Where have all the Good Jupiters Gone... Gone to RFF every one?

Sonnar Brian

Sonnar Brian

Product of the Fifties
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I am 0 and 4 for buying Jupiters off of Ebay and getting one that has not been rendered unfixable without major replacement of parts. I'm looking at Ebay auctions out of the FSU with "Shiny Metal", Dubious Modifications, and Namerings of Desirable Vintage that have been put on hacked together lenses. Instead of Fake Sonnars, there are a lot of Fake ZK and Fake KMZ Jupiter lenses. More lenses are arriving that are jammed and cannot be separated from the focus mount. The Hacker probably did not have proper shims or retaining rings. The early lenses coming out of the FSU seem to be the bottom of the barrel.

My last three J-8's, purchased all as they were from 1952- a good year. Clean glass. Two were cemented into the barrel, and coukd net get the glass out. Focus bad on both. "Plan B"- set focus by unscrewing the rear fixture, which worked because both lenses close-focus. Someone used too thick of a shim. The third- clean glass, missing the close-focus stop. Just be careful not to focus too close. The last J-3 bought, someone mixed and matched optics between new and old, put into a late one-piece barrel and back in to a 1955 Focus mount. The only reason I bought it- had enough spare parts to rebuild "hoping" I could unscrew the barrel from the mount.

Did we clean them out over the last 15 or so years?

Please post your Recent Jupiter Purchases here, either Good or Bad.
 
Brian, I have noticed that the KMZ J-3s have gotten increasingly scarce on eBay in the last several years. Surely RFF cannot have cleaned them all out, not that some would not like to try. I currently have four, two from 1951 and two from 1952. I occasionally cruise eBay looking at old Jupiters, including the 1955 train wreck that you recently posted about.
 
I've got ten nice KMZ's, now in LTM and two in Contax/Kiev. The pair from 1950 required a lot of work to get the focal length corrected, but are now my best. I picked up a really clean 1955 KMZ optical block from a US dealer, put it into LTM. It is a V2- but seems really good. I've not bought a really good Jupiter out of Russia or the Ukraine in several years.
 
I have four J's. Two J-8's, one of which I buggered as you know. The other J-8 seems to work well. The Jupiter-11 seems good, too. I have posted a photo taken with it and the color and definition seem alright. There is a stickiness in the focus ring at infinity and closest but that is all I know wrong with it. The J-9 is sharp and great color. It is an '88. The J-8's a '55 and a '57, the J-11 a '58.

These are good retro lenses at good prices. The new Voigtländers are sharper and brighter but that is not always what I want. And if I want I can do it both ways. I am tempted by the J-3 but there seem to be enough problems with them that I probably will not buy one. What I have will suffice. If I want a larger f-stop I have the 40mm Voigtländer f/1.2, the Canon LTM 50mm f/1.4, a Pentax SMC 50mm f/1.4 and the 35mm Voigtländer f/1.4. What I really need is greater skill at using the gear I already have.
 
I bought one of these at the fleamarket on the bridge in Tiblisi in Georgia, with a really nice Fed 2 and Jupiter 12 and Bakelite boxes with the original factory certificates for the lenses and it all worked. There is a series of photographs I took with it in Nicosia on my website. It really is a gorgeous camera and the lenses are also really nice. After reading this post I think I want an adapter to try it on my digital M...

thank you for posting this!
 
With the Jupiter-12: I have two in LTM without the metal guards over the rear group, and have used them with my M8 and M9. They work quite well, BUT- I needed to increase the thickness of the shim.
 
I have a few Jupiters, but not that many. Several J-3 and three J-8. The J-3 are in ltm while the J-8 in Contax mount. I may also have one J-3 in Contax mount. I have one J-8 with 18 blades in ltm.

Here it is:

18blds--2-X3.jpg



18blds--X3.jpg
 
I remember that one with 18 blades: The person doing the modification got all the blades in, but the focus was way off from the RF. I suspect they did not keep the spacing correct getting all the extra blades in.
 
