The Photographer

The Photographer

Image by romainguy

I Wish I Were a Good Portrait Photographer: Jupiter-9 85mm f2

Image by Dr. RawheaD
I think there are three classes of legacy lenses LBA people go crazy about. The 50mm standards; 135mm medium-teles; and the 85mm portrait lenses. The former two because of the sheer number of specimens, available at a low price (because of their ubiquity), and the last because they tend to strike the perfect balance between high-speed (fast aperture) and telephoto/compression, which can give you, if you're good enough, the creamiest, most bokelicious shots of people and other subjects. I don't believe there are any lenses longer than 85mm that can do f1.2 (like the Canon 85/1.2L or the Contax Planar 85/1.2), and the same may be true for f1.4.

However, unlike the 50s and 135s, the 85s are still quite expensive, and so anything faster than f1.8 becomes a realy luxury. Thus, perhaps the most popular 85s are the f2s (and I happen to have three of these ;-), of which this Soviet/Russian Jupiter-9 is one of the cheapest. It was my first 85, and this is the second copy I've owned, given to me by a friend back in Japan (the first copy was promptly Ebayed off :-)

Jupiter-9 was originally designed for the Contax and Leica copy cameras of the former Soviet Union (Kiev/Zorki/FED), and was a copy of the Carl Zeiss 85mm f2 Sonnar lens. Later it was adapted to the Zenit SLRs with the M39 screw mount (not to be confused with the Leica M mount, which is also 39mm) and later produced in the M42 mount. It's a classic 7 element / 3 group Sonnar design, very compact, and prone to flare (hence I keep the hood permanently attached). It is really soft wide open so even if you nail focus (which is, mind you, hard to do due to narrow DoF), your pictures will get an almost soft-focus lens look. Which is precisely why a lot of people like it as a portrait lens.

Also notable is its weird bokeh, which, nevertheless, will retain a nice circular shape all the way down to f22, thanks to the amazing 15-bladed aperture.

Craig Myran - Thinkin' Geek

Image by Craig Myran Photography
Just a self-portrait. Natural lighting coming in through the window using venetian blinds as a GOBO.

obligatory self portrait

Image by Oberazzi

33/100 Charlie - Toronto photographer

Image by Benicio Murray
I saw Charlie at the Toronto Zombie Walk 2011 During a lul in the afternoon, I took some portraits of the photographers around me.

As I climbed down from a vantage point I turned around to see Charlie shooting away from similar high ground.

He was a lone wolf like me, fully kitted out and working solo in the sea of zombies and photography groups.

It was a great afternoon and one of my highlights from Toronto.

You can read more about my experience at the Zombie walk here: benicio.com.au/2011/10/experiencing-the-toronto-zombie-wa...

For the '100 Strangers' project.

www.100strangers.com/
www.flickr.com/groups/100strangers/