Looking for an excellent portrait lens for your rangefinder or SLR camera?  Like to gamble? Look no further.

The Jupiter 9 85mm f2.0 lens is available in a variety of mounts: LTM (Leica Thread Mount), Kiev (Contax), M42, and is a very very nice lens that is also a bit of a gamble. A lot of later versions made in the former Soviet Union were either not well assembled or have been repaired (read ruined) and misassembled.

Earlier date of manufacture (see serial number) is better than later.

Lens mounted on  a Cosina Voigtlander Bessa R (LTM mount):


Two test photos made with the Jupiter 9 on the Bessa R:



Above photo shows good focus at 2-2.5 meters.



The second shot of Sylvester shows that at minimum focus distance, about 1 meter, although the rangefinder/viewfinder of the Bessa R shows focus on the cat's eyes, but the truth is the lens is a little further out.  This is about as good as the Jupiter 9 gets. Some examples are way off and need repair or junking.  But if you get a good one, you have a great lens.

(These photos are stored on my account on flickr, try flickr it is the best photo sharing site on the web)

Nikon F2 professional level systems camera body was introduced in 1971. "Photomic" refers to the metering viewfinder head which this example is shown with. The Nikkor 85mm lens, perfect length for portraits, is in the old Nikon lens mount, the non-AI mount. While this means it cannot be mounted without damaging almost all more recent Nikon bodies (the FM is one exception that permits non-AI as well as AI mount lenses) it has superb quality and can be bought used for a very reasonable price.

Photography in Malaysia is a website that has a lot of information about Nikon cameras and lenses, the link below will bring you to the page with everything you want to know about the Nikon F2 Photomic.

Pentax S1a 35mm SLR camera with Super Takumar 55mm f2.0 lens - meterless camera body
  Pentax Spotmatic with Super Takumar 50mm f1.4 lens - built in light meter

Digital cameras are taking over but for a small investment perhaps $75 you can purchase a Pentax SLR and lens and take some wonderful photographs. eBay is the place to look for current prices. Pentax lenses for these models are referred to as "screwmount" or "M42".  A 200mm f4 lens can be had for around $100. There are many bargains to be had. These lenses are of equal optical quality to the lenses of today and may surpass some of the "kit" lenses sold today. With an adapter, you can use these lenses on Pentax DSLR cameras with some reduced functionality. These metal constructed optical wonders are still very useful.

I met Al Kaplan online at the Photonet Leica forum, heck, I even have a t-shirt with his face on it. He is a master photographer and has used a variety of camera gear over the years but mostly he is a black and white Leica kind of guy.  Very knowledgeable, opinionated and helpful.  His photoblog got some special recognition by Yahoo. Al is a Floridian and has begun posting his life's work of photos and stories on his blog, great viewing and reading. Lots of famous people going back to the 60s. He calls his blog The Price of Silver. For the past year or so he has been experimenting with a modern Leica thread mount Cosina Voigtlander 15mm lens and making a series of self-portraits where he holds the camera out at arm's length and fires the shutter. The extreme wide angle view of the 15mm lens makes for some fascinating shots. But equally interesting is the photographs showing the history of Miami area since the 60s. Highly recommended.

the link below will get you to Al's blog