This is one lens I have been eyeballing for years, but never was able to buy one. Now I finally have my hand one, which I borrowed for this review. This soviet lens also lately gotten more attention because it’s part of the Ironglass soviet set, that was used on Dune part 2.
This is everything you want to know about the Jupiter 9 85mm f2.
We have to go all the way back to 1916, where a young 16 year old Ludwig Bertele was working as an assistant at Rodenstock in Munich. 3 years later when he was 19 years old, the assistant was ready to become a lens designer and moved to Dresden to work at the Ernemann company.
The same year Ludwig began development of the Ernostar design, later he patented the Ernostar in 1922 which is one of the few earlier fast lens designs with a speed of f2, but also one of the earlier lenses that sandwiches elements together to fix error of astigmatism in lenses.
But in 1926 multiple companies including Ernemann were integrated with Carl Zeiss and Ludwig stayed working for Carl Ikon.
In 1929 the documents transitioned from Ernostar to Sonnar. The name “Sonnar” derives from the German word “Sonne” meaning sun. In 1933 the calculations for the first Sonnar 85mm f2 were completed. 6 years later in 1939 the 85mm f2 was redesigned, from 6 to 7 elements.
After World War II the Soviets obtained the Zeiss factory in Jena and relocated it to the Soviet Union. In 1948 the Soviets began the production, initially called ZK-85 or the Sonnar Krasnogorsk with first samples made using glasses they took from the Zeiss factory but are ultra rare to find.
By 1951 the name was changed to Jupiter-9. Is it named after the planet, the god or just a random name? Well given that Mir means world and Helios is the Sun, Jupiter is just the planet Jupiter.
In 1957 a company in Ukraine called Arsenal made a prototype called Rekord-9 which is ultra rare to find. But then started producing their version of the Jupiter 9 which had a total black front ring.
Several generations of Jupiter-9 later the newest version was produced by Lytkarino (LZOS) till 2008. So with more than half a century of production, you can find many versions of this lens on the used market with prices ranging from 150 to 200 bucks depending on the condition. But you have to look out if it’s not broken, full of fungus or any other oddities when you buy a vintage lens, also not to get scammed buying a dud while paying the maximum price.
The version I am testing is the newest version of the MC Jupiter 9 85mm f2 by LZOS. I borrowed this lens from a friend of mine, Wiktor Bukowski. Wiktor already had a kind of cine mod going on. The focus ring has a diameter of 65.8mm, if you need to know what size of gear you need to buy. The gear ring on this lens is from SimCine and there is a link to where you can buy this focus gear ring. The front filter thread is 49mm and he has gotten a nice 80mm O.D. ring for it. The lens has a M42 mount and Wiktor adapts the lens straight to Sony E-mount as he uses a Sony FX6.
Wiktor has actually collected the whole Soviet lens set. But does the Jupiter 9 actually fit in well with the soviet sets, even though it is also a Zeiss Soviet copy like the Helios 44-2 and Mir-1b, but does it swirl and match their looks? This is what I am going to find out in this video.
Because Soviet lenses are often budget lenses, you have to gamble if you are getting something that is actually well made. Some of the Jupiter 9 aren’t very sharp wide open, but there does exist a fix for this and you have to play around with the rear lens group, to do that first unscrew the lens from the helicoid, it will take a lot of turns till you are able to remove the main lens groups, then the rear group can be unscrewed by hand, inside there is a spacer ring which either need to be remove or add additional spacers to improve the image. I already tried using tape to thicken the ring. However you would need to try and focus on something and move the rear lens group in or out to get a sharp result.
The lens being 85mm, it’s a bit of a tele lens, though depending where you film from you could still capture a landscape or cityscape shot with this lens, though the sides are a bit soft, I don’t think most people would notice it. Personally I like using 85mm to capture a full shot where you see the entire person as 85mm is ideal for it and you can still have a blurred background behind the person.
But as an 85mm it’s a portrait lens and your medium and close ups get a nice blurred out background. And with a minimum focus distance of 80cm, it’s not really a macro lens but still close enough for certain product shots or capturing some small details and flowers.
The Jupiter 9 uses a preset aperture ring where one ring you set the maximum aperture and the other ring you can clickless-ly dial in your aperture. The Jupiter 9 has 15 aperture blades which keeps the bokeh nice and round when you close the aperture.
However I have not seen the Jupiter 9 causing a swirl at all, I am getting more soap bubble bokeh in the image, then getting swirly oval bokeh. This is mainly due to the Sonnar lens design that counters Astigmatism, which is what causes the swirl effect in lenses.
At close focus the blurred backgrounds are also very smooth, but lack the anamorphic texture of the Helios 44-2 , letterboxing the footage, it just looks like a spherical image being letterboxed. So cutting footage between the Jupiter 9 and Helios 44-2, there is a noticeable difference in the look of the shot.
At night with f2 you can capture great images using ISO800. But would still need to look out for lens flares as this lens can flare and haze up the images.
Overall in sense it is a soviet lens, but in terms of providing a similar look, the Jupiter 9 is nowhere near the looks of the Helios. As the Sonnar design was designed to correct the errors that cause astigmatism and not create the swirls you see in the Helios.
Though the Jupiter 9 can make a nice image when it’s sharp. The Jupiter 9 has its flaws and buying one might be a big gamble if you might need to fix the sharpness issue. Personally I feel the Jupiter 9 has been a bit overhyped especially when the price has risen to 200 bucks for a bit more you can buy a much better lens. Which I will be reviewing in my next video, so be subscribed and stay tuned.
