EBC Fujinon 135/3.5 - a real treasure

[kissel]

I acquired this beautiful lens in December 2008 for mere 25$, and ever since then I practically fell in love with it.
First of all, it's very compact and light, when compared to other rivals, such as Jupiter-11 or Jupiter-37. It doesn't suffer from the flare as much as Russian Sonnars and even few Japanese lenses I've had in the past (Tamron Adaptamatic 135/2.8, Sears 135/2.8 ). The diaphragm is not as good as even that of Jupiter-11 - it features only 6 blades, and at f/8 setting you will have hexagonal bokeh I can't imagine though why one will have to stop down that much with the portrait lens
The lens is sharp wide open, but contrast is not as good as on f/5.6 setting. It's not a big deal with digital images though - you can adjust contrast easily, anyway.

The filter thread is 49mm. I use a hood from Jupiter-11 via step-down 52-49mm ring, and it works just fine.

Samples (click for the higher resolution images)
wide open










f/5.6

[Attila]

Wow! Many thanks for sharing!

[poilu]

look indeed a interesting lens, nice samples!

[symphonic]

thanks for sharing, it looks great

[Olivier]

Thanks Kissel !

Would you have a pic of the lens ?

[kissel]

[revers]

Nice images. I like the first one best - Elder flower head I think.

[torbod]

Indeed a great lens. Bokeh like the CZJ sonnar. Contrast and sharpness is very good from 5.6. My copy is a little bit duller than the CZJ 135 3.5 wide open, but after that quite equal.

The Fujinon has a very nice mechanics and the focus ring runs soooo smoothly, much better than the CZJ. The aperture is quite round even though it only has 6 blades. The close focusing distance is however a little bit long.

Happy shooting
/T

[Kram]

Wow, nice lens! Thanks for posting the samples.

Did you have to modify the lens (grind the nub) to fit M42? I just bought my first Fujinon (EBC 28/3.5) and awaiting it's arrival.

[torbod]

[martinsmith99]

The 2 pigeons is a great capture.

[Dr.AK]

Looks like a fun lens

[kissel]

As promised - the actual lens





I use it with the Jupiter-9 metal hood via 49-52 step-down ring, and it works perfectly.

[Excalibur]

[Arkku]

[Excalibur]

[Oldhand]

A slightly different version, but an excellent lens.






Did someone say SHARP!

[cyrano]

I acquired one of these in a job lot of Fujinons and an STX camera. They don't,for the most part get a great deal of interest but I am yet to try it out on a digital camera and the film I used it with was such high speed the results are too coarse to show anything special at all.

[Oldhand]

Mine were taken on the venerable Pentax K-10D.
Gotta love that camera
OH

[Oldhand]

I was late getting into the garden today and the sunlight is harsher than yesterday.
Nevertheless the ol' Fujinon still took it in stride.
OH

The lens:




The leaves:





crop of last:

[Lightshow]

Nice shots, I have for the most part ignored Fujinon glass, I'm going to change that.
I'm now hunting for the X-Fujinon EBC 28/1.9, 50/1.4, an 85 & 135(though I don't know what speeds are available).
I'd love to get some Fuji RF glass, but their prices are insane.

[izvar]

[Tedat]

the EBC 28/1.9 is one of my favorite 28mm lenses

[vic]

This fujinon ebc 135/3.5 was my first 135. Later I bought jupiter 37a, two of them really, a s-m-c takumar 135/3.5, and later on, a czjena 135/4 alu.
I have compared them on a few occasions, and these are my impressions

Jupiter 37 and czj sonnar 135/4 render exactly the same warm colours. s-m-c takumar also renders rather warm colours. Fujinon has colder colours, but more realistic or natural, to my eye, and and I like them more.

Wide open, both czj (f4) and jupiter 37 (3.5)are indistinguishable, very sharp. And the light difference from 3.5 to 4 is minimal. Tak and Fujinon fall slightly behind in terms of sharpness, at full aperture; my copy of the fujinon is very slightly dreamy, with subtle halos when pixel peeping, but nothing important, really.
Closed down one step, let's say at f5.6 ,and all the lenses are equally sharp from edge to edge, you'd be hard pressed to see any difference in real use.
I have not tried them bokehwise head to head, but I can say all the lenses seem to have nice defocused areas. I can't say about highlights, but I'm not good at judging bokeh anyway.
From 5.6 onwards, they don't seem to improve much. They are all very decent. It is true the circular shaped blades of the jupiter are very cool, I guess they will provide superior performance. But I cant see anything wrong with the oof areas in the others.
Mechanically, the tak is a piece of art in engineering, way better than the others. Second, I would place the fujinon, with its silky smooth focusing ring. Thirdly the jupiter, and the last one the cz jena. I had to grind the rear part of the fujinon to sit on the m42-eos adapter, but it was an easy job.
So, all in all, the lens I used the most is the jupiter, because it is great from wide open, and I like it aesthetically hehe. However, image wise I love the fujinon colours. Imho, all of them are really nice, and capable of fantastic images.
One thing I have noticed about the jupiter and that I dislike is that it produces strange output colour for purple or red subjects like poppies, in images with great contrast. They just dont come out real. I wonder why its that.

[Lloydy]

I have a lot of 135's, including two Takumar 135 3.5's - one is the early pre set lens - and both are wonderful, if pushed I would choose the pre set.
The Fujinon lenses intrigue me though, I have a cheap, plastic 55 / 2.2 Fujinon that was almost certainly the slow and cheap kit lens option for some camera or another. But it's actually a very nice lens, sharp centre and fashionable bubble bokeh. I shall be looking for an equally cheap 135.