I used too, until they went all political, then I dropped them.
Sad because it was very useful.
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Try finding Soviet ones matching your camera mount, I know somebody who used a Canon EOS 350 with adapter, he said the Soviet lenses are improved versions of Zeiss, and are stupid cheap.
The glass and coatings are actually better, and Zeiss has been getting the telesope lens glass from what was part of the Soviet Union, their usual supplier Schott was not preferred.
Telescope lens glass is cast, then cooled down very slowly to avoid distortion, takes months, then it is ground, polished and coated to make a lens.
There was a business called Rugift selling NOS lenses, but the prices may be high for what is a fairly unusual lens.
You can get f2/58 and f1.8/50 lenses for about $5 in Europe, the older ones have a brass body and are really good.
And look up 'Photo-Sniper', interesting.
As usual, no ties to above named businesses.
The glass and coatings are actually better, and Zeiss has been getting the telesope lens glass from what was part of the Soviet Union, their usual supplier Schott was not preferred.
Telescope lens glass is cast, then cooled down very slowly to avoid distortion, takes months, then it is ground, polished and coated to make a lens.
There was a business called Rugift selling NOS lenses, but the prices may be high for what is a fairly unusual lens.
You can get f2/58 and f1.8/50 lenses for about $5 in Europe, the older ones have a brass body and are really good.
And look up 'Photo-Sniper', interesting.
As usual, no ties to above named businesses.
I just checked, it seems Rugift (Moscow area) has gone out of business, the new people using that name (based in China, it seems) are scammers, taking money and not delivering goods.
My apologies to all...
The Soviet optics were sold a lot in the Netherlands / UK, you might some for private sale there, but as usual, buyer beware.
Soviet binoculars and microscopes for medical use are also top quality, but the KMZ factory outside Moscow stopped film camera / lens production in 2005. There were factories in Kiev and Leningrad also, I am not up to date about their status as well.
My apologies to all...
The Soviet optics were sold a lot in the Netherlands / UK, you might some for private sale there, but as usual, buyer beware.
Soviet binoculars and microscopes for medical use are also top quality, but the KMZ factory outside Moscow stopped film camera / lens production in 2005. There were factories in Kiev and Leningrad also, I am not up to date about their status as well.
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I bought the PC board to build the Music From Outer Space "Ultimate" analog music synthesizer back in about 2010. I had put a lot of parts into the board in my spare time, then boxed it up with a lot of my other DIY synthesizer stuff in 2014 when my job went away and I moved out of Florida. In 2015 we moved into our newly built retirement house. All of my DIY guitar stuff, and some of my DIY synthesizer stuff made the two trips and year of storage, but the box with the MFOS stuff has still not been found.
During the time I was in a temporary place to live, I didn't have much space, so I set up a card table and a soldering iron, bought another MFOS Ultimate blank board and the Ultimate Expander board. Again, I populated them in my spare time as parts were located or found in boxes we opened. The boards were 90+percent populated five or six years ago. All of the knobs, switches and jacks in the MFOS synths are off board on a metal front panel. During this time the owner of MFOS passed away and front panels were not available so DIY was the only choice. Several DIY builds can be found on YouTube, but they vary from ugly to nice. Mounting over 50 pots, 50+ jacks and a couple dozen switches on a large metal panel and hand wiring them to the pair of PC boards and trying to make it look good didn't sound like fun so again the project stalled.
A few years ago Synthcube bought the rights to the MFOS product line and began to offer some of the old stock kits. A couple years ago they made some of the panels for the Ultimate and the expander so I bought the pair. The small parts collecting began, building started, then stalled several times. I have a BIG plastic tote full of pots, maybe 25 pounds of vintage Allen Bradley, Ohmite, Clarostat, and other pots, and NONE of them fit the holes in the MFOS panel. I needed to buy some of the new 16 and 24 mm Chinese stuff.
So what did I buy today, and yesterday, and Wednesday.......Lots of pots, switches, and a few other small parts that were missing from the build. Some of the stuff has arrived, some might be here tomorrow, more on Monday, but Amazon seems to have screwed up one of the orders. They show it was shipped by the USPS, but furnished a 1Z (UPS) tracking number. Now they don't know where it is.
I'm about halfway through soldering about 125 wires to the parts on the front panel and I still don't have all the parts mounted. The other end of those wires go into holes on the large PC board. The smaller board is for the expander and that panel is still in the cardboard mailer at the top of the picture.
Hopefully this extended synthesizer build will not take another 12 years.
