Elpros; Jupiter user report

[pgs@thillana.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick Sobalvarro)]

So, the Elpro VIa and VIb have already been spoken for by a LUG
member, and since I've been hearing from more folks, I thought I'd
better post a message before the digest goes out tonight... sorry if
anyone was disappointed.  BTW, I called Don Chatterton about the
Elpros this morning, trying to see if I could swap them for something
more useful to me, and he said that he has a drawerful of them and
nobody wants them; he says they might be worth $10 each (but I didn't
think he wanted to buy them!).  So, if you want one, Don ought to be
able to sell you one pretty cheap...

Moving along, I finally got my Kodachrome back, on which I continued
to test my Jupiter 50/1.5 in Leica thread mount, which I had earlier
reported to suffer from coma -- it rendered out-of-focus, off-axis
highlights as triangles.  I shot the Kodachrome under more carefully
controlled conditions, with a tripod and cable release, etc., and with
the string of Christmas lights definitely in focus.  And now I can
say, yes, this lens very definitely suffers from coma when wide open.
The Christmas tree lights at the sides of the image turn into little
seagull shapes -- rather pretty, actually.

However, I also shot a bunch of other stuff with it wide open and it
seems to be reasonably sharp, and to have nice color rendition.  It
might even be a trifle warm for my taste -- I can't quite tell, but
the rest of the roll was shot outside on a rainy day and yet reds
still look really red.  Still, because no one has said they've seen
coma in these lenses before, I figure it might just be this lens.
Mark Chaney was very nice about it and said to send it back and swap
it for another one.  On Marc Small's advice, I'm going for a black one
this time (apparently comes from a different plant?).

- -Patrick