Russian | Soviet | USSR Lens Survival Guide

[Ilya O.]

I've being reading RU since maybe 2007 and simply love it. I learned a lot from you guys and very thankful for that.

Now I join RU to share my experience and knowledge of Russian photo- and cine glass.

I start with M39 (reflex mirror) and M42 Zenit SLR photo lenses.
Full frame 35mm film, 36x24mm (covers VistaVision).

These optics were designed at 50-s and 60-s, produced all the way till the fall of Soviet Empire at 1991 (some of them till 2000-s; others are now being revived at production).

I do documentaries, and this set is ideal for personal own and use being cost-effective, small, portable and yet very capable, fully usable wide open, with nice colors and in a way of a posh appearance.

All this one should take only to the lenses fully refurbished and serviced. Do not expect bought-for-nothing 50 years old Helios will be a joy to work&play Though, guys, many of Mirs and Helioses, having shitty rusty backlash barrels and even scratched optics, give extremely well performance. Any lens, Zeiss, Cooke or Angie of that age, needs a service after so many years of dusty shelf living, and do not forget the life was the harshest of all here in Russia.

The set includes:
20mm f3.5 Mir-20m
28mm f3.5 Mir-10A
37mm f2.8 Mir-1
58mm f2 Helios-44
85mm f2 Jupiter-9
133 f2.8 Tair-11
135 f3.5 Jupiter-11
180mm f2.8 Jupiter-6
300mm f4.5 Tair-3

Enough of words, let's get some pics and video.
My set looks like this, handpolished barrels, all new tiny screws, black matted internals, super smooth lube inside which does not evaporates and works till at least myself tested minus 18 Celsius (-0.4°F).
All have Canon EF mount:

Now going linear route from 20mm to 300mm
strarting with

MIR-20M 20mm f3.5​

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Mir-20M lens diagram and appearance:

Mir-20M is quite big, the huge front element screams out 'look at me!' and attracts attention like UFO
Front max diameter is 92mm (3.62''), 470g weigh (1 lbs.). It is made out of black anodized light aluminum alloy, no paint or plastic parts.
Internals are of the same, all metal. So it will work and last very long if the grease at the helicoid is okay.

We all like moving pictures more that text (sorry RU forum, so I start with it.

Mir-20m wide open handheld rough conditions (pls turn on 4k playback):

Mir-20M is my base lens which always sits on cropped (1.5x, s35) sensor, ready for tripod work and handheld.
It is wide enough for most of my work and still it does not smash the edges with that perspective distortion which makes people oval ugly and gives a viewer that distant feeling.
20mm on crop is a good lens for participation, in-action-being — all the things we documentary filmmakers like.
Besides, I can shoot 20mm for quite a looong time handheld (or moving) without shaking (actually there is some, but it is okay and as we say it is just 'natural picture breathing'; if you do not like it, use a couple percent of Warp filter in Adobe apps).

Mir-20M being single coated has 75% Transmission Coefficient.
That means that the actual T-Stop of Mir-20M is ~T4.

Back to the video.
The previous one was in dark light, handheld and has aggressive feeling.
Mir-20 can be very subtle though.
It has God's rays type of flares which I used as a metaphor of poetic creativity and inspiration from on high (pls turn on 4k playback):

Mir is fully usable wide open, no blooming or softy halo whatsoever. It has good definition in the central part of the image, and when you close the iris down you just add resolution across the frame and the contrast arises. When you compare central spot at f3.5 and f8 the actual definition is the same, while contrast differs. So I can not say Mir-20 has flat field and sharpness everywhere (but what lens has it?) at f3.5, but this optical imperfection actually focuses viewers to the central guidelines of the frame where action takes place in 90% of scenes. Besides, central spot sharpness adds dimension, and does not overload viewers eye with tons of insignificant details on modern ultrasharp sensors.
40% edge vignetting on full frame helps that too, but I frankly did not ever seen it on crop.

An interview, wide-medium shot, wide open with some grain added in post:

Closed to f5.6 or f8, who said that 20mm is not a portrait length?
An old man waiting for the authorities to throw him away from his native 300-years old history home place:

***

Every time I look through the Mir-20, I feel happy. It has a kind, cheerful feeling picture.
The shot below was taken the lens that had 1/4 inch deep scratch on the back glass, that lead to no other defects than high light scattering.
But what I see now is that thing helps you feel the light, see it like substance.
Grain added in post.

