>>3436261>I've been on the lookout for a Zeiss-style jupiter 8 (Direct clone from the german version rather than the barrel-body design)??
I don't get what you mean anon.
The original Sonnars and the Jupiter clones were in Contax bayonet mount (same as Kiev), and they were tiny cause they lacked the focusing helical, as this was built into the camera mount itself.
Zeiss produced very few copies in Leica screwmount, some custom built by technicians for a quick buck, as well as some official made ones for government use.
But the russians produced tons of screw mount versions. They essentially took the contax mount jupiters, slapped a set of barrels on them to give them back the focusing helicoid they lacked (and also translate the rf cam movement to the leica standard, since their true focal length was slightly different).
Anyway, the Jupiters in screw mount are fine. Optically they're as good as the Contax/Kiev Jupiters. But since much more of them were made (plus the introduction of barrels that need to be assembled in a specific way, and have no clear entry pointS), there are some butchered ones by people mis-assembling them when trying to repair them.
As long as you can find good working ones, the 50mm f/1.5 Jupiter-3 and the 85mm Jupiter-9 are great people lenses. Good bokeh (due to formula+many rounded aperture blades), small size, very sharp and contrasty when stopped down. The 50mm f/1.5 is like two lenses at once: low contrast but good resolution when wide open in the centre, with beautiful bokeh, and more sharpness in the centre that falls off towards the corner, nicely isolating the subject. A lot more contrast at f/2 and f/2.8, but same nice bokeh with perfect circular bokehballs, because of the 15 aperture blades.
Then at f/4 and below it becomes sharp and very contrasty everywhere except the corners, so can be used for general purpose.
For wideangles, you're much better with modern Voigtlander lenses. The vintage ones are just as expensive.
