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Follow up on fed/zorki purchase


leicaluke

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cameras came today after about 3 weeks... these things are built like tanks, solid metal through and through, shutter on the zorki 2 is softer and less pronounced than the fed but both are quite quiet. The lenses made me smile, aperature ring doesnt click, rather just slides along like the focus ring. I did hold the lenses up to my nikon dslr and did some macro shots to test sharpness and they are tack sharp, sharper than my nikon 50mm f1.4G when both shot at f2.8. Very fun cameras so far and they seam to be very under rated ;)

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cameras came today after about 3 weeks... these things are built like tanks, solid metal through and through, shutter on the zorki 2 is softer and less pronounced than the fed but both are quite quiet. The lenses made me smile, aperature ring doesnt click, rather just slides along like the focus ring. I did hold the lenses up to my nikon dslr and did some macro shots to test sharpness and they are tack sharp, sharper than my nikon 50mm f1.4G when both shot at f2.8. Very fun cameras so far and they seam to be very under rated ;)

 

I think the main problem with these things is manufacturing consistency - same goes for Jupiter lenses. I had a Zorki 4 and Jupiter 50 once, and they too gave very good results indeed. But I've also heard many reliable reports of real "dogs".

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I had an 85mm Jupiter. In the end I threw it away. Couldn't get the thing to focus. As John says the main issue is a lack of consistency. I'm sure there are wonderful examples of the lens out there, but having to potentially buy several to get one good one isn't something I was prepared to do.

 

As for Russian MF kit, my experiences were worse.

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train ride through Bermondsey, SE London, circa 2004 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

 

This was taken with a Zorki and Jupiter

 

The lenses can be fabulous, but the cameras temperamental and easily jammed if you do stuff fin the wrong order...they got me into Rangefinders before I could afford Leica. Many happy memories....hold Zorkis in affection.

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here is a close up with the industar 5cm f3.5.. original and 100% crop

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stunsworth: "I had an 85mm Jupiter. In the end I threw it away. Couldn't get the thing to focus."

 

The Jupiters are copies of Zeiss designs and are made to the Zeiss standard, which differs slightly from the Leitz standard. I've had the J-8 (50/2), J-3 (50/1.5), J-9 (85/2) and J-12 (35/2.8). None focussed correctly on a Leica in the near range, though the depth of field of the 35mm one covered up for this. Once the J-3 was adjusted (by an Englishman named Kim Coxon), its performance was impressive. He also did my J-9, but I decided to sell it as I had by then acquired another 85/2. I did well enough with the J-9 on a FED-2 body whose R/F I had deliberately mis-adjusted.

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