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Communist 135mm Sonnars comparison
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 29, 2010 7:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Wondering about infinity focus. I have found that I need to test each lens individually when used with an adapter. I find that almost all of my M42 are long on infinity when used with my adapters. Is probably adapter fault, but the results do differ. If you haven't tested the infinity, it could be a little off with some or all lenses.


PostPosted: Fri Oct 29, 2010 8:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
estudleon wrote:
No MC that I had along the time opened the aperture when I closed focus.

Look at the aperture ring, the not MC have a little space behind the 3,5 mark, the MC doesn't have it !!

Can you see it in your not MC lens?

If you have the not MC lens at F/3,5 and focus to close distance, the aperture is opened to mantein the 3,5 aperture, the more close, the more opened aperture. And it ocurrs at all apertures. Not the MC version.

See your copy, it seems to be a not MC. Wink

The 4/135 sonnar had it too.

Rino


Huh? The old Jena lenses close their apertures (if wide open) down a bit when you move to minimum focus distance (by about one stop). MC does not do this, but keeps remains at f/3.5.


PostPosted: Fri Oct 29, 2010 8:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
BRunner wrote:
IAZA wrote:
Have you test CA?. Based on my experience. I have both Sonnar MC and Zebra one. Zebra has less CA than MC. It's a like new MC. While zebra is just good rate. I made a silloute with zebra, it has no CA.
Contrast, sharpness etc. looks same to me.

The CA looks very similarly for all lenses. My experience is, that on lenses with better coating, the CAs are more pronounced. The other cause can be, that the CZJ Sonnar is designed for single coating and was not recomputed for thicker MCs.


Coating thickness is rather irrelevant. Besides, I would not assume that multicoating is "thicker" than single coating. Increased contrast might make at least laCA more visible though.


PostPosted: Fri Oct 29, 2010 8:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Orio wrote:
... and so is the fact that factories tools and materials from Jena were brought to the soviet factories of Krasnogorsk and Kiev and were used in th production of USSR lenses. The economical structure of the countries was the same. So to me it makes a lot of sense to indentify this type of bond between those lenses.


Well, not really. There were degrees of how "socialized" the economy was; East Germany was among the least affected countries. Zeiss Jena and Russian factories were collaborating on some larger projects (e.g. a huge single lens for a new telescope), but they never shared production or cooperated in any way in making consumer goods. One must realize that consumer cameras and lenses were mostly side-products or high-grade military stuff made in USSR.

The Ukrainian Kiev factory (named Arsenal today) operated independently; it could use the lens designs of course, but they made their own barrels, calculated their own lens diagrams, and even used different lens mounts from what other factories did. Some unique lenses they built were Volna-3, Kaleinar-5, and Nikon versions of Russian wide-angles. Their quality control was, and still is, considered wastly sub-par compared to the highly militarized (at the time) Krasnogorsk factory.


PostPosted: Fri Oct 29, 2010 8:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
BRunner wrote:
Anu wrote:
If I can get the raws from BRunner, I'll enjoy doing some analysis of my own - after all, this is how scientific method works (ok, I need the lenses too - just mail them to me, will you BRunner? Wink ).

No problem, with raw Anu, after I finish upload I'll PM you the links. If anyone other is interested send me a PM. But beware, it's huge amount of data, around 600MB.

Much appreciated! 600MB is no problem for me - I have an ok net connection Smile I'm looking forward for the gift Smile

Quote:

I tried to do close focus tests, but it's very difficult to keep focusing consistency between lenses. The focusing errors cover most of the differences between them. When I tried to shoot the resolution charts, I discovered, that is almost impossible to set the sensor plane perfectly parallel to the chart. And this causes unwanted tilt effect which ruins corner performance at wider apertures.
Please, suggest test methodology where I can keep more consistent results.


No need for MFD shots, but something of a more modest distance, maybe something like 3 meters or so - considering the aperture and focal length, focusing should not be an issue. The center is most important, and I don't really care how the corners look like at that distance as it is hard for me to even imagine a picture where they would be of any importance, so maybe just one center subject, and maybe some shiny objects (with bright light lit them as well) nearby just behind the target at several distances (for bokeh, axial-CA and purple fringing testing purpouses). Setting up a solid test shoot is hard work - always good to have someone else to do it for you Wink

Thank you a million for your effort!


PostPosted: Fri Oct 29, 2010 10:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Anu wrote:
estudleon wrote:
No MC that I had along the time opened the aperture when I closed focus.

Look at the aperture ring, the not MC have a little space behind the 3,5 mark, the MC doesn't have it !!

Can you see it in your not MC lens?

