Cheap but good M39 lenses?

[cooltouch]

I bought this Canon rangefinder a couple of days ago:

Click here to see on Ebay

I used to own one just like it, but sold it about 20 years ago. Sentimental reasons led me to buy another one.

It comes with what looks to be a 50 1.9 Serenar. I owned one of these with my old Canon RF, and it was okay.

So I don't have the money to spend on expensive collectible M39 lenses, but I would like to have at least a small variety. I'll want a 35mm and a 135mm, and maybe an 85mm or 90mm. So, I'm thinking there might be some good Russian or obscure Japanese optics that might be worth looking out for? Problem is, I don't have any idea which are good and which aren't.

Any perspective you're willing to provide will be welcome.

[luisalegria]

LSM lenses are not a cheap bunch no matter the maker.

The cheapest 135's I've found in Leica screw are sometimes Kyoei Acall and Steinheil Culminar. I have one Kyoei that I still have to clean, and I sold a Steinheil.

The Acalls in general seem to be uniformly excellent.

The Steinheil Culminar I still have in M42 is very nice in my opinion.

Other occasionally cheap makes to watch for are Tanaka Tanar, Telisar, Sun Sola, and I believe there may have been a Soligor in LSM.

And there are old Soviet lenses of course, the Jupiter 11 seems to go fairly cheap, under $50 sometimes, but then theres the shipping to deal with.

Anything identified as LSM is prone to go at an absurd price though. We have all missed the boat on the old Soviet stuff at least, prices for the old LSM stuff have at least doubled since last year.

As for 35mm wides, we are all SOL for the even for the third party Japanese ones, these are scare and very expensive under whatever make. Kyoei, Komura, Tanaka, Topcon all made them, but they are scarce. There is the Jupiter 12 of course, these seem to be running from $50-100 these days.

[cooltouch]

Hey Louis,

Funny you should mention the Kyoei. When I bought my first Canon rf, it had a Kyoei Super Acall 135/3.5 attached to it. A well-made, solid lens. Back then I didn't know anything about LSM, and the folks I asked about it were Leica purists, so of course they considered it to be garbage. But my impressions of it were that it was a good optic.

I appreciate the list of brand names. Something to look for. Even 20 years ago, decent wides were going for a a fair chunk of change, so that doesn't surprise me any.

Anybody else have any good recommendations, I'd appreciate the feedback.

[Helios]

The J-11 , J-12, J-9 are excellent . J-8 also (cheap) . Other lenses are not easy to find (Schacht, Steinheil ...etc ...) . The Industar-22 doesn't suffer anyway from the comparison with the original (Elmar) , and the j-11 is almost in the same league than Hektor 135mm .

[rawhead]

A friend recently got a J-8 to use on his Panasonic GF-1 and I'm really digging the images coming out of that (although the GF-1 being 2x crop might be a factor). Of course the J-3 is nice and cheap for a 50/1.5 Sonnar copy, so that'd be the one I'd probably get if I were to get an L mount camera.

[LucisPictor]

35mm: definitely the Jupiter-12 (if it fits!)

[cooltouch]

Thanks guys. I was looking at a few J-12s on eBay. Prices seem to be decent. I figured it was probably a good optic, but it's nice to know that you guys think so too. Looks as if I should keep my eyes open for Jupiter lenses in general.