Jupiter 11A f/4 135mm M42

[iangreenhalgh1]

Hi folks

Picked this up on ebay for about 15 quid (I forget exactly) and it;s well used but optically good, came in the bakelite keeper. The aperture moves freely, focus was a wee bit stiif but after being used a bit it fred up, if it gets stiffer I'll have to do a relube.

Seems pretty sharp and I like the colours, all these shots are wide open.

The bokeh is not bad but nothing special, I quite like this lens, it's a little awkward to handle and is a bit dim to look through with my EOS 5D viewfinder but I like the pics it takes.





100% crop, this is why I think it's quite sharp, see that spiral of fibre on the left of the branch?

[Laurentiu Cristofor]

If the aperture moves freely, it's because you have f/22 selected. Move the ring to stop down the lens fully, then pull it towards the mount, turn it, and release it in front of a stop mark - this way you can limit the movement of the ring so you can flick quickly between wide open and the f-stop you selected with this method.

The shots you posted are mostly misfocused, so it's hard to appreciate how good your copy is, but this is supposed to be a very nice lens. Here are a couple of shots from my copy:





My lens has suffered some bad shock during shipping and got the hood stuck on it. I had to bang it on cement floow to get the hood off, to be able to use it at all. The hood screw ring has remained stuck on the filter ring:



It's amazing how solid this lens is. After banging it a couple dozen times, to get the hood off, it still worked as shown earlier. This is what military grade build is about.

[danikatia]

I agree .... the bokeh is not the best but the sharpness is very good ... (and the price is even better)

2 samples

[iangreenhalgh1]

Very nice sampels guys.

I definitely need to improve my focusiing skills before I start to see the true IQ of this lens.

You're dead right about the build quality, funny you should mention it as I currently sport a broken tow on my right foot from dropping my Jupiter 11 on it this afternoon, I guess they carved these things out of old T-34 tanks!

I only dropped it because I was trying to screw on the lens hood and the thread is mangled, it slipped out of my hand and landed on the middle toes of my foot and I was only wearing socks. Despite the fact I was sat down so it didn't fall far it hurt like hell and one toe is huge and purple and the pain is throbbing.

[Laurentiu Cristofor]

[Bogie]

The Jupiter 11A is indeed a very sharp lens. Personally I have all the different 135mm m42-versions of Jupiter (11, 11A and 37A) and all are tack-sharp wide-open. Here are two examples taken with the 11A at f4 (the second one is a 50% crop):

[martyn_bannister]

Cracking shot of the BIF! Well done and thx for sharing.

[iangreenhalgh1]

Wow, tack sharp is right.

I need to get out and about with my J-11A again, hoping the weather is sunnier today. Won't be going far on my sore toe but luckily I live in a place where there is lots of pretty things to point a lens at. I obviously need to nail the focus before we can judge whether I have a good copy or not.

On the overall construction quality of this lens, it is a big step up in solidity from the Helios 44s I'm used to and those are pretty tough. The feel of the J-11A does say 'military' and it feels more like a hand grenade with it's size and weight than a modern plastic lens.

Good to hear other Jupiters are similarly tank-like. I'm aiming to build a collection of Russian glass because I consider it a good investment as it is built to last and I can probably still be using it in another 30 years with an adapter to fit whatever sort of digicams we have then! They will only increase in value too.

Shame the J-11A won't focus close enough otherwise I'd use it to take a pic of the damage it did to my toesie-woesies! lol

Is there much difference between the various Russian 135s?

[Bogie]

[iangreenhalgh1]

Thankyou for that info, sounds to me like I only need the 11A out of the three Jupiters.

That Tair looks lovely, how many blades is that? looks like more than the J-11A, I take it this gives it good bokeh?

Have you ever used the Pentacon 135 they call the bokeh monster?

How would you say the Tair compares to that lens because I see a lot of Pentacon and Carl Zeiss 135s going for less than a Tair would cost me unless I spotted a cheap one like I did with the J-11A.

[Bogie]

[iangreenhalgh1]

Hmm, sounds to me like I would be fine with the Jupiter-11A, a Pentacon or Meyer 135 and maybe a fast Japanese 2.8 135 and that would have the bases covered for 135s for a while until my LBA kicks in again.

I see a lot of the Pentacon and late model Zeiss 135s going for around 20ukp inc shipping on ebay, Meyer 135s tend to go for a bit more, I never understood why the meyer seemd to be worth more than the later Pentacon version as I doubt there is much difference in performance. The older Meyer has that nice zebra look of course but to me the Pentacons are nice enough and I prefer the way they feel as the rubber grips are pretty rugged, both of my Pentacons feel really nice to handle despite being pretty old now.

