Tag Archives: m42

Jupiter 9 Review – 85mm f2.0

I received my Jupiter-9 lens in the mail about 1.5 weeks ago, and I finally had a chance to use it yesterday. The Jupiter-9 is a lens made in Russia, available in various mounts (mine is M42, easy to use on most DSLRs), its 85mm focal length, and wide aperture of f2.0 make it a fine lens for portrait photography.

It seems to be selling for around $120USD or so (plus shipping) on Ebay these days. I paid about $140AU total for mine, as I wanted a good condition example, and this particular example included the plastic hard case, both caps, and a lens in reportedly excellent condition. I was not disappointed when it arrived, the condition was like new. For anyone interested the seller was petersburg_deals. Shipment was quite quick considering it was from Russia.

Down to the lens itself. I find it to be very sharp, but I have only tested at f2.8 and f4.0 so far. Most reviews say the lens is a little soft at f2.0, but the kind of softness that works great in portrait photography. I find the colours to be great, let me know what you think. Here are the first lot of test shots. You can check out all the other photos I’ve taken with this lens in my Jupiter-9 Flickr Set

Very first shot with the lens mounted on my K200D. A friends free promotional mug at work. This is at f2.0, but doesn’t give a good indication of sharpness.

This is an f2.8 test shot, unfortunately the light was very uneven, but you can see the lens is sharp.

This is a 100% crop from the previous image, showing how sharp the image is. No post processing sharpening has been applied (click the image to view at original size).

More Russians

Some more russian lenses I have thought of since my previous post on the subject which are quite well regarded. Also wanted to mention the fact that I have finally ordered a Jupiter-9 85mm f2.0 M42 mount lens. It may take a few weeks to arrive from Russia itself though. Anyway, back to the lenses. This list should get you started on a collection of great fun Russians

  • Zenitar 16mm f2.8 fisheye (still made new in all mounts)
  • Mir-20 20mm f3.5 (quite wide on a film or full frame SLR)
  • Mir-24 35mm f2.0
  • Mir-1 37mm f2.8 (but the later Mir 1-B is reported to be a bit soft)
  • Volna-9 50mm f2.8 Macro around 1:2
  • Industar 50-2 50mm f3.5 pancake (VERY small)
  • Industar 61 LZ 50mm f2.8 also Macro around 1:2
  • Helios 44 series 58mm f2.0 (some discussion about which is best HERE)
  • Jupiter-9 85mm f2.0
  • Helios 40 series 85mm f1.5
  • Tair-11a 135mm f2.8
  • Jupiter 37 135mm f3.5
  • Jupiter-21 200mm f4.0
  • Tair-3 300mm f4.5

A Backlit Brenizer Angel


A Backlit Brenizer Angel
Originally uploaded by jezza323

Another Brenizer Panorama from the Toowong Cemetary taken yesterday. This one is again with the Tair-11a on K200D. Its 58 images stitched with Autopano Giga 2 and edited (cropped, curves, colours, exposure brush) in Lightroom 2.5.

Processing :-

  • Shot in Manual Mode, ISO 200, f2.8, 1/320 sec shutter – Pentax RAW (PEF), custom white balance.
  • Imported into Lightroom 2.5
  • All shots in pano exported to subfolder “Pano-5″ as 16 bit TIFFs
  • Stitched using Autopano Giga 2
  • Saved-as 16 bit TIFF
  • Imported result back into Lightroom 2.5 library
  • Edited in Lightroom as show below (click pics for more detail). I did use a preset for most settings. Also cropped but not shown.
Exposure Brush to show more detail in the Angel
Develop settings

Tair-11A 135mm f2.8

As I mentioned in an earlier post. I bought a Tair-11A M42 mount lens on Ebay. I have seen great shots from this lens on flickr, and read plenty of great reports on it. This lens is 135mm prime, aperture is a preset adjustment and ranges from f2.8 to f22. It focuses from 1.2m to infinity and has a small built in hood.

It truely is an amazing lens. Incredibly sharp, very smooth bokeh (out of focus highlights) and is a joy to use with a lovely smooth focusing ring. Here are some shots I’ve taken with it since it arrived.

First a bokeh test
Then this little bird came along
And to prove how sharp this lens is – this is a 100% crop of the bird from another shot
And a technique tester shot. A panorama to get the narrow DOF effect. I’ll explain this technique in a later post

Russian lenses

I believe I may have a problem… I thought I had enough lenses for a while, until I saw a Helios 44-2 M42 lens (58mm f2.0) for a tiny $15, I did a quick search of Flickr and liked the look of the images from it. I bought it and its a great lens, not just great value for $15, but just a generally great lens! This lens led me into researching Russian lenses in general. I then was able to get a Mir-1 (37mm f2.8) M42 from the PentaxForums trading section from an Australian member, it included the lens, original hard plastic case and instruction in russian. I just recently replaced my Hanimar 135mm lens with a Russian Tair-11A 135mm f2.8 M42, and hope to add add the very popular Jupiter 9 (85mm f2.0) M42 lens to my collection. If you don’t know much about these well regarded (and quite cheap) Russian made lenses, I suggest you look into them.