​

Mir-20m has rather warm color. The contrast is not high. Which is good cause it seems it gives me more of dynamic range, especially in the darks which are lifted and never crushed. It is like using DigiCon N1 filter of Schneider.
Again, this leads to good handling of extreme contrast scenes and to the subjective feeling of the light as a material substance you can touch.

Do I need to say that if you just shoot with Mir-20 having the camera all standard gamma sharpness etc settings, you instantly get the interesting look and color?
What is more, if you wish, the picture can be pushed to extremes with ease, it has the latitude, it wont fall apart.
What I am trying to say here is you can save time and money and do no color correction at all and still you have the different look, a stylish organic subtle look

MIR-10A 28mm f3.5​

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Mir-10A lens review here: http://www.reduser.net/forum/showth...rvival-Guide&p=1705033&viewfull=1#post1705033

MIR-1 37mm f2.8​

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Update! Mir-1 lens here http://www.reduser.net/forum/showth...rvival-Guide&p=1705466&viewfull=1#post1705466

HELIOS-44 58mm f2​

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Update! Helios-44 lens review here http://www.reduser.net/forum/showth...rvival-Guide&p=1705828&viewfull=1#post1705828

JUPITER-9 85mm f2​

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Here is Jupiter-9 short review http://www.reduser.net/forum/showth...rvival-Guide&p=1712433&viewfull=1#post1712433

Tair-11 135mm f/2.8​

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Tair-11 lens review here http://www.reduser.net/forum/showth...rvival-Guide&p=1728060&viewfull=1#post1728060

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I publish my documentary about Faroe Islands, all shot on Canon C100 (wide DR gamma) and KMZ lenses reviewed here.
So you guys may look for overall picture character of USSR lenses, x264 HD master for downloading here: http://goo.gl/f5FLGx

And here is YouTube version, heavy compression. I've added a grain, but that was a huge mistake since Youtube then compresses it to mud...

Faroe Islands. Democracy in the Ocean (Documentary)

This 30-minutes doc is about social and political history of Faroe Islands from 50-s till 2000-s.

I was happy to work with a person behind this film, Petr Silaev, the author and producer, — he is known for "Exodus", a book of contemporary Russian classic literature I would say. It was nominated for numerous prizes, translated into English, German, Finnish, Swedish, Italian, Greek, Spanish etc... The best review I could find is here.

Krisitain Blak is a main storyteller in the first lyric part. First he is very kind and friendly person, and after that he is very prolific talented Nordic composer. His (and traditional local folk) music was used as a soundtrack here in the first part. Wiki page here.

The second part of the doc has more fun featuring 200 (Tveyhundrað), Faroese punk band (frontman Niels Arge Galán, drummer Uni Arting and the bass Mikael Blak). Wiki here.

 

[Marcel Zyskind]

Favorite thread already! Cпасибо!

 

[Ilya O.]

Favorite thread already! Cпасибо!

thanks, plz share you footage, Marcel!

 

[Mathias Erichsen]

Great thread!
I have, and use, the 20mm f2.5 and like it allot. Have you tested this lens too? If so, what do you think is the difference from the f3.5?

 

[Ilya O.]

Great thread!
I have, and use, the 20mm f2.5 and like it allot. Have you tested this lens too? If so, what do you think is the difference from the f3.5?

Thanks and hello, Mathias

I have not yet tested Mir-47 myself, sorry.
Back then, I got my Mir-20M for 50usd while your Mir-47 costed smth around 200usd and I have to search and wait for it to appear. So I went with mir-20. Besides I chose mir-20 cause I wanted my set to be of the era and single coated.
You know, mir-47 was actually in production till the recent times, I mean you could buy it online at Vologda Optical Factory store at 2003. Yet not many were made.
Your Mir-47 20mm f2,5 has more contemporary complex design, multicoated, it is rather small, has filter thread in front; and I bet yours has PK Pentax bayonet mount, right? Which I find worse to adapt to Canon than M42: adapters from PK to Canon Ef seem to be quite filmsy and they move a bit when focusing.
That said, I soon buy one, I have seen many pics from Mir-47 (search at mflenses and flickr), and frankly I feel that it shares the same character of soviet wide school. Sometimes I can not distinguish pics made with mir-47 from those from mir-20
I just feel Mir-47 has more punchy color, sharper center, edges wide open are weaker than of mir-20 (but i could be wrong here!).

