[goatsNdonkey]

In my experience, 75-85 pushes the price over $200. In the $100 range there are some Vivitar, Ricoh, and even Tamron from 90-100mm. I’ve had several in K mount and the Tamron in adaptal, which is also a macro lens. All have nice bokeh, with the Tamron and Ricoh bettering the Vivitar.
Occasionally I see a Takumar 105 on the bay in the range of $150.

There also don't seem to be very many prime lenses in that focal length range, when there might be over a hundred, perhaps hundreds, of zooms that begin or end in that range!

I've been considering enlarger lenses as an option; in fact, my m42 105mm is a PZO Amar S f4.5 105mm Polish enlarger lens, which mounted on my m42 bellows offers a great infinity to macro range. There is an 80mm PZO enlarger lens which I have thought about getting to fill the gap, but image samples of it being used for regular photography (as opposed to darkroom enlarging) don't seem to have great color that the 105mm version has -- actually, I've seen samples from the 80mm of close-up pictures with good color, but the ones of wider views looked washed out. Also, if I want to leave the 105mm on my bellows, then I would either need to another bellows or the appropriate m42 focusing helicoid, adding a good bit onto the price.

I have a Tamron 90mm, which with the appropriate adapter could join my group of m42 primes, but 90mm is pretty close to 105mm. 90 doesn't quite pin down the middle of the range between 58 and 105.

Besides enlarger lenses in the 75-85mm range, the Jupiter 9, so far as I can tell, seems to be the lens that tends to be the cheapest, just usually higher than I want to spend on it. Of course, I could be wrong, if someone knows of some under-appreciated lens that appears from time to time somewhat cheaper.

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Last edited by goatsNdonkey; 10-30-2017 at 06:13 PM.

[Hattifnatt]

DFA 24-70 on the K-1.

[paulh]

I didn't quite nail focus here, but I like it anyway A35/2.8

[cyberjunkie]

There also don't seem to be very many prime lenses in that focal length range, when there might be over a hundred, perhaps hundreds, of zooms that begin or end in that range!

I've been considering enlarger lenses as an option; in fact, my m42 105mm is a PZO Amar S f4.5 105mm Polish enlarger lens, which mounted on my m42 bellows offers a great infinity to macro range. There is an 80mm PZO enlarger lens which I have thought about getting to fill the gap, but image samples of it being used for regular photography (as opposed to darkroom enlarging) don't seem to have great color that the 105mm version has -- actually, I've seen samples from the 80mm of close-up pictures with good color, but the ones of wider views looked washed out. Also, if I want to leave the 105mm on my bellows, then I would either need to another bellows or the appropriate m42 focusing helicoid, adding a good bit onto the price.

I have a Tamron 90mm, which with the appropriate adapter could join my group of m42 primes, but 90mm is pretty close to 105mm. 90 doesn't quite pin down the middle of the range between 58 and 105.

Besides enlarger lenses in the 75-85mm range, the Jupiter 9, so far as I can tell, seems to be the lens that tends to be the cheapest, just usually higher than I want to spend on it. Of course, I could be wrong, if someone knows of some under-appreciated lens that appears from time to time somewhat cheaper.

Unfortunately the focal length you're looking for has never been cheap, even back in the seventies (and probably also before).
Enlarger lenses are everything but bokeh monsters, as far as i know. To be sincere, when i experimented with enlarger lenses outside their main use (darkroom), i used them in high reproduction ratio macrography. Most of the time reversed, for ratio > 1:1.
As far as i remember the two PZO were tessars optimized for flat field. Same layout has the Janpol Color, with two wheels for color printing, which was available in both 50mm and 80mm variants. The Janpol Color's have M42 thread, like the other polish enlarger lenses, and are of very good quality, probably just a tad worse than a Componon or Rodagon of the same period.
If you want a "bokeh lens", or just a lens that works well for portraits, i guess the cheapest choice is the Jupiter you already mentioned.
Sometimes you find on Ebay a lens in that range (80mm to 90mm) made by Schacht, Enna or maybe Steinheil, but the auction invariably ends at a price far beyond your budget. If i could ever find an Enna 1.5/85mm in very good conditions (either chrome, zebra or black) for 400 euros, i'd buy it tomorrow, but the average price is 3 times what i'd like to spend

