Jupiter-9 - Will it work on the Bessa R?

[Roman]

The Jupiter-9 2/85 is one of my favorite lenses; that's why I own three of them: in M39-, Kiev/Contax-, and M42 mount. However, the M42 mount gets most of the exercise (on my Pentax and Yashica SLRs), even though I hate manual stop-down; it's simply that with close up (say, up to 3 or 4 meters) portraits, parallax is to difficult to deal with on rangefinders (even with the parallax mark on the Russian revolver finder).
Since I'm anxiously waiting for the mailman to bring my Bessa R, I'm wondering how well the J-9 will work on that camera...
From what I've read in various places on the internet, I can't draw definitive conclusions
- some say it works great;
- others say it won't work A) because the Russians used a different helical thread (don't know the exact English term) - that of the original Zeiss/Contax lenses the J-9 is based on - so they won't work correctly with 'real' LTM; and B) because the Bessa R's RF base is to small; I usually use the J-9 around f4 anyway, so that should take care of B); and I know there are a lot of misaligned J-9s out there because of the easily screwed up double helical construction, so I don't know whether A) is true...
As for parallax, I think the extra 5mm of the 90mm Bessa R finder vs. a 85mm lens should help, along with the parallax-correcting finder...

Any users of this combo (Bess & J-9) here? What are your results?

Roman

 

[Sonnar Brian]

I used my J-9 on my Canon 7 with great results. I gave into a Nikkor 8.5cm f2 in LTM. The J-9 is now on its way to Oscar for his Canon 7. But, mine was the export version and I believe that the focus was adjusted for the Leica normal of 51.6mm rather than the 52.3mm. The lens stopped slightly short of infinity as marked on the barrel, but was always in sharp focus and aligned with the RF.

J-9 on the Canon 7

 

[Roman]

I also just stumbled over BillG's test photos in the members' gallery... (I'm at 'B' now, looking at them alphabetically... ;-) )

 

[hans siddharta]

Sorry for not answering your question, but here is my sample result of J9 on M6TTL

hans

 

[hoppinghippos]

I was considering this for a while too, but what put me off was that apparently getting a good one was a matter of luck with the odds being roughly 1 out of 3 or so (from some photo net thread). so I figured the cost of having 3 or more lens could be better put to another more reliable lens!

 

[peter_n]

Welcome to the forum hans siddharta, and that is a beautiful picture you posted there! 🙂

 

[hans siddharta]

Thanks Peter,
about the picture, 1-from-27-frame success rate is considered excellent, isn't it? 🙂

 

[peter_n]

It sure is, pal! 🙂 Better than the HCB rate, that's for sure! 😀