If you have the not MC lens at F/3,5 and focus to close distance, the aperture is opened to mantein the 3,5 aperture, the more close, the more opened aperture. And it ocurrs at all apertures. Not the MC version.

See your copy, it seems to be a not MC. Wink

The 4/135 sonnar had it too.

Rino


Huh? The old Jena lenses close their apertures (if wide open) down a bit when you move to minimum focus distance (by about one stop). MC does not do this, but keeps remains at f/3.5.


No. Not close the aperture, open it. So when you close focus open the aperture and compensate in this way the close focus done, so be real F/3,5 (or the other apertures chosed) in all the focus range.

Oh I forget that you have not the no MC sonnar. Well take one OK in your hands and see. As you don't have the lens, sure you don't know veruy much about it. :wink

The MC, cheapier and so-so building, lost this adventage (and others too).

Rino. :


PostPosted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 3:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
My zebra 3.5/135 indicates just under F/5.6 when full open at MFD. I note that the physical aperture opening does not change. Set the lens to infinity, open up aperture to 3.5, on focusing towards MFD the aperture setting ring moves, but aperture opening stays the same. I assume this is purely to indicate the effective aperture change due to moving the lens groups away from the film/sensor plane, just like you would experience when using extension tubes.

The MC version does not do this, but I think at MFD the effective aperture is effected just the same but just not indicated.

Many macro and close focus lenses that focus via moving the lens group as a whole will effectively loose the amount of light transmitted the closer they focus, exactly the same effect as adding extension tubes. So be aware a F/2.8 lens focussed at 1:1 may only be giving you an effective aperture of ~F/5.6. An important effect to consider when doing macro.

estudleon wrote:
Anu wrote:
estudleon wrote:
No MC that I had along the time opened the aperture when I closed focus.

Look at the aperture ring, the not MC have a little space behind the 3,5 mark, the MC doesn't have it !!

Can you see it in your not MC lens?

If you have the not MC lens at F/3,5 and focus to close distance, the aperture is opened to mantein the 3,5 aperture, the more close, the more opened aperture. And it ocurrs at all apertures. Not the MC version.

See your copy, it seems to be a not MC. Wink

The 4/135 sonnar had it too.

Rino


Huh? The old Jena lenses close their apertures (if wide open) down a bit when you move to minimum focus distance (by about one stop). MC does not do this, but keeps remains at f/3.5.


No. Not close the aperture, open it. So when you close focus open the aperture and compensate in this way the close focus done, so be real F/3,5 (or the other apertures chosed) in all the focus range.

Oh I forget that you have not the no MC sonnar. Well take one OK in your hands and see. As you don't have the lens, sure you don't know veruy much about it. :wink

The MC, cheapier and so-so building, lost this adventage (and others too).

Rino. :


PostPosted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 9:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
BRunner wrote:
But the most important difference for me is in the contrast. Just look at the owl images. The pictures made with Russian lenses looks much "flatter".

Yes I noticed that. The contrast of your J37A is much poorer than I would have expected and it seems to deteriorate as the aperture is closed down. The infinity shots are better but that was pointing away from the light. I had a J21M like that, it was unusable except at 90° to the sun. I suspect it was due to internal reflections.


PostPosted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 10:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
It's caused by reflections from the inner parts of the lens body - I hope this simple picture explains it better:



I had this problem with Jupiter-9, which had removed the inner blackening... it caused the same effect:



I covered the reflective parts by self-adhesive black velvet and problem was solved:



Jupiter-37 and Jupiter-21M have similar problems. The inner black lacquere is too glossy and reflects too much light. Jupiter-21M has a special plate (near the rear optical element) which is part of A/M switch mechanism. This plate reflects light, too. Here is an example made by a guy from local forum (Jupiter-21M "as is" / Jupiter-21M with plate covered by black velvet):

krteczech wrote:
;


With Jupiter-37 the problem can be a bit more complicated - if you focus to 1.2m, the silver focusing helicoid will become exposed in the rear part. I still didn't tested, if it reflect light too, but if it really does, it could be problematic to solve this issue.

Anyway, my opinion is, that the contrast issues of Jupiter lenses aren't related to coating. All Jupiters have only 4 inner air/glass surfaces, so even with the poorest single-coating contrast should be good. Even old helios-44-2 with 6 inner air/glass surfaces and older coating is contrastier, so the problem are more likely the reflections caused by glossy inner surfaces.


PostPosted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 11:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
fergus wrote:
My zebra 3.5/135 indicates just under F/5.6 when full open at MFD. I note that the physical aperture opening does not change. Set the lens to infinity, open up aperture to 3.5, on focusing towards MFD the aperture setting ring moves, but aperture opening stays the same. I assume this is purely to indicate the effective aperture change due to moving the lens groups away from the film/sensor plane, just like you would experience when using extension tubes.

