[WTB] Orion-15 Kiev mount

Apologies that this is absolutely no help whatsoever with your search but I can recommend getting the Orion if you find one at a sensible price. I found one about a year ago but it cost (a discounted!) £150. Mine may well be an exception but it's incredibly sharp from corner to corner at f8-11 and flare is very well controlled, even with the sun included in a picture - only an aperture adjustment that sometimes sticks lets it down. Now all I need is a Kiev without light leaks....
 
unless you are collecting vintage lenses, the c-mount voigtlander lenses are probably a better deal. BTW, I have never seen a orion in contax mount, but I guess they exist...
 
I'm sure the CV lenses are a much better deal than the Orion. f6 is a bit limiting anyway!
It really does exist in Kiev/Contax mount - I have one! In the style of the Zeiss 28 mm/f8 Tessar for the early Contax, it isn't rangefinder coupled (I believe the LTM version is) and it has no depth of field scale. From what I remember, according to Ivor Matanle in his Kiev article in Amateur Photographer, it isn't a copy of the Tessar in optical terms (although it's similar in physical appearance) but A Cook 4-element design. Mine dates from the early 1970s and it is a genuine Kiev/Contax mount.
 
It mounts on the outer bayonet but there's no coupling to the internal focussing mechanism and it's actually supposed to be like that. I guess the depth of field at that focal length and a widest aperture of f6 meant that critical focussing isn't really necessary. The Zeiss Tessar was the same although it's at f8 wide open.
 
An advantage of the Orion is that they are tiny and light, sticking out from the camera body only about half an inch or so. The camera becomes extremely compact. I picked up my copy about 15 years ago for about $100 in Germany when Soviet equipment was flooding across the recently opened iron curtain.

A disadvantage of the Orion in Kiev/Contax mount is that you have to reach into the front of the lens barrel to change F-stops. That pretty much precludes being able to keep a filter on the lens (it takes a 49mm, if memory serves correct, but it must be extremely thin to avoid vignetting). Because of this, I tend to keep the lens cap on and just remove it when actually shooting (haven't forgotten to remove it yet). You have to remember to lock the camera mount at infinity before mounting the lens.

Mine is sharp, sharp, sharp, an excellent lens that I often carry if I don't want to be handling a lot of weight. I'm not a lens-test kind of person, but I never found any significant differnce in image quality between the Orion and my 1950s vintage Nikkor 28mm f/3.5 or, for that matter, an SLR 28mm Nikkor. Of course, the slow speed is a real limiting factor. I know that Leitz made a 28mm f/6ish lens in the 1950s, though I don't know if the Kiev is an exact copy of the formula.

I'm sure the CV must be a better lens image-wise and usability-wise. For that matter, a vintage Nikkor in user condition can probably be found for roughly the same price as a new CV 28mm. To make mine a bit easier to handle, I used a fine-tip marker to add measurements in feet to the scale focus (I'm not that good at estimating meters) as well as added some markings to indicate depth of field. I suppose you could do this with tape if you didn't want to make permanent marks on the lens itself.
 
Hello,
and thanks for the answers so far. I forgot to mention that I already own an Orion-15 for LTM, but I decided to concentrate on my Kiev cameras. The Jupiter-12 is quite nice, but I like the angle of view of an 28mm lens.
The CV lenses could be an alternative, but I know that the Orion delivers very good pictures.
btw - the Orion is a loose copy of the Zeiss Topogon with a 4 element double Gauss design. There was a very rare Topogon 4/25 from CZJ made after WWII.

Andreas
 
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