 

[Ilya O.]

Mathias, please show us some Nordic masterpieces shot on your Mir-47;-)
I will post Faroe Islands wides a bit later.

 

[paulcurtis]

Ah, looks to be a great thread. I guess i can watch the price of Mir20s going up on eBay.

So it has a lovely look with the flares. I wonder how it compares to the original flektogons. There are both f2.8 and f4 versions of those, seems to be around 4 models in total. The distortion of the f4 is supposed to be very good (or rather lack of distortion) and i think you have to work hard to get a good copy of the f2.8.

How many copies of the Mir did you go through? I believe the coatings on the Mir are a lot more flarey than the zeiss counterparts, in a way that's the attraction.

Also i guess the f3.5 is the same design as the f4 zeiss and the f2.5 is the same as the f2.8...

Damn, back to lens lust again...

cheers
Paul

 

[Mathias Erichsen]

Mathias, please show us some Nordic masterpieces shot on your Mir-47;-)
I will post Faroe Islands wides a bit later.

Hehe Sadly I don't have so many Nordic masterpieces. Don't do so much of those shots.. I'll se what I can post
I did a quick test with the 20mm f2.5 and Sigma 18-35mm an think they match best (FOV) at about 18mm.. could this be right? Is it a bit wider than 20mm or am I just being silly?

 

[Tommaso Alvisi]

Hehe Sadly I don't have so many Nordic masterpieces. Don't do so much of those shots.. I'll se what I can post
I did a quick test with the 20mm f2.5 and Sigma 18-35mm an think they match best (FOV) at about 18mm.. could this be right? Is it a bit wider than 20mm or am I just being silly?

It could very well be the opposite, I sometime feel 18mm on the 18-35 isn't as wide as other 18s I used...

Ilya, great thread!!!!!

 

[Ilya O.]

I guess i can watch the price of Mir20s going up on eBay.

Hello Paul^-)
Well, IMO it is at its higher limit now, where to grow more? But this could happen, as always with our Survival Guides^-).
It is now goes for around 250$ on Ebay. I here in Russia can find it for 70-100$.

My estimate for the future max MIR-20' price is 350$. It would be equal or a bit higher than of Flektogon 20mm f4.
So guys better buy now ahaha ha h

The interesting fact, though, that recently KMZ started (and finished?) the production of the MIR-20. Do you know what the price of a NEW lens was? 250 bucks! And now Ebay sellers sell OLD ones for the same price!

 

[Ilya O.]

I did a quick test with the 20mm f2.5 and Sigma 18-35mm an think they match best (FOV) at about 18mm.. could this be right? Is it a bit wider than 20mm..?

You are absolutely right, Mathias.
Mir-20 seems to lie in 18-19mm ballpark. USSR had GOST (State Standard) of discrete mm lineup so MIR falled into 20mm category.
Check this nice vintage 20mm shoutout video, Mir-20 is the widest one:

 

[Mathias Erichsen]

You are absolutely right, Mathias.
Mir-20 seems to lie in 18-19mm ballpark. USSR had GOST (State Standard) of discrete mm lineup so MIR falled into 20mm category.
Check this nice vintage 20mm shoutout video, Mir-20 is the widest one:

Great find! Looks like I'm less silly than I feared

 

[paulcurtis]

Hello Paul^-)
Well, IMO it is at its higher limit now, where to grow more? But this could happen, as always with our Survival Guides^-).
It is now goes for around 250$ on Ebay. I here in Russia can find it for 70-100$.

My estimate for the future max MIR-20' price is 350$. It would be equal or a bit higher than of Flektogon 20mm f4.
So guys better buy now ahaha ha h

The interesting fact, though, that recently KMZ started (and finished?) the production of the MIR-20. Do you know what the price of a NEW lens was? 250 bucks! And now Ebay sellers sell OLD ones for the same price!

I've been researching a bit.

It seems that KMZ have plenty of brand new mir-20s around. It's the same as the one you show? There's an older casing as well, the element on the older one seems more bulbous too. Or maybe that's the other way around, the newer version has the different casing?

I'm kind of looking for the one you describe. It's pretty much distortion free and flares really nicely. It's the flares that i want it for, i have plenty of lenses that are controlled but a bit of soul would be nice.