The MC version does not do this, but I think at MFD the effective aperture is effected just the same but just not indicated.

Many macro and close focus lenses that focus via moving the lens group as a whole will effectively loose the amount of light transmitted the closer they focus, exactly the same effect as adding extension tubes. So be aware a F/2.8 lens focussed at 1:1 may only be giving you an effective aperture of ~F/5.6. An important effect to consider when doing macro.

estudleon wrote:
Anu wrote:
estudleon wrote:
No MC that I had along the time opened the aperture when I closed focus.

Look at the aperture ring, the not MC have a little space behind the 3,5 mark, the MC doesn't have it !!

Can you see it in your not MC lens?

If you have the not MC lens at F/3,5 and focus to close distance, the aperture is opened to mantein the 3,5 aperture, the more close, the more opened aperture. And it ocurrs at all apertures. Not the MC version.

See your copy, it seems to be a not MC. Wink

The 4/135 sonnar had it too.

Rino


Huh? The old Jena lenses close their apertures (if wide open) down a bit when you move to minimum focus distance (by about one stop). MC does not do this, but keeps remains at f/3.5.


No. Not close the aperture, open it. So when you close focus open the aperture and compensate in this way the close focus done, so be real F/3,5 (or the other apertures chosed) in all the focus range.

Oh I forget that you have not the no MC sonnar. Well take one OK in your hands and see. As you don't have the lens, sure you don't know veruy much about it. :wink

The MC, cheapier and so-so building, lost this adventage (and others too).

Rino. :


It reassures me, because when I had mine, I believed in a defect of frabrication

Is this peculiarity also the same on the sonnar 180/2.8 ?


PostPosted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 12:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Yes, at least the zebra model of 180/2.8 has this feature. When you focus closer, the aperture opens to compensate the loss of light.


PostPosted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 1:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Very good info no-X. Maybe I'll try to paint with optical black or cover the plate with black matte tape in my 21m, since I have had this effect on some shots Smile


PostPosted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 2:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
fergus wrote:
My zebra 3.5/135 indicates just under F/5.6 when full open at MFD. I note that the physical aperture opening does not change. Set the lens to infinity, open up aperture to 3.5, on focusing towards MFD the aperture setting ring moves, but aperture opening stays the same.


Surelly a bad repair, or so. The apertures may opening, like the ring does. I'm sorry, it seems to me that your lens aperture blades system is not good in that question.
I saw the blades mechanism moving as I close focus several, several times.

In your lens the focus system, when you close focus, moves the apertures ring but, inside the lens, the ring not moves the blades. There something goes wrong.

Rino.


PostPosted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 3:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
no-X wrote:
Did you shoot the owl before Jupiter's modding or after it?

These pictures are before modding. But the differences in pictures between modded and original was so small that they are even not worth of posting. Maybe I wasn't enough precise to mount the baffle. But the owl is about 2.5m away from camera, so the shiny parts are hidden. Maybe the space between second and last optical element can cause this?


PostPosted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 3:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
estudleon wrote:


No. Not close the aperture, open it. So when you close focus open the aperture and compensate in this way the close focus done, so be real F/3,5 (or the other apertures chosed) in all the focus range.



When the focus is moved to MFD, at least my CZJ 180/2.8 aperture indicator moves to about f3.2 or somethign like that. In some net sources (http://www.praktica-users.com/lens/mlenses/czjson4_135.html for example) smilari behavior is mentioned for other lenses.

Quote:

Oh I forget that you have not the no MC sonnar. Well take one OK in your hands and see. As you don't have the lens, sure you don't know veruy much about it. :wink

The MC, cheapier and so-so building, lost this adventage (and others too).

Rino. :


I disagree. Besides you are beginnig to sound, no offence meant, a bit fanboyish - since I don't have a moon rocket, I can't know much about them? Since you like your Sonnar, it is the best, and has all the advantages, like focusing down to 1m I guess, having single coating, which of course is the best, and so on. Sorry about the rant, but I am getting tired.

I may be wrong of course. When you look at the entrance pupil, is the size of it constant over the focusing range?


PostPosted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 3:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
no-X wrote:
Yes, at least the zebra model of 180/2.8 has this feature. When you focus closer, the aperture opens to compensate the loss of light.


Opens? Grr, I don't have the aperturte blades in the darn lens Smile

I do remember however the exact opposite happening, and also the aperture ring shows that it closes a bit. I wonder if this is a defect?

