M8 with Jupiter 50/2 Russian Lens, not too bad!

The M8 has a crop factor of 1.3, so the lens was effectively 65mm though I kind of think it might have been a little less. Those Russians round up or down a little more readily. Surprisingly, it seems like a pretty good lens. Soft wide open with a bit of a halo. But it improves stopped down and the wide open nature of the lens isn't unpleasant. I did punch up the contrast and sometimes increased the saturation a tiny bit in a way I usually don't have to with the 35/2 ASPH or 50/2 Summicron. Right out of the camera, the color/contrast is a bit flat. Anyway, here are a few edited pictures. I have to say I've been using this as a body cover for a while. Maybe I should shoot with it more.

The Soviet lens designs were as good as anybody's. Heck, they WERE anybody's in many cases.:)

The best of them, in a good copy, can be really fine, and the worst of them are usually at least "serviceable"

However, there is a little known codicil to the Leica Manual that requires that you disguise or hide the bezel inscription, all the more critical if the inscription is in Cyrillic characters:

I've had two Russian Leica III copies with two Elmar looking lenses. One was pretty good, one was pretty bad. Ironically the one with its chrome scrubbed off to be a "leica counterfeit" with "genuine" wooden body was actually the better lens. I suspect with those kinds of presentations, quality of the lens is a low consideration. This one though, actually seems to perform up to the level of OLD Leica lenses, which is decent. The contrast is a problem, but it's easy to fix that on the computer. There's no doubt you can do good work with them. I want to send my 50/2 to get 6 bit coded. Maybe I'll use this lens while that is happening.

I didn't see that codicil in the Leica manual but I confess I didn't read the whole thing. Seems like pretty good camouflage for Leica users.

My Jupiters treat the Leica Handbook like Hop on Pop.

j3_1 by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

And the M9 and M Monochrom-

J-3Plus, Optimized for Each by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

Some Jupiters hide Zeiss Serial Numbers, this one has German glass and the SN is in the Thiele guide from 1943.

J3Namering_SonnarSN by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

J3_Sonnar_hybrid by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

Skate and Fun zone by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

My 1952 J-3 on the M8,

Optimized for F1.5 on the M8 by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

Wide-Open at F1.5,

Lunch at Mariachi's, Manassas by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

The M8 almost always has this lens on it.

I like the punchy contrast Leica lenses give you but contrast is easy to add with computers these days so that's not a super big problem.

Funny things sometimes happen when you use full frame lenses on smaller sensors besides the crop factor. You'd think they would be better but that isn't always the case.