My advice would be to either wait for a decently priced Jupiter 9, or forget about focals and think in terms of rendition instead.
If you don't shoot full frame an 85mm is more a "medium tele" than a "portrait tele". If you have room to go back one and a half step you can use a 100mm instead, and at that focal you can go for bokeh on the cheap
I have two Steinheil Cassarit 3.5/100mm in M42 mount that i like very much. Actually one of them is traveling with me
It's a lens that with some patience can be bought quite cheap, and can deliver a wonderful bokeh.
Great triplet by a great german lens maker. Sharper than the Trioplan, but not so much bubble bokeh. Wonderful tiny portrait lens on full frame, but still usable on APS-C (with more compression of the perspective).

Cheers

Paolo

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Last edited by cyberjunkie; 10-31-2017 at 08:32 AM.

[goatsNdonkey]

Unfortunately the focal length you're looking for has never been cheap, even back in the seventies (and probably also before).
Enlarger lenses are everything but bokeh monsters, as far as i know. To be sincere, when i experimented with enlarger lenses outside their main use (darkroom), i used them in high reproduction ratio macrography. Most of the time reversed, for ratio > 1:1.
As far as i remember the two PZO were tessars optimized for flat field. Same layout has the Janpol Color, with two wheels for color printing, which was available in both 50mm and 80mm variants. The Janpol Color's have M42 thread, like the other polish enlarger lenses, and are of very good quality, probably just a tad worse than a Componon or Rodagon of the same period.
If you want a "bokeh lens", or just a lens that works well for portraits, i guess the cheapest choice is the Jupiter you already mentioned.
Sometimes you find on Ebay a lens in that range (80mm to 90mm) made by Schacht, Enna or maybe Steinheil, but the auction invariably ends at a price far beyond your budget. If i could ever find an Enna 1.5/85mm in very good conditions (either chrome, zebra or black) for 400 euros, i'd buy it tomorrow, but the average price is 3 times what i'd like to spend

My advice would be to either wait for a decently priced Jupiter 9, or forget about focals and think in terms of rendition instead.
If you don't shoot full frame an 85mm is more a "medium tele" than a "portrait tele". If you have room to go back one and a half step you can use a 100mm instead, and at that focal you can go for bokeh on the cheap
I have two Steinheil Cassarit 3.5/100mm in M42 mount that with some patience can be bought quite cheap, and deliver a wonderful bokeh.
Great triplet by a great german lens maker. Sharper than the Trioplan, but not so much bubble bokeh. Wonderful tiny portrait lens on full frame, but still usable on APS-C (with more compression of the perspective).

Cheers

Paolo

Paolo, thanks for the very informative post! Interestingly, I was just looking at some examples of the Janpol Color 80mm (the PZO 80mm enlarger lens I'm not so sure about is the Emitar) being used for both macro and more general pictures. While not a "bokeh monster" it did seem to provide some very nice blurring of distant objects when focused on subjects perhaps 6 or 7 feet away. The distant objects were still recognizable, but their blurring was quite pleasantly creamy. Objects in the plane focused on were very sharp. I suspect the lens was used wide open at f/5.6. Stopped down examples looked very good, too, with rich color as well as more sharpness all over. It s certainly an odd looking lens with the two knobs on each side of it.

Somewhere I saw a listing for an 80 or 85mm lens taken from a TLR that was adapted to m42. My search for an inexpensive m42 prime in (or very near) that 75-85mm range may become an adventure.




.