When at infinity, looking at the entrance pupil, the blades are basicly totally hidden, showing totally round shape (and nice bokeh too Wink ), when focusing closer the entrance pupil remains exactly the same. This with the "modern" CZJ lenses. What hhapens with your Zebra 180/2.8? (I'd try my own, but the aperture blades are in the closet Wink ).


PostPosted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 3:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
woodrim wrote:
Wondering about infinity focus. I have found that I need to test each lens individually when used with an adapter. I find that almost all of my M42 are long on infinity when used with my adapters. Is probably adapter fault, but the results do differ. If you haven't tested the infinity, it could be a little off with some or all lenses.

I focused with every lens, I don't trust the "infinity" settings. Only few of my lenses actually have correctly set this point. Even they are in mint condition and visibly, they wasn't opened.
The focus point is the tower of the church in middle of picture. It is 1km away from my position. I verified with my APO-Telyt 3.4/180 that everything is in focus at infinity mark (one of the perfectly set lens). Even wide open at f3.4.
On Pentax, there is no problem with adapter thickness. Entire adapter is inside bayonet mount and the lens sits directly on camera mount.


PostPosted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 3:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Anu: simply... Smile

180/2.8 Sonnar zebra

f/3.2, focused on infinity
- when I focus at 2 meters, the blades will open

it makes sense, because when you focus closer, the distance between optical block and film is larger and some light falls outside the film... this feature should compensate this light-loss

of course it does work only if the lens is stopped-down, because the native speed of the lens (f/2.Cool cannot be increased by any simple trick Smile

Last edited by no-X on Sat Oct 30, 2010 5:33 pm; edited 1 time in total


PostPosted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 4:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Anu wrote:
I disagree. Besides you are beginnig to sound, no offence meant, a bit fanboyish - since I don't have a moon rocket, I can't know much about them? Since you like your Sonnar, it is the best, and has all the advantages, like focusing down to 1m I guess, having single coating, which of course is the best, and so on.


I'm not fan boy of CZJ. Perhaps I WAS a Leica M fan in the past. Not now.

Anu, I never said that the SC is the best. Only that I like more the SC over the MC and explained why.

There are a lot of 135 lenses that I like more than the SC. And all that I said about the MC is true.

I'm not offended. I beleave in your good intentions and in this way I understand your words. It's only a conversation about lenses, no more.

Regards, Anu.

Rino.


PostPosted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 7:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
no-X wrote:
Anu: simply... Smile

180/2.8 Sonnar zebra

f/3.2, focused on infinity
- when I focus at 2 meters, the blades will open

it makes sense, because when you focus closer, the distance between optical block and film is larger and some light falls outside the film... this feature should compensate this light-loss

of course it does work only if the lens is stopped-down, because the native speed of the lens (f/2.Cool cannot be increased by any simple trick Smile


Ah, you mean that. Does it go the other way around as well? When at minimum focus distance, you set the aperture at, say f/2.8, and then focus to infinity - will the aperture still be f/2.8? If so, then the logic of this automtism falls. To me, if this is a feature, it sounds a bit like somethign I would rather not have in a lens, though one's kilometreage may vary.

Still, interesting.

Anyhow, if I recall right, in my zebra the maximum aperture at minimum focus was limited to about 3.2 of whatever (and the aperture ring rotates like that still even though I've got no blades). Maybe I'll open the lens up (and put the bkades back in too Wink ) and have a look someday.


PostPosted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 7:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
estudleon wrote:

Anu, I never said that the SC is the best. Only that I like more the SC over the MC and explained why.

There are a lot of 135 lenses that I like more than the SC. And all that I said about the MC is true.

I am not so sure about that. For example you said in an earlier post in this thread:
Quote:

No. Not close the aperture, open it. So when you close focus open the aperture and compensate in this way the close focus done, so be real F/3,5 (or the other apertures chosed) in all the focus range.

If I understood you correctly, you implied that MC Sonnar is somehow not "real" f/3.5 at close focus distance. It sure is. I even cchecked the entrance pupils size during the focus motion from one end to the other - it remains constant, thus it is a f/3.5 from MFD to infinity. I seriously doubt your lens goes beyond it's nominal aperture at close distances, as then it would artificially handicap it's aperture size at infinity focus.

Of course I may have misunderstood as I often do Wink


PostPosted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 8:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Anu wrote:
Ah, you mean that. Does it go the other way around as well? When at minimum focus distance, you set the aperture at, say f/2.8, and then focus to infinity - will the aperture still be f/2.8? If so, then the logic of this automtism falls.

No, the aperture will close to - maybe - f/3.2 (to keep the amount of light constant - again). I think it was very practical on film camera bodies.

