General My article in EventDV regarding Vintage Lenses

Thanks for the excellent article, Chris, but next time, PM me all the info 2 weeks prior to publishing it :).

I'm awaiting the arrival of a Jupiter 9 and look forward to using it with an adapter I found on eBay for about $12 which has AF confirmation. This is something worth mentioning, I think, because I do plan to use the lens for stills as well, and the AF confirm can assist me. Obviously, basketball games are out of the question but for portraits, it can't hurt. Also, the AF confirm could come in handy with video while setting up a shot, if one has the luxury of time.

I'd love to see an example of stopping down or opening up mid-shot if you can point the way.

Thanks again for the great article.
 
Thanks for the kind words. I think you're going to love the preset aperture feature on the Jupiter-9. Back in the day, the preset aperture was used to open up the lens to assist in focusing and then it would stop down for taking the picture at whatever aperture you set. In English all this means is that you can set your aperture at 16 and use the preset aperture ring for a noiseless, infintely adjustable iris not unlike the kind you have for video. It's a cool feature.

Closing down or opening up the aperture midshot is about the same as adjusting the shutter speed while filming. You are going to see the jump in exposure very clearly (unless you have a preset lens). The point I was making in the article was that you could close down the aperture much faster in a run and gun situation using the physical aperture ring rather than going through the camera to do it. Saves alot of time and feels more natural.

What is worth mentioning is that manual focus zoom lenses with variable aperture stops down very organically. Here's some selected raw footage from my first day out with the Vivitar 28-90 2.8-3.5 to illustrate this......

http://vimeo.com/13039713

It's a varifocal lens which means that you have to readjust focus whenever you zoom which is a little inconvenient but the optics and speed are worth it.
 
Jordan_S said:
^ Haven't heard this. Have you, Chris? I wouldn't use it mid-shot (or couldn't), anyway. Can you explain?
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Heard about it just today. A guy from another forum showed us a clip made with a Vivitar 28 2.8 and it had that flickering problem. The cause of it seemed to be the focus confirm chipped adapter he was using. I think the new firmware was supposed to clear this problem up.

It's not pretty that's for sure.
 
have a question...i got my super takumar 50 1.4 as i mentioned some posts ago and i'm looking to match llenses with more super takumars. however thes rest seem pretty slow. theres a 35mm 3.5, a 28 2.8 (not really slow but not a 1.4 :P)...and a 85 1.9....thats actually decent. so its the 28mm and 35mm that arent 2 hot for me. have i just been spoilt on the 1.4 that i have? in the grand sceme of things they really arent slow but when ur talkin about real low light...then they are.

Oh so my question was...if i were to mix and match lenses...like say get a supertakumar and then a helios or jupiter or watever....would the look really be that diferent and obvious? I mean theres a nice rokinon 85mm 1.4 for about $ 250 that i wundt mind getting but wud that look 2 different from the takumar? even though at that price i could get 3 takumars :)...maybe 4

btw i was on a shoot last week and someone bumped me and my takumar fell (it had on both caps) and i was freaking (in my head). but nothing happened to it..its built like a tank!
 
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That's a great question! I mix lenses all the time and haven't noticed a difference wide enough to distract the viewer. In this trailer, I'm using the Vivitar 70-210, the Mir 24, the Rikenon 55 1.4, and the Tamron 17-50 2.8. If you look at the bokeh or other little tell tale signs you can kinda tell when I switch lenses but it's pretty subtle I think.

http://vimeo.com/12982921

Chris W
 
only a couple shots jump out at me in ur thing Chris...and i think that was more a difference in grading as opposed to lens. Thanks for the response!

edit: nice work btw!
 
Chris, I thank you. Today in doing research on more lens I found what might be a great deal. Its the Jupiter 37a 135mm. Some are calling it their best and/or favorite lens? Yep I found one on Ebay for $65 dollars which included shipping. I also bought today a Vivitar 55-135 2:8 for $25 dollars which includes shipping. I could find very little info on the lens but for $25.....

Here's an article from lowcost4dslr.com that help me make the decision....

