus, is hard to come buy.

Here is a perfect-glass collapsible Summicron, late SN13 block.

Wide-open on the M8:

and 100% crop:

Enough resolution to cause color-aliasing on the M8.

Jupiter-3, at F1.5.





stopped-down to F1.8 or F2, the J-3 picks up contrast and resolution. But- the Canon and Summicron cannot open up to F1.5.

These are not expensive lenses, and you already have both. They are 50 years old, and finding items in conditon that yours are in is not easy, and commands a premium in time and effort.

 

[uhoh7]

Congratulations on your 80's Summicron, it is good to know you like it. But stating the bleeding obvious is taking pride in ownership to an extreme. Of course most people (like myself) are talking about lenses of the same era, otherwise in discussions about a J3 you may as well throw into the equation the current 50mm f/1.4 Summilux ASPH which is after all only a fraction faster, but would wipe the floor with any other lens mentioned so far. It isn't a comparison that is very relevant.
Steve

haha, nice steve 🙂

but why use the term "summicron quality" as if it implied devasting sharpness, when the summicrons of the era had no such reputation?

I think Brian has really hit it by showing the haze issues which plauge so many canon lenses--mine has some faint traces, yours may be perfect.

While the 50's summicrons were far from legendary the Sonnar 50/1.5s were considered the best 50 money could buy and used by nikon as a model for the ground breaking 5cm 1.4--an altogether different cat yet also very great in a way that a 50's summicron simply is not.

A perfect J3 should outperform a perfect canon 50/1.8 at every level. It's a Zeiss sonnar for crying out loud.

But that fact is muddled because the perfect ones are taken 🙂

 

[250swb]

A perfect J3 should outperform a perfect canon 50/1.8 at every level. It's a Zeiss sonnar for crying out loud.

Should, yes.

But I think I'm talking at cross purposes to everybody here. I'm not big fan of vacuous wide open 'look at the bokeh' images that suck all meaning out of life and photography, so my mind is thinking about what lenses do at f/5.6 😀

In which case a period Summicron is as respectable as the rest, a clean one is all you need to find, good is implicit, a clean Canon is all you need, good is pretty well guaranteed, but you need both a clean and good J3, so on average, comparing oranges with oranges, which comes out better when it comes to selling? You sell the ones that are easy to re-buy later should guilt set in 🙂

Steve

 

[micromoogman]

It's not entirely about photography and "the picture", this parallell universe of lens designs, aperture blades, cameras, bokeh bla bla, is amusing. If it was ONLY about "the picture" I'd use a Konica C35 or something like that...which I do from time to time. (But rather a Contax T)
How about Sonnar vs. double gauss designs? One must theoretically be better than the other. Double gauss and bokeh are known to be problematic? How's your experience with that?
Here are my dear lenses for comparison. Both have somehow become dearer to me along this reading.
Thanks for all input and thoughts!

 

[goamules]

Here are the two lenses the OP was talking about, on Fuji film, both on Canon rangefinders:
Canon 50/1.8

Jupiter 3 50/1.5