Putin's Revenge

I was browsing last night for ancient Russian lenses (like the Mir-1V and Jupiter-9 which I possess) and was unpleasantly surprised that prices have skyrocketed since I bought those lenses six or seven years ago.



The Jupiter-9 85mm f/2 which I got for perhaps $40 now sells for $130.



The Mir-1V 37mm f/2.8 which I got for a throwaway price of $20 now costs $70.



And the Carl Zeiss Jena 135mm f/3.5 which I got for $80 (nevermind the shipping costs and Western Union fees from the Czech Republic..) now goes for around $120 on e-bay. This is the late black multi-coated version, not the earlier, lesser-performing but more desirable "zebra" version.

Now I'm sure these price appreciations have much to do with the weakening of the Almighty Dollar, but I suspect a large part of it is also due to Putin's Revenge. Russia is no longer the Boris "old boozer" Yeltsin economic basket case it was in 2000. Vladimir's Russia is an economic powerhouse bulging with oil and gas.

And so the manufactured-in-Lytkarino Jupiter-9 is no longer the piece of (relative) trash it once was derided to be. It's still way cheaper than the Canon 85mm f/1.8 (as I was reminded of on my visit to Photoworld Manila) though. Hopefully my split-image focusing screen (it's not Haoda or Katz Eye, but rather a cheap Shanghai knockoff, so my hopes aren't that high) will enable me to focus accurately and knock the socks off the Photoworld Manila fan boys with their long, slow kit lenses.

For the photographically inclined, I took the photos of my old lenses with a 55mm f/2.2 Fujinon normal lens (an M42/Pentax Screw Mount lens) at f/4.0 indicated. I used a Vivitar 20mm M42 extension tube to decrease the close-focusing distance, and a generic Russian M42 to EOS mechanical adapter.

Macro focusing is iffy at best, even more so with the peephole finders of consumer DSLR's, so I focused by moving the whole camera back and forth, then fired off twenty or so shots. Odds will be that you'll get a handful of them sharp, which proved to be the case.