[ivanvernon]

Unfortunately the focal length you're looking for has never been cheap, even back in the seventies (and probably also before).
Enlarger lenses are everything but bokeh monsters, as far as i know. To be sincere, when i experimented with enlarger lenses outside their main use (darkroom), i used them in high reproduction ratio macrography. Most of the time reversed, for ratio > 1:1.
As far as i remember the two PZO were tessars optimized for flat field. Same layout has the Janpol Color, with two wheels for color printing, which was available in both 50mm and 80mm variants. The Janpol Color's have M42 thread, like the other polish enlarger lenses, and are of very good quality, probably just a tad worse than a Componon or Rodagon of the same period.
If you want a "bokeh lens", or just a lens that works well for portraits, i guess the cheapest choice is the Jupiter you already mentioned.
Sometimes you find on Ebay a lens in that range (80mm to 90mm) made by Schacht, Enna or maybe Steinheil, but the auction invariably ends at a price far beyond your budget. If i could ever find an Enna 1.5/85mm in very good conditions (either chrome, zebra or black) for 400 euros, i'd buy it tomorrow, but the average price is 3 times what i'd like to spend

My advice would be to either wait for a decently priced Jupiter 9, or forget about focals and think in terms of rendition instead.
If you don't shoot full frame an 85mm is more a "medium tele" than a "portrait tele". If you have room to go back one and a half step you can use a 100mm instead, and at that focal you can go for bokeh on the cheap
I have two Steinheil Cassarit 3.5/100mm in M42 mount that i like very much. Actually one of them is traveling with me
It's a lens that with some patience can be bought quite cheap, and can deliver a wonderful bokeh.
Great triplet by a great german lens maker. Sharper than the Trioplan, but not so much bubble bokeh. Wonderful tiny portrait lens on full frame, but still usable on APS-C (with more compression of the perspective).

Cheers

Paolo

I have a bokeh lens in that range, the Tokina AT-X 90mm f 2.5 macro, nicknamed the Bokena for its blurry backgrounds. They seem to sell for $150 to $300 with or without the extension take takes the macro to 1:1.

[goatsNdonkey]

I have a bokeh lens in that range, the Tokina AT-X 90mm f 2.5 macro, nicknamed the Bokena for its blurry backgrounds. They seem to sell for $150 to $300 with or without the extension take takes the macro to 1:1.

As mentioned earlier, I could put an m42 adapter on my Tamron 90mm and consider it an addition to my m42 prime stable, so I have 90mm covered. However, it is interesting to hear of the Tokina AT-X. But if I want to keep a K-mount adapter on that 90mm, the mid-point between my 58mm (Helios44-2) and my 105mm (PZO Amar S) is about 80mm, so 75-85 seems like the range I need to fill that gap best.

I find in the lens reviews here at the forum that there were a couple of Vivitar 85mm lenses, a early preset, and a later Series 1 model, both f1.8. I expect that the wide aperture commands a high price when they appear for sale.

Just for reference: here are a few shots with the PZO Amar S f4.5 105mm lens on bellows (permitting infinity to close-up). I think I posted the first two before, possibly in this thread, as they show varying degrees of bokeh, the other two are just to show that this enlarger lens can be used for other kinds of shots. If I go with another enlarger lens to fill in the 75-85mm spot, I hope it is as versatile.

[taks]

I didn't quite nail focus here, but I like it anyway A35/2.8

Nice colors. I like this shot too

da35


da50-135

[paulh]

Nice colors. I like this shot too

Thanks taks - beautiful shots from you, as always!

Some seasonal bokeh (re-post from a couple years ago) - Image 28/2.8:

[Kerrowdown]

[th1952]

K5IIs with Sigma 17-70 2.8-4.5

Oakleaf hydrangea showing some color.

[taks]

Thanks taks - beautiful shots from you, as always!

Thank you Paul

[Scorpio71GR]

What little bit of colour there has been this autumn.

[shiner]

DA 40 Ltd, K70

[zzeitg]

DA*55










FA77