Overview of the lens Jupiter-38 4/75

TTX of the Jupiter-38 4/75 lens:
Aperture limits: F4.0-F22.0
Number of aperture blades: 12
The weight: unknown
Focal length: 75mm.
Fit thread: M42

I got into the hands of a rather interesting lens, which, unlike wide-profile lenses, used in the traffic police of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs. That is, the lens was previously used in the traffic police to record the movement of cars at control posts, license plates and other information they need as evidence or simply an archive. When used in traffic police, Jupiter 38 I entered the kit with the Selena camera and rushed along with it in a suitcase.

In fact, it’s quite interesting to use special equipment developed for the services, as there is a great hope that it will be simply of exorbitant quality. But as it turned out Jupiter 38 is not so good. But still, there is one useful thing in it - this is a rather large depth of field.

Features of Jupiter-38 4/75 which are worth paying attention to:

1. The lens has a rather unusual combination of focal length and aperture. Soviet lenses with 75mm focal length can be listed on the fingers - (For example, Helios-2 F / 2.0 75mm). Yes and aperture not standard for fix, not 1.8-2.8 or even 3.5, but F / 4.0.
2. Lens not fast, albeit with a fixed focal length. Although the difference between 2.8 and 4.0 is a little more than a stop, this is not so critical.
3. At the lens large depth of field. Moreover, when you focus on sharpness, it is felt. Since you twist the focuser, and the sharpness does not change at low speeds of the ring. The large depth of field is created for special purposes for which the lens was designed. Strange enough, but this feature of it just helped me in creating the video clip that I started on my Nikon D90. Maybe, for video, a large depth of field will be very useful.
4. The focus ring is not very comfortable. It is located at the rear of the lens, therefore, near the camera. And use is not entirely nice.
5. The lens does not have a standard filter diameter.
6. Chic 12-blade aperture. Great for portraits, sorry aperture not the most pleasant.
7. When used on a Nikon system with a KP-42 / N lensless adapter, focus at infinity is lost. Read more in my article Soviet optics.
8. When focusing, the entire lens block travels along the tube.
9. When used on cropped cameras, the angle of view will be narrower than 35mm film and will be equal to the angle of the lens in 112.5mm on 35mm film. Effective focal length is great for photographing portraits.

 Personal impressions: the lens is not quite large aperture, as for the fixation in 75mm, most likely aperture sacrificed to increased depth of field. When viewed, you notice that the rear lens is very small, smaller than that of the industrial. My zoom Nikon 70-300 gives a much better picture in sharpness than Jupiter-38 by 75mm, although Jupiter-38 lacks distortion. If I were looking for a similar lens for myself, I would stop at Jupiter-9 85mm F2.0, and Jupiter-38 would just use it in photo experiments.

How to use on modern digital SLR cameras: I use Jupiter-38 on Nikon cameras with no problems using an adapter KP-42 / N without a lens, while losing the ability to focus at infinity somewhere from 4-5 meters. Also on my cameras Nikon D40, D80, D90 metering does not work exposure, because you have to shoot completely in manual mode. Read more about compatibility in my article. Soviet optics to Nikon. For use on other systems, there are adapters, and without loss of infinity.

About the picture: Lens not very sharp on 4.0. The sharpness starts with 5.6, maybe I came across an unsuccessful instance, or its age affected. HA almost invisible. The contrast is a little lame in the backlight, and he catches hares decently. I do not observe distortions (all the same 75mm). Colors are shifted slightly to warm shades.

The bokeh is smooth, the 12-blade aperture and the Sonnar lens circuit does its job. The lens gives a good picture. Although, judge by the examples yourself. As for a lens designed for special use, he makes quite excellent art photographs.

Sample photos on Jupiter-38 (RAW-> JPEG, 1600 * 1200, resized + watermark)

Catalog modern brand lenses 'Zenitar' и 'Helios' can look at this link.

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Conclusions: Jupiter-38 is a rare lens with non-standard parameters. One of the few Soviet lenses with a focal length of 75mm and aperture F / 4.0. The only major advantage of the lens is great depth of field and even bokeh, which can be useful when shooting video. In principle, Jupiter-38 can be used as a portrait.

 If you liked Jupiter-38, you can purchase it at the contacts listed in the manual optics section.

Material prepared Arkady Shapoval. Training/Consultations | Youtube | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Telegram