Now the originals didn't have MC but anything in a M42 mount is multi coated, so which version do you have. The very first one, with no multi coating? In which case what mount is that?

cheers
Paul

 

[Ilya O.]

Paul, I will answer all your questions, just a bit later.

You know, I am in progress, it is not an easy theme concerning lens design and which was the first, and which is a deriviative or copy.

 

[Ilya O.]

...I wonder how it compares to the original flektogons...

All lenses of the retrofocus or reveresed telephoto type have a strong negative front element and a positive collective element in the rear.

Well, Flektogon is an original in a way.

You see, wides with long backfocus distances goes way back to 1931
Taylor, Taylor & Hobson (Cooke) genius lens designer Horace W. Lee invented an inverted telephoto lens for Technicolor movie cameras (cause the prism (beamsplitter) of those camera took up a space behind the lens mount so they needed long backfocus distance). Behind the front achromatic negative 2-piece element sits the basic lens — a famous Cooke Series O lens:

Then, 18 years later, in 1949 Harry Zoellner (?) at Carl Zeiss Jena created first version of Flektogon 2,8/35mm. The basic objective consists of the Biometar 2,8/35 and a large meniscus in front.

Meanwhile at 1950 Pierre Angenieux goes the same route, but takes Tessar as a base lens and came out with the term “Retrofocus”. Everywhere on the net you will find Angenieux was first, that is bullshit or at least they where going in parallel cause the market had a call for wide with long BFD for SLR bodies.

At 1951-1952 Harry Zoellner continues the calculations on new Flektogon which is now known as main form of Flektogon. USA Patent was applied years later at 1955.

As for the West Zeiss, they made the Distagon (a "copy" of Flektogon Zeiss Jena design) at 1952-1954.

Check out the wides evolution:

I forward you to a brilliant new site of Marco Kröger. There tons of info on early Zeiss Jena lenses.
Flektogon 35mm and others:
https://translate.google.ru/translate?hl=ru&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fzeissikonveb.de%2Fstart%2Fobjektive%2Fwechselobjektive1950er%2Fcarl%20zeiss%20jena.html

Flektogon 20mm and othersL
https://translate.google.ru/translate?hl=ru&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fzeissikonveb.de%2Fstart%2Fobjektive%2Fwechselobjektive%25201960er%2Fcarl%2520zeiss%2520jena.html

 

[Ilya O.]

I wonder how it compares to the original flektogons...Also i guess the f3.5 is the same design as the f4 zeiss...

I did not ever had a chance to compare Flektogon 20mm f4 to Mir-20m.
Flektogon was a true breakthrough in wide lens design of 60-s unrivalled till early 1970.
We are used to think that Zeiss Jena was like poorman's fake Zeiss. That is simple myth if we take 60-s. They were way ahead of Oberkochen at that time. To say more, distortion wise relatively simple Flektogon 4/20 is much better than legendary and very complex Contax Zeiss Distagon 2.8/21 costing 1500$.

Flektogon 20mm f4 of Dannberg and Dietzsch (1960-1961) is a result of Harry Zoellner efforts of 1951-1954 in building "OPREMA Optics Calculating Machine" (pls read brilliant Marco Kröger article https://translate.google.ru/translate?hl=ru&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fzeissikonveb.de%2Fstart%2Fobjektive%2Fwechselobjektive%25201960er%2Fcarl%2520zeiss%2520jena.html)

So back to Flektogon 20mm f4 vs Mir-20m.
Since I have not compared both in real let's analyze lens' diagrams:

Volosov says that Mir has original formula.
You can clearly see that Mir-20M is not a direct copy of Flektogon, but it is obvious that Mir takes Jenaer genius achievements as a base for its own calculations and correction to the USSR optical glass nomenclature. This approach is typical for lens designers of any country and era.
Flek has 10 lenses (7 cemented) and 12 air-to-glass surfaces while Mir has 9 lenses (2 cemented) and 16 air-to-glass surfaces. Assuming the same single layer coatings that means that Mir has more light scattering and thus less contrast.

 

[Ilya O.]

I wonder how it compares to the original flektogons. There are both f2.8 and f4 versions of those, seems to be around 4 models in total. The distortion of the f4 is supposed to be very good (or rather lack of distortion) and i think you have to work hard to get a good copy of the f2.8.
How many copies of the Mir did you go through?