If you are looking for a razor sharp 135mm even at full aperture, then have a look to the JUPITER 37A. It is one of the best (or the best) portrait lens I have tested

JUPITER 37A

During the film era, the 135mm f/2.8 was a must have (like the 50mm f/1.7 was the kit-lens). Some of them are famous and you are certain to have a good lens. But they are kite expensive for manual focus lenses due to the hype on brands like ZEISS, SUPER TAKUMAR (SMC).

There are a lot of other brands, unexpensive 135 but difficult to be sure on the image quality of unknown and poorly used lenses. But they are so cheap, that it could be interesting to purchase and test a few of them.

Other are wellknown good lenses and unexpensives because they are widely available. The PENTACON 135 f/2.8 AUTO is in this case. It was the 135mm I purchased first. It was a good portrait lens but soft wide opened (could be nice for portraiture), producing images with over saturation on green color. In my opinion it is intersting for winter pictures to give more colors to the nature. But overall I was slightly disapointed by this PENTACON because of it 'si poor buit quality despite it is all made of metal. My copy was not a preset model (I prefer preset M42 when they are not sharp wide opened).

So I decided to purchase a JUPITER 37A to compare it with the PENTACON 135. This russian lens is unexpensive. First because it is widely available and certainly because there are plenty of faster (f/2.8 vs f/3.5) lenses available for the same price (or less expensive). The price of this lens is less than 50€.

The JUPITER 37A focal lenght is 135mm. The maximum aperture is f/3.5. I do not know if this optical formula was a copy of pre-war ZEISS one. Mail to me if you know the history.

I received it from Ukraine. The parcel was in so horrible conditions that I was afraid a truck or a train had drive on it ;-) Fortunately, this lens is provided with a very robust (plastic made) box :

JUPITER 37A box

Thank to that the lens was in very good condition. The build quality is awesome. It is incredibly robust but not so heavy to carry.

It does not look like a preset lens because it does not have a preset dedicated ring. In fact the aperture ring has 2 functions :

* one classical to set the aperture (it rotate smoothly)
* one to set the not to exceed aperture (preset) by pulling it in direction of the body and turning to the F/stop value not to exceed, then release it.

JUPITER 37A

The focus ring is smooth. The lens hood is made of metal and is screewed on the filter thread.

It is certainly multicoated:

JUPITER 37A coating

The lens is compact and very nice to use and to handle. Here is a picture of the JUPITER 37A mounted on my SONY Alpha 700:

JUPITER 37A SONY A700

Concerning the image quality I have been very surprised by this lens. Is is razor sharp even wide opened. The bokeh is very soft and natural, colors are very naturals. The big difference with the JUPITER 9 is that this lens always produce very beautifull and sharp images while the JUPITER 9 can produce in some conditions (too)soft images. So I love this lens for the same reason as the HELIOS 44-2.

I have compared the JUPITER 37A with some of my favorite auto-focus portrait lenses:

* MINOLTA 70-210 AF f/4.0 (THE beercan a legend for MINOLTA users)
* MINOLTA 35-105 AF f/3.5 - 4.5 (beercan generation)

The JUPITER 37A is really better than the 2 zoom at the same aperture (sharper). The colors it produce are slighty natural than MINOLTA colors.

So at the end I realised I won't use no more the PENTACON 135 so I sold I. The JUPITER 37A is still one of my favorite lenses. This lens is completely in this website philosophy (like the HELIOS 44-2) providing awesome image quality for a very low cost.
 
Chris that Pentax Promaster Spectrum 7 60-300mm , surprised me in using it for the first time.

To follow up on the Jupiter 37A 135mm, I recall that there are about 30 of them on Ebay selling for around $75. Two of them are on sell for around $175. All are sold from the Ukraine. I think my Helios came the Ukraine. Must be dirt cheap there because there are a lot of them on Ebay. I've already spent two hours this mourning researching lens. TO FIND BARGAINS ONE NEEDS LOTS OF TIME AND PATIENCE!
 
Thanks for the info on the Jupiter 37A. The Russian lens I was looking at in that focal range was the Tair 11A which is a 135mm 2.8. Don't know how sharp it is wide open though. One thing that was interesting about the clip you posted was the clip with the Canon FD 50 1.4. It seemed really soft. Does that go away when stopped down?
 
