Jupiter-21A, a nice gem

Time for some more vintage Russian lenses. The Jupiter-21A from KMZ, a quite rare 200/4 Sonnar design as opposed to the common Jupter 21M version.

Some time ago I acquired a very cheap Jupiter-21M with a tiny bubble in the massive front glass and broken A/M switch. Nothing that affected the IQ at all, but when a Jupiter 21A surfaced for peanuts, I grabbed it and sold the 21M. Why?
The 21M is a quite large and heavy lens. It is nevertheless very beautiful, with perfect proportions and lovely IQ, very sharp and silky smooth OOF rendering with almost gaussian bokeh highlights. The 21A came out in 1968 and the 21M in 1973, but they share the same optical design and the older one is fitted into a smaller and lighter body that also incorporates the preferred pre set aperture operation.

Here you have them side by side before I parted with one of them:

Jupiter-21A and Jupiter 21M

The 21M weighs in at 1 kg and the 21A at 750g. Both has built in retractable lens hoods and are most common with M42 mount. The common 21M version can easily be had in mint condition for less than 40 Euros on the bay and must be one of the absolutely best price/performance vintage bargains one can make. It is still in production and sells as new for 100 Euros or so. As earlier stated, the IQ is very good and it has very good control over CA or PF as compared to the competitors from the same era (Carl Zeiss Jena, Pentacon, Asahi Pentax, etc). The Jupiter is a good alternative to the legendary Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar 180/2.8 or 200/2.8 due to IQ, weight, MFD, cost and less mechanical iris breakdowns, it is of course slower at wide open though.

Warning: Although multi coated and equipped with a sun hood, the jupiter is not very good against the light in some angles. Especially not the 21M version. This is due to internal reflections inside the lens barrel.

Tweak: The 21M has a large flat piece of metal close to the mount that can reflect light straight onto the sensor, which washes out all contrast in the image. It can be painted matte black, or glue some black velour fabric onto it to improve the performance.

Now some images, as usual wide open or thereabout. First out is a portrait of a dog named Ketchup.

Jupiter-21A, Ketchup.

Then we take a look at the clock.

Jupiter-21A, what time is it?

Beautiful greens and bokeh.

This lens is quite handy for walk around photography when a little bit more reach is wanted.

Jupiter-21A, pavement

Now let's check out the distance capability.

Jupiter-21A with stacked TCs, critically sharp moon shot.

The lens is also critically sharp at infinity. Although used with stacked low budget TCs (tele converters) the dimples of the moon has very good definition, even viewed in original resolution. I have tried to do this again some times. I'm very thorough with using a stable tripod, mirror lock up and remote trigger, but is never seem to get this good again. Perhaps the atmospheric disturbances were very low that lucky night.

Spring flowers with Helios 44-3 MC

Last week there was spring in the air. The earliest flowers to pop up was the Scilla Forbesii. So I grabbed the chance and captured some blue color with the Helios 44-3 MC.

Some images of the lens itself.

Helios 44-3 MC front

Helios 44-3 MC 8-bladed iris

Helios 44-3 with pre set rings

Most of the Helios lenses were made by KMZ (Krasnogorsk Mechanical Factory) or JOV (Jupiter Optics Valdai) and had a slightly different naming syntax that can be confusing when shopping for them. The 44-3 from MMZ-BelOMO (Minsk Mechanical Factory-Belorussian Optical Mechanical Association) has a different look and more blades in the iris than the others from the same era. It also kept the pre set operation that is very neat with modern digital cameras.

Pre set lenses have two aperture control rings, one with click stops where you set the wanted aperture first, without stopping down the iris. Then you turn the other ring to smoothly close the iris down to the pre set value just before the exposure. It won't go past the pre set value and lets you keep concentration of the composition in stead of the camera. It also reduces camera shake and you are free to stop the closing down at a wider aperture than the stop value if that suits you better on the fly.

Just remember one thing if you start looking for the Helios 44-3 MC. There can be compatibility issues with your camera adapter. On some lenses, the bottom part of the focusing ring protrudes backwards further than the stop flange of the M42 mounting thread. So when it is screwed on to the M42 adapter, the focusing ring will be the first part to mate and thus be jammed tight. This is easily fixed if you have access to a lathe to machine away a millimeter of the ring. On the image above you can see one of the mounting screws for the focusing ring. Just unscrew these and take it away for modification, it is as simple as that. If you don't have these skills in the workshop, be sure to ask for images of the lens rear from the side to judge if the lens will work on you camera or not. Have a look at this forum thread regarding this issue for a nice illustration http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-slr-lens-discussion/77158-caution-helios-44-fans-potential-buyers.html.

Now some flowers. Scilla Forbesii, earlier categorized as a part of the Chiondoxa family.

Scilla Forbesii with Helios 44-3 MC. Swirly bokeh used wide open.

The swirly bokeh (swirly background blur that looks as if was watched through the bottom of a bottle) comes from the old lens design with low correction of spherical aberration. Some people love it and some are not that fond of it. Below is one more sample.

Scilla Forbesii with Helios 44-3 MC. Swirly bokeh used wide open.

