Jupiter 9 Lens Focus Issues

[Iphotouk]

I don't seem to be having much luck with old film equipment this week.

I purchased a Jupiter 9 lens off Ebay at the weekend. It was listed cheap as it had an 'Unknown mount'. I was fairly sure from the photos that it was going to be M42 with a K mount adapter on it and so I put in a cheaky cheap bid and won. Sure enough when it arrived today I was right. Great I thought, nice little bargain. That was until I fired off a few test shots with it. The images are just not clear and in focus as I expected. he Jupiter 9 has a pretty good rep for being sharp, and i'm no stranger to using M42 glass on my Panasonic G9. However these images below clearly show it's not as it should be. The optics look relatively clean considering it's age, and certainly no worse than some of my other M42 lenses.

So does anyone know anywhere that could take a look at servicing and fixing it? Or has anyone seen this issue before and begin to shed some light on what might be the cause? I have enough in it value wise to potentially have it sorted.

Any help would be appreciated.

Regards

Darren

 

[dmb]

My first thought was, what aperture were you shooting at? Then looking at picture of lens I can't see any sign of an iris at all.

 

[Iphotouk]

I tried wide open at f2 to begin with and also tried stopping down slightly to f2.8 as from reading views on the Jupiter 9, that's when the sharpness usually improves somewhat on them

 

[dmb]

At f/2 or f/2.8 with an 85mm close up (say 25cm) will have a DOF of about 1mm

 

[Iphotouk]

These were taken from around a meter away. Plus if you look closely at the images there isn't a single part of the image that is actually sharp.

 

[moggi1964]

This is from out of left field but have you checked that you haven't nudged your dioptre adjuster on the camera?

I only mention it because I have a friend who did it and couldn't figure out why he couldn't get focus

 

[Iphotouk]

This is from out of left field but have you checked that you haven't nudged your dioptre adjuster on the camera?

I only mention it because I have a friend who did it and couldn't figure out why he couldn't get focus

Yes I did wonder this so shot with another M42 lens after as a test. That showed to be sharp as I would expect.

 

[droj]

I could suspect that one of its elements is out of position. Maybe it's been disassembled for cleaning (of a fungal infection?) at some time, and not put back correctly. A simple manual lens service is typically around £50, though I was once quoted nearly twice that by Newton Ellis.

An alternative is that it's been off since it was made ...

 

[Iphotouk]

I could suspect that one of its elements is out of position. Maybe it's been disassembled for cleaning (of a fungal infection?) at some time, and not put back correctly. A simple manual lens service is typically around £50, though I was once quoted nearly twice that by Newton Ellis.

An alternative is that it's been off since it was made ...

Thanks for your input.

I've done a couple more tests this morning including stopping the aperture down further and taking a shot down the length of a measuring tape. The point of focus on the lens does seem to be where it should, but it just simply isn't sharp. After doing some further reading it appears that it could be that it's been apart at some point and not put back together, or that it simply was never a sharp copy in the first place. So i've messaged the buyer for a return and I will look for another one elsewhere.