But you are not force tu use this feature. You can focus and then to set the aperture...


PostPosted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 8:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Anu wrote:
estudleon wrote:

Anu, I never said that the SC is the best. Only that I like more the SC over the MC and explained why.

There are a lot of 135 lenses that I like more than the SC. And all that I said about the MC is true.

I am not so sure about that. For example you said in an earlier post in this thread:
Quote:

No. Not close the aperture, open it. So when you close focus open the aperture and compensate in this way the close focus done, so be real F/3,5 (or the other apertures chosed) in all the focus range.

If I understood you correctly, you implied that MC Sonnar is somehow not "real" f/3.5 at close focus distance. It sure is. I even cchecked the entrance pupils size during the focus motion from one end to the other - it remains constant, thus it is a f/3.5 from MFD to infinity. I seriously doubt your lens goes beyond it's nominal aperture at close distances, as then it would artificially handicap it's aperture size at infinity focus.

Of course I may have misunderstood as I often do Wink


All is like I said.

You can doubt all that you want to, but the things are like I said.

If the aperture is F/3,5 at infinity, when you close focus exists a lost of light, so the nominal aperture isn't the real one. I'm sorry. It's a bad idea of the physica. Shocked

But don't worry, there is a sonnar not MC. With it not problem. Wink

Well. Till here I can continue the posts. We will see to follow the lenses discusion in other threads. Cool

Rino.


PostPosted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 8:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
estudleon wrote:

All is like I said.

You can doubt all that you want to, but the things are like I said.

If the aperture is F/3,5 at infinity, when you close focus exists a lost of light, so the nominal aperture isn't the real one. I'm sorry. It's a bad idea of the physica. Shocked


Wrong. Please have a look at the definition of what aperture is, maybe wikipedia or something, you know focal lenght divided by the entrance pupil (the image of the aperture looked from front of the lens). It has nothing to do with the actual amount of light hitting the imaging device.

[/quote]


PostPosted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 9:12 pm    Post subject: Re: Communist 135mm Sonnars comparison Reply with quote
BRunner wrote:
The Contenders
silver CZJ Sonnar 4/135
zebra CZJ Sonnar 3.5/135
MC CZJ Sonnar 3.5/135
silver Jupiter-11 4/135
silver pre-set Jupiter-11 4/135
MC Jupiter-37A 3.5/135


Analysis


Many thank yous for the raw files, sir! It took me for a while to realize that you had tested two MC-versions, several Silvers and a couple of Zebras as well the Soviets. Some lenses were evidently tested earlier in the season as the leaves (or lack of them) indicate - this makes the colours of some of the images look different, and also it influences on pretty much everything in the image.

I converted the raws with Lightroom 3 as 24-bit TIFFs with daylight colour balance, all settings zeroed totally, and the pixel peeped the images at 200-400% magnification with the FastStone image viewer. On my 18.4" 1080p monitor 200% magnification equals to 2 meters (almost 7 ft) wide image looked at the distance I peeped - about 30-40cm - ie. a ridicilous magnification.

First - I'd have no problems using any of the lenses as my tool, at least as far as image quality at infinity wide open. LR demosaicing had problems and created some mazing - a sign of lens performing well enough Wink

There were some copy variations among the lenses and it would be interesting to see if the "weakest" lenses performed better if opened totally, cleaned all the threads etc, and reassembled. I used the quotes around the word weakest, as all the East German lenses (apart from some decentering etc.) performed wery well indeed compared to each other.

The Soviet versions were indeed slightly inderior to their East German counterparts. However, unless you really magnify your images a whole lot, I mean ridicilously lot, you won't see any meaninful difference.

The MC-version had a little bit more contrast than the others, the Silver ones just might have a little bit less purple fringing at f/4 than the other German ones at f/3.5, with Zebra maybe having a tiny bit more than the MC.

LaCA was very minimal. The Soviets surprised in a positive way, but I think it was just because of the different light. But I really had to compare at 400% magnification.

LoCA not possible to see from this kind of images.

Conclusion: my first pick for infinity shooting wide open would be the MC - simply due to contrast and looks of the lens itself - it's all black Wink . My second pick would be the Silver-version simply due to the looks of the lens itself Wink I don't really like the looks of the Zebra-version, but it still performs pretty much identically to the others.

Last: the differences found in this test were in general so limited that apart from the very slightly increased contrast of the MC one can not judge one be superior to the other (of the East Germans - they're all better than the Soviets) - the individul copies vary more than there is difference between the different models.

Please remember that I only inspected the wide open shots at infinity.

Again thank you, BRunner, for taking the effort of making these shots and providing the RAW-files. Excellent work!
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