Monday 7 May 2012

Reading the News


GXR A12-M, f2.8, 1/125, ISO 1822, RAW, 53mm (Jupiter-12 f2.8 35mm L)

Kind of funny, on the same day I publish my 'Spring Clean' post, I receive a collection of Russian lenses and 2 FED-4 cameras to go with them.
My Russian comrades would be proud of my collection of Jupiter and Industar lenses. ;)
I now have the Jupiter-8 f2.0 50mm (twice, one to sell), Jupiter-9 f2.0 85mm, Jupiter-11 f4.5 135mm, Jupiter-12 f2.8 35mm and the Industar-61 f2.8 55mm (twice and one to sell) and some Fed and Zorki cameras I need to run some film through.
Having all these Russian lenses, I have to say that they are all really nice to use and offer very good quality. Especially the Jupiter-12 is a beautiful lens to look at with the rear element looking like a drop or the Jupiter-11 with the blue glow on the glass or the 1:1 Zeiss copy of the Jupiter-9. The seamless aperture is also very good for video I would imagine.

I will do a post on these at some point but if you get get a good copy I can fully recommend these lenses since they perform very well and especially the Jupiter lenses are also well built (can't say the same about the Industar ones). How else can you get a full collection of lenses for less than the price of an old Leica lens or even a Voigtlander lens.

2 comments:

  1. What is it about old glass? One of my favs is a Summar from 1936. Technical faults with the lens or not, (as classed by todays standards) I like the images it produces. I am the one taking them, I am the one looking at them so only myself to please. I also have tucked away a Kiev 15mm Fish eye that bolts on to a Kiev 88. What a piece of glass that is, you might not use it very often, but wow. For the hasselblad equivelent you would need very deep pockets. So with a glass of red in front of me I toast, old and russian glass.
    Cheers
    Jason

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  2. Thanks for your comment Jason!

    Old lenses have their own character and character is something you can't measure or see when looking at test charts. Every lens is unique in it's character so it's important not to dismiss lenses no matter how old they are.

    So a cheers to old lenses and the new cameras we can use them on.

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