Special lenses (1)

Statistics claim, that in 2014 every day 1.8 Billion pictures have been uploaded to social media platforms as Facebook and Instagram. Among all these photos we will find many good compositions with vivid colours, beautiful portrait shots in black & white, stunning action shots and many other shots taken with the right camera at the right time with a tasteful post processing.
One quality that might help to make a picture stand out nowadays ironically is imperfection. Using old lenses on modern digital cameras may give your photos the desired character. But besides of this, using lenses that have been build long before I was born, on my digital camera, is just fun for me!

Jupiter 8

The Jupiter 8 is my oldest lens. Doing some research on the internet I could narrow down its production year to 1958!
I’ve bought it on Ebay from a very friendly seller in Ukraine who sent it to me with original filters caps and a handwritten letter.
It is a beautiful piece of glass!  It is made of aluminium alloy and at the same time quite small, and therefore a very light lens. My lens is for L39 (Leica) screw mount and the adapter needed for my Sony A7 is not adding much to the lens dimensions.

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You can get pictures with a very nice 3d-effect (f/2.8)

but it can even get quite sharp (f/8)

The lens does suffer from flare if you shoot right into the sun

..and it does not make the best sunstars…

..but for my taste, it has an interesting bokeh.

 

This little gem, may be a  good, “always-on” lens, which I particularly like for portraits

This is Monsieur Wiener. He’s repairing cameras and lenses and I really like to come over and talk to him. He asked me about what lens I used for the portrait and I told him about the Jupiter 8, and told him, that it may be not as sharp as modern lenses and he replied immediately and a little seriously, that sharpness is not so important. He may have seen many pictures in his life and I gladly believe him.

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