Thanks for sharing that Mark. The Zenitar looks like a pretty sweet lens and the price is just right it seems. It must really be nice on a glidecam.
 
Chris Watson said:
Thanks for the kind words. I think you're going to love the preset aperture feature on the Jupiter-9. Back in the day, the preset aperture was used to open up the lens to assist in focusing and then it would stop down for taking the picture at whatever aperture you set. In English all this means is that you can set your aperture at 16 and use the preset aperture ring for a noiseless, infintely adjustable iris not unlike the kind you have for video. It's a cool feature.[...]
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At first, I thought the second ring was only for screwing and unscrewing the lens and I kept searching for the aperture control ring. Thirty minutes later, I had it figured out. LOL. Not exactly intuitive but now I like it. The weird thing is that if you're in between the two ends, you don't really know what your aperture is exactly.
 
Hey Ryan,

Thanks for posting that and great message too :). Out of all my lenses, I have to say the Helios 44M is my favorite. Like you said in your write up, it has that extra something special to it. I like it so much that I'm going to save up and get the other more expensive Helios: the Helios 40 or 40-2. Some say that lens is the best portrait lens ever and I believe it judging from the pics I've seen from it.
 
Chris I am sooo new at this that I don't know what the term "stopped down" mean?
If I could guess, I think it mean when you let less light into the lens. I remember turning the ring on that canon lens but the lack of light cause me to open the lens up.

I'm suppose to shoot some day footage tomorrow with the 13 lens and Pana 16:9 adapter on all of them. I'm thinking the footage with that Canon FD 1.4 would be sharper? I shot more footage last night with all the lens and two additional lens, Canon 135 FD 2.5 and Sears 135 FD 2.8 that came in the mail hour before the shoot. I'm slowly learning and its so much fun!

I post the link to the footage tonight.
 
Chris Watson said:
One of the cons I should have put in the article, and your post reminded me of this, is that photographers will probably not be impressed with your collection of sweet retro lenses. In fact, I think I'm sort of met with pity when they see my awesome Russian lenses in there. If they only knew :). It doesn't bug me but it's sort of funny how videographers might have a more rounded knowledge of the world of lenses than photographers especially when it comes to vintage glass. Seems like to most of them, it's Canon L or nothing.
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A photographer who understands that different jobs require different tools would have no objection with vintage lenses. I happen to love the Jupiter 9 (even wide open) for portraits. Would I prefer it over the Canon 85mm f/1.8 to shoot a basketball game? Of course not. I said this elsewhere, but it's worth repeating, these M42 mount lenses are to an L-coholic as methadone is to a junkie.

That doesn't mean I don't still want to buy the 300mm f/4 IS, the 24-105mm f/4 IS, and the 135mm f/2; however, this Jupiter 9 and the Jupiter 37a and Helios 44-2 on order will keep me quite busy for some time. BTW, what is up with these names and numbers?
 
Jordan_S said:
A photographer who understands that different jobs require different tools would have no objection with vintage lenses. I happen to love the Jupiter 9 (even wide open) for portraits. Would I prefer it over the Canon 85mm f/1.8 to shoot a basketball game? Of course not. I said this elsewhere, but it's worth repeating, these M42 mount lenses are to an L-coholic as methadone is to a junkie.

That doesn't mean I don't still want to buy the 300mm f/4 IS, the 24-105mm f/4 IS, and the 135mm f/2; however, this Jupiter 9 and the Jupiter 37a and Helios 44-2 on order will keep me quite busy for some time. BTW, what is up with these names and numbers?
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The Russians have style I guess? I kinda like it when I can ask my wife for the Mir 24 or Volna-3. It's cooler than asking for the 14mm or something. Anyway, I agree that there's no reason to be in one camp or the other when it comes to modern AF lenses and older MF lenses. For instance, I'd love to get my hands on a few modern lenses like the Tokina 11-16 and maybe a Tamron 70-200 2.8 later on down the line. So I'm assuming your Jupiter-9 does that glow effect wide open?

Edit: You're going to love the Helios. It's one of the best 50mm lenses out there. Curious to hear your thoughts on the Jupiter 37A.
 
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