[Bogie]

By the way: both the Jupiter-11 and the Tair are also nice lenses to use for macrowork. Here are two examples while using extensiontubes (photo 1 with the Jupiter-11 and photo 2 with the Tair 11-2).

1.


2.

[iangreenhalgh1]

Those are both beautiful shots. I think it will take me a while to improve my focussing skills to that level. Nice work.

[woodrim]

I became interested in comparing some 135mm lenses to the Jupiter 11 I have after seeing the resolution data. I have taken some pictures to compare the Jupiter with two others of my favorites. Should I post them here, on their own post, or not at all?

[martyn_bannister]

[nixland]

What a great lens ...

[adityap]

Very much interested in the results of that comparision!

[iangreenhalgh1]

I'm having real difficulty focussing this J11A, the viewfinder on my cam is of no use at all for focusing, only for framing, what you see in the viewfinder bears no relation to image focus it would seem. The distances marked on the barre are off to so I reckon this lens isn't sitting the right distance from the sensor, probably due to the adapter.

Took a ton of macro shots yesterday with a 3cm extension tube on the J11A, these are the only ones that were close to being in focus.

The bokeh on the rose shots is a bit strange. It seems sharp judging by the wine bottle where it had resolved the specks of dust on top of the bottle. The clothes peg pic was shot into the sunlight at f8, one of those looks pretty sharp too.

So I think this is a good lens but it's a right bastard to try to get to focus on my EOS, not at all suited to the task, maybe on a different camera it would be much easier to use?

[Cistron]

I have one sitting on the shelf as well. Just waiting for my damn adapters *grrr*

Btw, iangreenhalgh1, your sensor needs a clean very badly.

[woodrim]

Ian: I suspect you are using auto exposure instead of manual mode. Try underexposing by one stop, won't improve your focusing, but the pictures will look better. Manual lenses stopped down often cause auto exposure difficulty.

[iangreenhalgh1]

I noticed the dust too, discovered it was on the back element of the J11A, not the sensor, I've blown it clean now.

Yes, I'm using AE mode, I have been having a lot of exposure problems and as you say, stopped down they tend to overespose, I wondered why, these shots are all wide open because the others stopepd down were all too overexposed.

I'll go shoot some shots in manual and try to underexpose a bit.

I do realise my lens tests would be better if my photography skills were to improve. Bear with me, I'm trying my best!

[woodrim]

Ian: When you use manual exposure, you'll find it more accurate, but still, I underexpose by up to a stop unless I'm using an aperture smaller than f/8 (11,16,22), then it might underexpose, so I'll set the exposure as the needle prescribes. You'll have to play some to get to know your own equipment. And by the way, not all lenses behave the same with exposure. If you're using an auto-confirm for focus, it should be reasonably accurate (in a spot mode), but again, I have found more success just going by my eye after much practice.

[iangreenhalgh1]

That's good advice woodrim. It;s a bright, sunny afternoon here so I went for a walk with the J11A and this time set the camera in manual mode.

Immediately I found it 10x easier to work with and my shots are a hell of a lot better in IQ imho. I'm quickly getting the hang of focusing with the J11A now that I have figured out that it focuses past infinity.

Using manual I can stop down as far as I want to control the exposure or depth of field.

I left the shutter speed on 1/100 sec and used the aperture to control exposure. Most of these were pretty spot on exposure wise, some were a little underexposed so needed a tad of PP but apart from that these are as they came out of the camera apart from a little cropping on some.

I think the IQ has drastically improved since my first set of test shots and I'm seeing how sharp this lens is when focused right. The shot of the car I took at f22 just to see how the lens handled reflections and glare and it seems to do so rather well as the shot is contrasty. The shot down the street impressed me with how much detail is captured.

I really like this lens for just walking about, it's small and unimpressive looking so people don't notice it and don't realise how long it is so perfect for taking casual snaps of people without them realising. It's long enough to pick out details and handles nicely so I really like it.

The shot of the tree branch with the buds forming shows this lens has nice bokeh, I can't remember if that shot was at f/5.6 or f/8 but I was really pleased with it and got lucky with the focus., Took 8 shots of that branch and that was the best by far and was the first.

I'm very glad I bought this lens now, it's sharp and contrasty and the bokeh can be very pretty so I'm happy with the IQ. Even better, it feels more like a hand grenade than a lens so should last many years today, it was made the year I was born and will probably outlast me!