Review Industar-29 1: 2,8 F = 8cm P specially for Radozhiva prepared Rodion Eshmakov (instagram).
Industar-29 80 / 2.8 is the only and unique staff for medium format Salute cameras, which were the Soviet variation of the famous Hasselblad. This lens was developed back in 1946 and belongs to the line of old ("dolanthan") high-aperture regular "Tessars" together with Industar-26m 50 / 2.8 и Industar-24m 105 / 3.5... German progenitor of Industar-29 - Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar 80 / 2.8 - and today it is a very valuable portrait (small format) lens, including in monetary units. At the same time, Industar-29 is significantly less expensive and, it seems, could act as a replacement. It seems.
Technical specifications [source]:
Optical design - 4 lenses in 3 groups, "Tessar"; see diagram drawing
Focal length - 82 mm;
Field of view - 53 °;
Relative aperture - 1: 2.8;
Aperture limits - F / 2.8-F / 22;
Diaphragm design - precocked jumping, 11 blades;
Frame format - 6 * 6 cm (film type 120);
The minimum focusing distance is 0.9 m;
Thread for light filters - 58 mm, there is a special device for installing filters 40.5 mm;
Mount to the camera - bayonet B (Salyut / Kiev-88).
Design and adaptation features
Industar-29 uses the now forgotten (in contrast to the Pentacon 6) bayonet B, for which it is almost impossible to find factory-made adapters for modern cameras. However, adapters are sometimes produced by craftsmen, or lenses with B-mount are irreversibly altered in artisanal conditions. To use Industar-29, I whipped up a temporary home-made shank from the Helios-44M focusing ring and the M39 macro ring. The solution turned out to be "free", but not very accurate, and when focusing at infinity, a slight tilt effect could be noticed.
Of course, if the lens is planned to be used for a long time, it is better, if possible, not to spoil its appearance by handicraft alterations: after all, Industar-29 is one of the most beautiful Soviet lenses. It is made in a massive aluminum body with a clear design claim and is equipped with distance scales and depth of field, like almost any old lens.
On the nose of the lens is a nut-like focusing ring with a 270 ° travel. When focusing, the lens unit moves only translationally. The minimum shooting distance is 0.9 m.
In the middle of the body is the aperture preset ring, which can be switched with clicks in whole steps. Next to it is the platoon handle of the jumping diaphragm. To use the lens on modern cameras, it is convenient to dismantle the jumper mechanism together with the spring and the trigger, then the handle will work to manually close the aperture to the set value, as on conventional lenses with a preset mechanism.
In the early Industar-29, the diaphragm had 11 dark blades, which in later versions became golden due to the protective titanium nitride coating. The diaphragm blades of all Industar-29s have an irregular shape, which is why the opening on apertures up to F / 22 has a star-shaped appearance (like Helios-40, Jupiter-6).
Experiments with the shape of the aperture hole, apparently, pursued the goal of increasing the resolution of the lens, but today we see only spoiled bokeh and nothing more.
A pleasant moment is that the front lens of Industar-29 is deeply recessed into the body and thus well protected from lateral light - this is important, since the optics of Industar-29 has a single-layer coating of yellow-pink shades. However, when used on a small format, it will still not be superfluous to have a lens hood corresponding to the angle, as well as high-quality blackening and aperture of the lens space.
The light transmission of Industar-29 is close to neutral due to the well-chosen lens coating. However, some specimens have a blue-violet coating, which significantly shifts the maximum transmission to the yellow-green part of the spectrum.
An interesting feature of Industar-29 is the availability of a device for using small filters with a thread diameter of 40.5 mm: it is usually screwed into the front of the lens into the M58 thread, but in some instances it may be lost. The idea is quite interesting, since the cost of filters usually increases in proportion to the diameter.
Interestingly, the same part also serves as a light extinguisher, as it is made of corrugated matte black aluminum. The case of Industar-29 itself has a shiny black coating with finer corrugations next to the front lens.
Industar-29 turned out to be a rather good lens in terms of both usability and ease of maintenance. In addition, it will look very nice on a SLR camera. The disadvantages include the lens mount, which requires a non-standard adapter, and the star-shaped aperture opening.
Optical properties
Industar-29 has a very low optical quality. Even in comparison with the pre-war Tessar 80 / 2.8 and in comparison with the overhead Triplet 78 / 2.8. The main problem with this lens is its very strange frequency contrast characteristic. Yes, the first time I needed to mention it to describe the properties of the lens. So, if the above-mentioned Tessar and Triplet had a very noticeable soft effect (low contrast in the low-frequency region), they also transmitted high frequencies quite well (which is associated with the lens resolution). But Industar-29 copes well only with low frequencies (that is, it has a good general and “local” contrast of the image), completely failing at high frequencies - when examining it, it seems that the image is blurred due to defocus. In other words, Industar-29 is just an unsharp lens. He does not "soft", he is simply unsharp - this is his nature. And this is not a defect of a specific copy, because I had 3 of them of different years of release. This is perhaps the most optically unsuccessful lens that I have ever come across.
The low quality of Industar-29 is due to the presence of spherical aberration, and the situation in the image field is aggravated by a noticeable coma. The lens forms an image of acceptable quality from F / 5.6-F / 8.
With these shortcomings, Industar-29 has a good contrast (even taking into account my low-quality shank) in normal lighting and good color rendering. However, in the back and side light, a veil appears (presumably due to the shank) and iridescent highlights.
Perhaps the advantage of the lens is its bokeh: it is similar to the blur produced by Industar-26m. The circle of confusion has a bright and rather thick edging; closer to the edge of the frame, its shape is flattened under the influence of field aberrations.
In terms of the totality of optical properties, perhaps the only option for using Industar-29 can be portrait photography. Due to the low resolution and strange frequency-contrast characteristics, I was not able to shoot something else with this lens. Even the 12 MP full-frame sensor is difficult for him.
Below are examples of photos taken with a Sony A7s camera (shooting in RAW, processing in Imaging Edge).
Conclusions
Calculated in 1946 on a meager glass palette, the medium-format Industar-29 was suitable for photographic materials of the mid-80th century, but today its level of optical quality is unacceptable. Perhaps for the Tessar lover, the pre-war Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar 2.8 / XNUMX (from dual lens reflex and valve cameras) is better suited, which is of better quality and can be found at an affordable price in the secondary market.
You will find more reviews from readers of Radozhiva here.
Interesting lecture
Thanks for the interesting review! Now I understand why at one time my pictures on Kiev-88 turned out as if not worse than on Lyubitel. It turns out that it's not just the “curvature of the arms” :)
Well, this is a gorgeous portrait photographer! Yes, everyone has their own purpose. This one is strong in portraits
Did you film with it?