This is a Russian lens with M42 screw mount manufactured by LZOS, near Moscow. It is a copy of the pre-WWII Zeiss Sonnar lens with added lens coatings. While my lens is labeled as being multicoated, the color of the first-surface reflection looks more like older single-coated lenses in my collection. The aperture diaphragm is a preset design which must be manually stopped down to the shooting aperture after opening it up to focus. This makes using it a somewhat awkward process, but with practice it is effective enough. With 15 blades which give a circular opening at all f-stops it delivers very nice rendition of out-of-focus highlights.

On of the first things I noticed when I unpacked the lens was that it had a very stiff focusing action. A little Internet searching disclosed that this was due to the heavy grease used to lubricate the focusing helicoid at the factory. I sent it to Paul Ebel Lens Services for a thorough cleaning and re-lubrication using modern lens lubricants. It now focuses very smoothly and easily - a worthwhile investment!

Today I compared it to my Pentax SMC-M 85mm f2 in a series of brick-wall photos at various apertures. I have selected shots at f2 and f4 to illustrate its performance. These are 100% (600x600 pixel) crops of the center and lower right hand corner of images taken using my Pentax K20D on a tripod about 15 feet from the wall. When the weather here improves, I plan to add some photos of outdoor scenery and other subjects.

I am pleased that it performed as well as it did. Although it is clearly no match for the M85 wide open, it is just as sharp at apertures of f4 and higher, at least in the center of the image. The corners are visibly poorer when viewed at 100%, but as the Jupiter-9 was designed for use mainly as a portrait lens the corner sharpness is not critical.