Soviet Jupiter Lens on XT-2

[Javo351]

I'm looking to get into some manual focus lens and have always been interested in the Jupiter's. I'd like to buy a Jupiter 11 135mm f/4 lens but was hoping to get some insight on how to mount it and still be able to focus correctly? The lens is listed as having an M39 mount. What adapters/modifications would need to be made to allow this to work correctly? 

 

Thanks in advance for any advice!

[Arthur]

Anything made in Russia is second-rate. It's a technologically challenged land. Just wondering, why would you want to buy their product?

[jimlong]

I have that lens.  Bought it when I was playing around with film.  I have mounted it to my XT-2 with an adaptor I bought on ebay.  Have no idea who I bought it from it was several years ago but the adaptors are very simple devices - no magic to them. The only marking on mine says L39-FX.  It works fine on the XT-2; if you set manual mode, you have the focus assist features available.  Compared to the 55-200 at 135, the Jupiter lens is pretty soft.  It is pretty small and light-weight, so it does have that going for it.

[Arthur]

Yeap. Soft. Mushy. Not worth even a buck.

[oreos]

I agree with Arthur. The Russian lenses are soft and lens copies have wide variance in quality, chromatic aberration, ghosting, distortion and sharpness. Most of these lenses are sold from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.Two popular Russian lenses are the Helios 44M 58mm f2 (swirly bokeh), and the MIR-1B 35mm. The Jupiter 9 is 85mm and has 15 aperture blades but lens copies have a lot of variance.

 

If you want to experiment with some vintage lenses you could probably get some sweet deals on Takumar M42.  

 

The Auto Chinon 55mm f2, Rikenon 58 f2 and Nikkor non-AI 58mm 1.2   produce nice soap bubble bokeh.

 

As for mounting, you could always get and M39-FX adapter from Rainbow Imaging for less than $15.00

 

If you want to see the characteristics of different lens, just go on Flickr, search the lens you are interested in and view some of the pictures.

 

Hope this helped.