pusang-puti

These refinished cameras often don't work since they were not recalibrated/adjusted to function properly after they were refinished. Refinishing requires total disassembly: the camera and lens is STRIPPED down to its barest little screw. A camera doesn't necessarily work OK after its been put together- plenty of adjustments have to be made for it to work right. The same goes for the lens.

And often, these cameras may have parts from other cameras. Refinished cameras may be composite cameras whose parts came from one or more cameras. And these would usually be the cosmetically poor cameras or even non-working ones (how else would it be better to sell a non-working ugly camera? Refinish it!) With old cameras, the parts where fit individually, and adjusted accordingly. This is something not always possible with these refinished cameras.

>By the way, can anyone tell me the fastest flash sync speed? I've >been using 1/25, but if it's capable of more, I'll be a happy >bunny.

>Lee

1/25 is the fastest. Shutter is built that way, it won't allow anything faster. BTW, make sure that you cock the shutter immediately after firing it when using flash. At its "fired" state,

the shutter synch contacts are closed, so flash can fire spontaneously. Also, plug the flash in only when the shutter is cocked.

Lens is indeed rare, and price is quite fair. Should appeal more to collectors. Lens is multicoated, as "MC" logo says. The way the sample was photographed makes it appear uncoated.

M-mount lenses were never common production items from soviet camera makers. A 40mm is even an uncommon focal length. Many M-mount lenses are probably adaptations, special orders, or even prototypes.

Jay

Yes, it's possible. Focussing in general is easier on an RF compared to an SLR, since focus is confirmed by the rangefinder patch as the images coincide. In an SLR groundglass, focus is confirmed by HOW sharp the image the image appears on the screen. In good light, or as seen by better eyes, this shouldn't be a problem. But with less than 20/20 vision, or dimmer viewfinders or equally dimmer situations, it's altogether a different matter. Only AF focus can better the RF in this respect.

It is a given of course that the camera and lens focus systems (the RF, and lens camming) is in good order.

Jay

On the scanned images: no extra manipulation was given to the pictures, only the necessary editing steps to render them viewable on the net. Levels were set to auto, and sharpening was limited to making the resized images legible. I can assure you that the posted images retain at least 90% of the original prints' characteristics.

On J-3 quality: I agree that the J-3 (and the J-9) vary in quality. It must therefore be by some lucky strike that the two specimens with me work reasonably well. However, even the quality between these two samples vary: one J-3 (made by the Minsk zavod, as identified by its logo) doesn't focus as sharply as the KMZ (again as identified by its logo) J-3. Where these lenses were made appears to a factor for quality. That both come from the 1950s may also be a good reason for the more-than-acceptable performance.

J-9 on the other hand (I believe I have around 7 or 8 samples) appear to vary in quality as well. The really bad ones, became bad as a result of incompetent servicing. Many of these were restored to working order, and only one can't be truly fixed, due perhaps to having parts which came from different lenses. I haven't fixed any J-3 at all, since my samples do appear to work well.

The only other high aperture LTM lens I've had so far is a Nikkor 1.5/50. This lens' (at least the one I had,) full aperture performance isn't significantly better, when used on the M3, and on the III, and IIIf, getting sharp focus, as I remember, had always been a struggle.

I could speculate that the shorter RF base lengths of screw mount bodies may account for the J-3's focus errors. On a Zorki, exact lens focus register and rangefinder cam adjustment at BOTH infinity and minimum focus settings is a must - most Zorki and FED, regardless of model, are often found erring in these departments.

Jay

Skip

Al's right- to see if there are discrepancies between RF and lens. Second, less obvious reason is that in real situations, such parallel

placements hardly happen. A hand-held camera's ability to focus well in such a situation can then be gauged. I suspect that the exact placement of the RF relative to the focus target will affect to a certain degree the accuracy of focus.

Conclusions? Hard to see on the webpage pictures, but from what I found, the lenses are excellent. The J-3 shows softness at full aperture, but not to an extent which would make it useless at that setting. IMO, its ability to render detail at full aperture is good enough for certain applications as found in low light situations where getting the picture is the paramount concern over everything else.

Jay

Made a focus comparison test between various Jupiters and Industars

with the Leica M3. Tested Jupiter-3 (1,5/50), Jupiter-8 (2/50),

Jupiter-9 (2/85), Industar-50 (3,5/50, and Industar-61L/D (2,8/53).

Test subjects were a focus target and some "real" situations. The

focus target is actually a printed page, and was purposely set off

parallel to the camera. This caused the right portions of the

target (seen in the 12x magnifications) to go off focus.

The photos can be seen at

www.pbase.com/zorki/jupiter

jay

Check too if it's a real Leica. Many fake Leica II made from otherwise good Zorki or FED are going around. The faking process usually renders the camera work badly, unless it' properly readjusted.

J

Given the very wide stroke angle needed to complete a single stroke lever, double stroke winding can be faster. Indeed, even a SS lever's action can be divided to two (making it a DS) or into several ones - 3 or 4 short strokes, and still make up for FASTER winding.

Jay

Pray, that your J-9 isn't a frankenstein lens assembled from several cosmetically good parts.:-)

Most often the J-9's helicals are improperly reassembled that one (there are three) goes out of sync with the other two. One helical is responsible for moving the optic block and positioning it at the right position relative to the film for focus. The other at the end positions the cam for camera rangefinder coupling. The middle helical links both. Assembling the three is like arranging a rubic's cube- there are so many ways to put it together, but only one will be correct.

I don't quite agree with Dante Stellas theories. The soviets knew better than just replacing the mounts of Sonnar derived Jupiters to make LTM versions. They knew something about the proper Leica-style camming. Afterall, they were making Leica clones first (ie the FED) before they made the Contax copies (ie Kiev).

Jay