During the time I was in a temporary place to live, I didn't have much space, so I set up a card table and a soldering iron, bought another MFOS Ultimate blank board and the Ultimate Expander board. Again, I populated them in my spare time as parts were located or found in boxes we opened. The boards were 90+percent populated five or six years ago. All of the knobs, switches and jacks in the MFOS synths are off board on a metal front panel. During this time the owner of MFOS passed away and front panels were not available so DIY was the only choice. Several DIY builds can be found on YouTube, but they vary from ugly to nice. Mounting over 50 pots, 50+ jacks and a couple dozen switches on a large metal panel and hand wiring them to the pair of PC boards and trying to make it look good didn't sound like fun so again the project stalled.
A few years ago Synthcube bought the rights to the MFOS product line and began to offer some of the old stock kits. A couple years ago they made some of the panels for the Ultimate and the expander so I bought the pair. The small parts collecting began, building started, then stalled several times. I have a BIG plastic tote full of pots, maybe 25 pounds of vintage Allen Bradley, Ohmite, Clarostat, and other pots, and NONE of them fit the holes in the MFOS panel. I needed to buy some of the new 16 and 24 mm Chinese stuff.
So what did I buy today, and yesterday, and Wednesday.......Lots of pots, switches, and a few other small parts that were missing from the build. Some of the stuff has arrived, some might be here tomorrow, more on Monday, but Amazon seems to have screwed up one of the orders. They show it was shipped by the USPS, but furnished a 1Z (UPS) tracking number. Now they don't know where it is.
I'm about halfway through soldering about 125 wires to the parts on the front panel and I still don't have all the parts mounted. The other end of those wires go into holes on the large PC board. The smaller board is for the expander and that panel is still in the cardboard mailer at the top of the picture.
Hopefully this extended synthesizer build will not take another 12 years.
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What supplier are you using for your neo?
I have tried many Chinese suppliers for my neo slugs, but they are all vastly under spec. Ordering N52 and getting slugs that don't even meet N35 gauss specs.
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On it’s way from Japan. A leap of faith as to whether genuine or not. Just been curious about these for years. As I’m far from convinced about them being anything special it will be hard to be dissapointed if/when I build something with it.
Looking at the date code, it is either celebrating it’s 36th birthday this week or it's a newborn fake 😀
Looking at the date code, it is either celebrating it’s 36th birthday this week or it's a newborn fake 😀
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See if you can use the lens on a digital camera, that is convenient, film labs are gradually going out of business.
There are adapters for such use, based on the film plane distance and the lens / body mounts, some are chipped to let you use electronic lenses...and some cameras expect chips on the lenses.
There are adapters for such use, based on the film plane distance and the lens / body mounts, some are chipped to let you use electronic lenses...and some cameras expect chips on the lenses.
Just a bunch of assorted parts needed today or not. Knobs, switches, wire, cover for transformer, and the list goes on. If it all works out, a brand new baby Iron Pre will be born. It is already up and running in mule form, but it was after I heard it in my system that I decided that it is worth completing by a long shot. So a little here and there adds up especially if the parts are quality.
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I’m a film guy (family vacation photos on iphone like everyone else), and I have a number of different film cameras (rangefinders, SLR, even a TLR if I can find the thing). I develop my own b&w film at home and use local labs for developing colour c41 chemistry. This mirror lens will go on my Minolta SLR.
Film seems to be clinging on with younger folk also discovering a love for analogue, not unlike the vinyl revival in that respect. Harman just launched their very own new colour negative film (they are hardly a household name but they own Ilford, perhaps one of the most popular b&w film manufacturers). In 2022 Leica brought back the famous M6 rangefinder film camera (although they already had two other related dilm cameras in production) and Pentax may follow suit with a new dilm SLR.
Maybe eventually I’ll have to go digital, then hopefully I can get lens adapters as you suggest.
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I bought another guitar; Suzuki no 34, for ~$50 at the local Val-Vil with my Tuesday 30% off senior discount. Read elsewhere that the 32, 34, and 36 were their "high end" guitars. So even though I'm currently, er, swimming in guitars, I just couldnt hold back.
Interesting there was a second guitar there behind the counter, made in France (.fr on the URL on its label), newer, nicer, cleaner, prettier - but the bridge was perceptibly lifting up already from / off the top. With just classical string tension too, which is significantly less that steel strings. One would think they could make a guitar these days where that doesnt happen. The Suzuki's bridge attach is fine and I bet that guitar is 50 years old.
Makes you wonder what the story of these guitars is...appears they came in as a very rare pair donation.
Interesting there was a second guitar there behind the counter, made in France (.fr on the URL on its label), newer, nicer, cleaner, prettier - but the bridge was perceptibly lifting up already from / off the top. With just classical string tension too, which is significantly less that steel strings. One would think they could make a guitar these days where that doesnt happen. The Suzuki's bridge attach is fine and I bet that guitar is 50 years old.
Makes you wonder what the story of these guitars is...appears they came in as a very rare pair donation.