Now, if you don't fancy the swirly bokeh, it is easy to get rid of with this lens, see below.

Scilla Forbesii with Helios 44-3 MC. Swirly bokeh gone by f/2.8.

As you can see, the swirliness is totally gone just by stopping down the aperture from f/2 to f/2.8.

Scilla Forbesii with Helios 44-3 MC.

The lens can render a nice amount of 3D-pop with high micro contrast and sharpness. So it is not only a bokeh marvel, rather a versatile walk around lens.

Now I tried some macro extension tubes to get the minimum focusing distance shorter and the result is really good. The pre set operation lets you select DOF and bokeh simply through the viewfinder. Just turn the smooth close down ring and see how the image transforms in front of your eyes. This is of course not possible with small apertures since the image will be very dark but it works great roughly  between f/2 and f/8.

Scilla Forbesii with Helios 44-3 MC on macro tubes.

With a few centimeters of extension tubes the lens has a life size macro capability i.e. 1:1 magnification ratio. 1:1 ratio is had when the image you are capturing is projected on the sensor at the same size as the object itself. So if the flower is 1 cm wide, it would occupy 1 cm of the sensor width. Think about this as the name macro often is misused by the lens manufacturers. A kit zoom or camera that has the name macro printed on it usually has a magnification ratio of only 1:5 to 1:3 somewhere. That is not macro, rather just close up capability. This cropped image is captured at roughly 1:2 magnification.

Vega-11U, enlargement lens for macro

If you want to do cheap macro or close up work you can always reverse mount any normal lens, like a kit zoom, or better a fix focus wide angle lens. But if you want that extra quality there is need for a special macro lens or a substitute with a flat field curvature. This can be had in an enlargement lens. These can be had for pennies since the 70-th boom of home made film development and copying is building a heap of unused stuff in the attics of every second home. Back in the 70-th, all saunas in Sweden suddenly became dark rooms in the evenings for the photo enthusiasts. Those were the days.

Since I like cheap manual lenses and especially the vintage Russian ones, I bought a used Vega-11U (Bera-11Y) enlargement lens the other day for a macro project. It costed me 20 Euros and it was in mint condition with all boxes and paperwork still there. They can surely be had for less, many are traded on the bay for 5 Euros plus P&P.

So, why did I select this lens?
-Very cheap as compared to a dedicated macro lens
-Sharp indeed, 5 elements in 4 groups design that competes with expansive stuff from EL-Nikkor and such.
-Quite fast and a good working distance for macro on a DSLR with its 50mm f/2.8.
-10 blades in the iris for nice and round OOF highlights
-Simple attachment to my DSLR. Using a step up ring from the 39mm to 42mm threads and a M42 lens adapter. I can also add macro tubes after need for higher magnification.

There is no focusing helicoid since the focus was set by the enlargers DON-103 (ДОН-103) and DON-110 (ДОН-110). Is this a problem? Well it depends. For normal photography yes, it is more or less unusable. For close ups and macro no, shooting at high magnification is best done by setting the magnification at the wanted ratio and then move the camera or subject in relation to each other until the correct focus is had. The only thing I can miss with a vintage lens for macro is the auto aperture stopping down of a modern AF lens.


Normally, a 50mm macro lens is giving a very short working distance on a DSLR, but those are normally shifting focal length while doing close focusing, the enlargement lens does not.

So this is what it looks like.

Vega-11U, tiny thing, roughly 45x45mm

The lens has no CA (Chromatic Aberration) or PF (purple fringing) whatsoever due to its classic anastigmatic design. Look at this CA torture test shot I made before buying the lens. This is a very important quality in macro shooting, especially to reproduce shiny metallic objects.

Vega-11U CA torture test shot

And there you see the native magnification ratio without tubes on my M42 adapter. Approximately 10 cm across gives a ratio of roughly 1:3. I think the creamy OOF areas are looking very promising.

Now some real shots in natural light.

Vega-11U f/2.8 close up crop

This is a central crop of the fire fighter without macro tubes, 1:3 magnification ratio. Notice the sharpness straight from full aperture, no CA and lovely transition from focus to OOF.

Some macro tubes were added to eventually reach 1:1 magnification ratio.

Vega-11U f/4 1:2 macro

This is the whole frame with 2 cm macro tubes, giving a 1:2 magnification ratio. I tested stopping down somewhat for increased contrast and sharpness. I noticed that if I stopped down past f/5.6 a bright light circle developed in the centre, perhaps a back reflection from the sensor. This was no problem without macro tubes.

By the way, I'm thinking of printing this very big as a wall poster for the kids. Wouldn't it be nice?

Vega-11U f/2.8 1:1 macro

Now I have added 4 cm of macro tubing to reach roughly 1:1 magnification ratio. The working distance was still very good, perhaps 10 cm which opens for some advanced lighting aid from a flash. I will perhaps return to that later on. Then I will show you how to get professional results of your close up and macro shots, using the pop up flash on your camera. This even hand held after one hour of DIY work and 10 minutes of practice. It will cost you perhaps two Euros of material, and you can eat up most of it while working!!!  Did I say that I like cheap stuff with high performance :)