Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/03/20
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 05:06 PM 3/20/06 -0600, Jeffery Smith wrote: >Where did you get it? I found a 53/2,8 Russian LTM that came on one of my >FEDs (I have no idea what it is, but the Russian writing doesn't look >anything like "Jupiter"). It may be an Industar. How many Russian 53/2,8 >lenses could there be? Soviet/Post-Soviet (SPS) practice is to sometimes state the actual focal length and not a generalized one. Most standard lenses are actually 52.5mm in focal length, so it is not uncommon to have SPS lenses identified as "52mm" or "53mm" as a reflection of this. I have always been confused by the Industar series of lenses though Princelle and Oscar Fricke feel differently. In short, there are a number of families of 3.5/50 and 2.8/50 (and 52 and 53) Industars which are all of a bunch and which are all quite capable clones of the Leitz 5cm and 50mm Elmars. And then there are the "Jupiter" range: 5.6/20 Russaar MR-2 (rare in LTM, quite rare in Contax RF BM) 6/28 Orion-15 (rare in LTM, quite rare in Contax RF BM) 2.8/35 Jupiter-12 (originally, BK) 1.5/50 Jupter-3 (originally ZK, quite rare in Contax RF BM) 2/50 Jupiter-8 (originally ZK) 2/85 Jupiter-9 (originally ZK) 4/135 Jupiter-11 (originally ZK) There is also a 2.8/180 Jupiter-6 but that was never produced in anything other than M42 to my knowledge. Finally, there is a really nifty Prewar clone of the Berg-Elmar. Mine came complete with a field-expedient rear lens cap, a cork! I stupidly sold it and probably ought to buy another. It was a neat lens. And there are some other nifty Prewar FED lenses though many of these will not mount properly on a true LTM camera, as the Soviets could not really believe that the proper dimensions of the LTM is 39mm by 26 turns-per-inch Whitworth, a mistake made Postwar by Canon as well. All of these SPS lenses are subject to caveat emptor: some are grand, some are average and some are awful, as quality control was replaced by quality assurance under the Soviet system with less than sterling results. Marc Marc msmall@aya.yale.edu Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir! NEW FAX NUMBER: +540-343-8505