It is very nice idea to compare Fleks f4 & f2.8 to Mir-20 and Mir-47 one day.

Yes, you are right about very good distortion parameters of Flektogon f4, at least people say that on http://forum.mflenses.com/.
Flektogon f2.8 of Schneider and Dietzschis said to has mustache distortion compared to simple corrected in post barrel distortion of Flektogon f4.
Flek f2.8 has the highest distortion of all Fleks and Mirs.

I myself used Mir-20M and Mir-20M MC, they have different barrel design, the latter is smaller:

Besides, Mir-20M MC has multicoating.
Mir-20M being single coated has 75% Transmission Coefficient while Mir-20M MC has 90%.
That means that the actual T-Stop of Mir-20M is ~T4, and Mir-20M MC has T-Stop of 3.7.

Multicoating is usually believed to improve or decrease flares.
On the contrary, my experience is that single coating of Mir-20M gives LESS saturated and accented flares! Can you believe that?

Mir-20M flares which I like more:

Mir-20M MC flares:

I believe the coatings on the Mir are a lot more flarey than the zeiss counterparts, in a way that's the attraction...

Well, Paul, here I do not agree. They are the same. The technology behind Flektogon f4 20mm and Mir-20M 20mm f3.5 single layer coating is nearly the same so they should be nearly equal flares.
Flektogon seems to give less point of flares since it has less glass-to-air surfaces, but the flares will look equal.

If we take Flektogon f2.8 20mm and Mir-20M MC 20mm f3.5 both having multicoating then the flares look like this:
(Image courtesy of BRunner at http://forum.mflenses.com/):

Flektogon 2.8 20mm flares

Mir-20M MC flares

If you compare all 4 pics given here, you can paradoxically find that the flares of v1 singlecoated Mir-20M f3,5 and of advanced multicoated Flektogon f2,8 looks somehow very similar

 

[Lee Kelly]

Hey guys,

I recently built a little kit to compliment a couple of Richard Gales 58mm flare factory modified Helios.
I am really really happy with these old Russians.
I love the 20mm f2.5. Good to have this lens slightly faster than other wides to get a bit of shallow depth, even with such a wide angle.
My 35mm f2 is great. Got a 37mm f2.8 too.
58mm 1.8 Helios
85mm f2
and a Tair 135mm f2.8
Still a couple of gaps i would love to fill like a 24, 28, 100 would be nice.
Any suggestions?
Mine all match quite well colour and contrast wise and even the funky 58s with their mods dont stick out like dogs balls too much. I have a couple of projects I can use these on which I am excited about.

 

[Lee Kelly]

Just snapped up a Helios 28mm f2.8. Cheap enough to justify trying it out. If it doesnt quite match my set its no big deal and to be honest for these kinds of lenses each one has its own little quirk that I like. Would love a 100mm.

 

[Ilya O.]

...
I love the 20mm f2.5. Good to have this lens slightly faster than other wides to get a bit of shallow depth, even with such a wide angle.
My 35mm f2 is great. Got a 37mm f2.8 too.
58mm 1.8 Helios
85mm f2
and a Tair 135mm f2.8
Still a couple of gaps i would love to fill like a 24, 28, 100 would be nice.
Any suggestions?...

Hi, Kelly.

Are you sure your Helios is f1.8? It must be Helios-77, yeah?

Is your 85mm black? They are nearly all bad wide open due to the error in lens barrel spacing (or not bad if your use it for portrait work
You guys better look at white aluminum Jupiters-9 version.

24mm? Sorry, there were none.

For 28mm I would suggest Mir-10a (f3.5), a very solid flat field performer with nice color. I don't understand all the hype about f3.5 lenses being too slow since all recent cameras have base ISO of 850, 1600 and 2000+.

Or look for Mir-61 28mm f2.8 which is now known as MC Zenitar-C, it was recently at production at Krasnogorsk, but not many were built. Though, it is multicoated, not sure if it will color match the others. I did not use it, but found this review and test here:
http://translate.google.ru/translate?hl=ru&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fsomethings.narod.ru%2FFT%2F2016-07-1%2Findex.html

For 100mm there is Kaleinar-5 f2.8, usually MC, from Arsenal Factory, Kiev. It has very good reputation and IQ. It is better than most 100-105mm Nikons, for example.