This is correct, Brian. I have used it with Live View so far. Did you then shim it for me?
I just noticed that the lens was made in 1952. It is "a good year".
 
I have bought a nice J-3, J-8 and J-11 from Fedka.com. I’d highly recommend buying from Yuri. I have bought other gear from him too and you know what you are getting.
 
If you want to know where all the Jupiters have gone, jump over to YouTube and visit the channels of various beardy hipsters who started out in photography with a phone, bought a used film Leica six months ago when they decided to "get serious," and now share their noob revelations with hundreds of thousands of fawning subscribers. You'll find lots of videos touting the wonders of "bargain" FSU lenses as if these were the host's personal unique discovery. Don't worry, once all 50 states have legalized recreational weed, those fawning subscribers will lose interest in photography and their Jupiters will reappear on the market... unless they lost them or traded them for edibles or converted them to mini-terrariums or whatever the next fad is...

Am I snarky today? Yes I am!
 
It's 2022. If you cannot monetize your hobby, it's not worth pursuing. Duh. To add on, many of these Youtubers don't even try to do any research on cameras and lenses they are describing. Watched some Leica dude spew on about how the UC 35mm f/2 Konica Hexanon is a "copy" of the IV Summicron. 30 seconds of Googling will reveal that it is a derivative of the 35mm f/1.8 W-Nikkor. But who cares, clicks and engagement = $$$$$.

I have an cleaned and functional original black paint M39 J-3 from 1962 that I tried to sell on here for what I thought was a ridiculously low price, but no takers. So I am keeping it. I am not really a huge fan of that lens though. I prefer the Planar wide-open experience. :).
 
Sonnar Brian said:
With the Jupiter-12: I have two in LTM without the metal guards over the rear group, and have used them with my M8 and M9. They work quite well, BUT- I needed to increase the thickness of the shim.
Click to expand...

Ebay runs in cycles. I've seen lenses show up and go unsold as a Buy it Now offering and a couple of days later the same type of lens in auction goes for three times what the unsold BIN was asking for. It depends on the day, week, month, who is looking, who is selling...

I have three Js, 3, 8 & 12. Just picked up the J-3. The J-12 doesn't focus to infinity. The hard stop only goes to about 12"-18" in focus. Bought it attached to a Fed 4 (I think) and took it apart to see if I could relube the helicoil, it barely moved, but I didn't see any way to shorten the registration distance.

I keep reading.
 
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There is still plenty of Jupiters in FSU countries. Not too many of them are super clean, but most of them are unmodified. People (older generation) with not enough language skills or computer literacy are not selling on ebay. Local flea markets, local “craig list” equivalents. 10-30€ for J8 depending on condition. J3 is more difficult to find, most of them are probably hunted down and re-sold on ebay (higher profit).
 
If the youtubers are using the Jupiters on Mirrorless camera, they should be Okay. If using on a rangefinder, whether built to the Russian or Leica Spec- they most likely need to adjust the shim.

As far as Monetizing my lens collection- yeah, so far this year I'm running ahead including paying for the 50/1.0 Nokton.

My problem, once I put in 8~12 hours rebuilding a lens to include swapping glass and focus mount- Hard to let them go. Several of the Jupiter-3's, the Six perfect glass v1 KMZ, match my wartime 5cm F1.5 CZJ Sonnar. These are better than my Nikkor 5cm F1.5 and Nikkor 5cm F1.4. The last J-3 picked up: original grease from 1955, yuck. Someone once described it as Yak ear wax.
 
The Jupiter lenses that I used had bad glass. The ones with good glass- I made into Contax mount. I gave a few of those away.

And converting the 70 or so Sonnars to Leica mount, completely paid for my M9 and M Monochrom.

Adjusting another 200 or so Jupiters to work on Leicas, maybe a factor in driving prices up from $50 for a J-3.

I've seen many, many butchered Jupiters out of Russia and the Ukraine. Ones with mismatched optics just to make it look like a complete lens. So - no, I put these lenses to much better use than almost anyone else around. I have a box full of Jupiters with front elements that looked like someone went ice skating on them.
 
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