Nice photos shot with Soviet Lenses!

[syuji_honda]

http://www2.ezbbs.net/18/russianlens/

 

Those Soviet Lenses are great! (for rediculously cheap price). I

just bought Orion-15 28mm/F6 and Jupiter-3 50mm/F1.5. Hope they are

not from bad batches.

[peter_4711]

Hello Syuji,

 

yes indeed, the Orion-15 is an amazing lens like the

Zeiss Topogon 4/25mm,4 lens elements in 4 groups, and distorsion free.

The 4 special lenses are difficult to produced, and so is a Orion-15 a rare Soviet lens.

The Jupiter-3 is like the Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar 1,5/5cm,

7 lens elements in 3 groups.

All Soviet lenses used a Zeiss lens formular.

 

peter

[bob_a]

"...All Soviet lenses used a Zeiss lens formular..."

 

Not true. Some/many were developed by the Soviets themselves.

[rich815]

Great shots Syuiji. It just shows the most important factor is technique rather than equipment. Most people should work more on perfecting technique than worrying about how sharp their lenses are.

[syuji_honda]

These are not my photos, but many different Japanese people's. I

totally agree with the technique being very very important. I also

am very amazed with great optical quality of Soviet Lenses. Maybe,

Soviet should make a come back. God bless USSR!

[bob_a]

Syuji - shhhhh! Don't say this - you might get erased!

[syuji_honda]

USSR R.I.P. Please never come back. Communism don't work.

Capitalism and Democracy Rulez!

[peter_4711]

Hello Bob,

interest answere, you can descript soviet lenses without Zeiss formula ?

 

peter

[bob_a]

Peter - I can't speak for the whole of the Soviet photo industry. I've got a FED-3 with Jupiter-8 f/2 and a Kiev-19 with Helios-81N f/2. Both very fine lens. The reason for my statement was partly as follows: the Soviet Union was a scientific and technological powerhouse that put the first man in space, defeated the Nazis, competed with the US toe to toe in things like nuclear submarines, ICBMs etc etc. It's only logical to assume that've created a lot of the technology themselves as most/some of it didn't exist (so off with your imminent plagiarism argument). Why not lenses? I know there's at least one Soviet lense that won international innovation awards (something like a 500mm whetever). So WHY NOT lenses if they could built a lot more complex things?

[varjag]

For instance, Russar and Mir-1 were supposedly designed by Soviets from scratch. Many of the original Zeiss formulas were recalculated/improved there later as well. USSR could definitely make decent optical products on its own, it's just that the civilian sector wasn't top priority: there wasn't a single factory dedicated to normal cameras, all of them were small side business of the military plants. The military industry was grabbing the most talented engineers as well; look for artillery sights, satellite and aerial cameras to see where most of Soviet optical research was.

[syuji_honda]

Anyway, buy them up while they are cheap!

[varjag]

Cheap?!? You westerners have already driven the costs here through the roof! :)