Jupiter 9 - ugly yet beautiful

[Krosya]

Well, it's a one of those snow days. Everything is covered with it so what's left to do? - take some pics of it.
So I decided to dig out my Jupiter 9 lens and play with it some. It's not a pretty one :

But focus is smooth and last time I use it it gave me some good results.

So, I thought I'd compare it to a lens I know works very well - Hexanon 90/2.8 .

Well, both are wide open - J-9 at f2:

and Hexanon at 2.8:

WHile Hexanon is sharper, J-9 really didn't do too bad either.
What do you think?

 

[Peter_Jones]

It's the images that count, not how shiny (or otherwise) the lens is. I reckon that's a fantastic looking lens BTW 🙂

 

[ferider]

Nice. Always liked the 85/2 Sonnar variants. And the Hexanon is related 🙂

(Krosya: the Hexanon pic looks less sharp to me for some reason ...)

Roland.

 

[santino]

well, give the J9 a try at 2.8 (otherwise its unfair) 🙂

 

[Nokton48]

Ferider is right. The Konica shot is soft for some reason, the Jupiter shot is sharper. I just got a good J-9 from Fedka, and it's becoming a fave of mine!

 

[Semushkin]

J-9 is definitely sharper!

Sovietski Soyuz rules!

 

[40oz]

That's a beautiful lens, BTW 😀 You can be careful to treat it well without crying over cosmetic accidents. It certainly looks like someone got some good use out of it 🙂 I'd let the patina of the barrel speak for it's optic character.😎

Often I shoot wide open either because I need the light or I want to see how the scene looks that way. So regardless of the actual aperture wide open, I'll use it. I sometimes take my J-8 out instead of my J-3 simply because I like using it, and like the pictures it takes. The fact that the aperture is different is not really a handicap except when I really need shutter speed more than anything else, i.e. motion blur at f/2 but not at f/1.5..


I guess all I'm saying is that after a bit of reflection, I use "wide open" often just because - it is the widest available aperture. It's nice to be able to compare lenses for what they are without making "better or worse" ratings.

On the technical side, it would be interesting to see if the J-9 is sharper at f/2.8 than the hexanon. Even though I rarely really look at ultimate sharpness unless I'm bored 🙂

I have to say I do like the J-9 shot, and in looking closely "just because" 🙂 it does look like the J-9 captured more detail through all the tones in the posted images. It might not be strictly from the lens, but I see more detail in the snow, even in the shadows, as every nuance and edge shows up as a distinct tone. Wheras in the hexanon shot, there is very little detail in either the brighter parts or the shadows. Again, I'm not saying it is the lens, it could be anything. And I'm not saying it's all that critical to the shot.