Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

Jupiter-12 35mm f/2.8

KMZ · Contax RF + LTM · 1950 · Biogon

single source, unconfirmed

Also known as: Jupiter-12 35mm f/2.8 · ЮПИТЕР-12 · Jupiter 12 Biogon copy

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Black finish Contax RF 1950–1970 — No figure published
Chrome finish Contax RF 1950–1990 — No figure published
Leica thread LTM 1950–1990 #000274 (1948) — the BK-35 in Leica thread, sovietcams' earliest recorded example; six digits, no year in front
#4902114 — 1949, the first of these to carry the year
#5000286 — 1950; #5703497 — 1957
#5800284 — 1958 and #6310981 — 1963, LZOS-built
#6007060 — 1960, the ONLY example sovietcams records of that KMZ version
#710004 — 1971, an LZOS prototype, in the six-digit form
#7302778 — 1973 and #8303289 — 1983, the LZOS version made from 1971 		No separate figure published
  1. No plant published a serial-number table or a production table for the Jupiter-12. What exists is a collector registry: sovietcams gives, for each version, an "earliest so far known" serial contributed by owners — a floor on what has been seen, not a first day of production. For one KMZ version of 1960–61 it records a single lens, #6007060, and calls it the only one so far known.
  2. No serial block maps onto the black-and-chrome split this entry uses. sovietcams and camera-wiki sort the Jupiter-12 by plant, body and marking, not by finish, so a serial identifies the year and usually the maker but does not by itself say which of the two finishes a lens wears.
  3. The dating scheme is not Soviet-wide. FED serial numbers run straight through from 1934 to the mid-1980s with no year encoded, and Zorki bodies made before 1955 are unreliable on the same point — so a Jupiter-12 can usually be dated from its number while the body it is screwed into cannot.
  4. The clearance problem is corroborated, and by a source with no connection to the ones already cited. The Kievaholic Klub, writing about the Kiev rangefinder lenses generally, says they will all work on Contax and Nikon rangefinders "with the exception of the Jupiter-12 35mm lens (which has a rear element that protrudes just a bit too far back into the body for the Contax)". That is the single most consequential claim on this page and it now has two independent accounts behind it.
  5. Two things sharpen the warning rather than repeating it. The Kievaholic Klub's exception runs only one way: every other Kiev-mount lens goes onto a Contax or a Nikon rangefinder, and every Contax and Nikon rangefinder lens goes onto a Kiev. And USSRPhoto's entry, reproducing Fedka's specification, says of the 39mm screw version that it "mounts and RF couples with any Leica or Leica copy (FED, Zorki, etc)" — which does not sit easily with this entry's blanket caution about Leica-thread bodies. No source consulted names which screw-mount bodies actually foul. Read the warning as firm for the Contax and the postwar Contax IIa, and as unresolved for Leica-thread bodies until a source names one.
  6. The black-and-chrome split this entry uses may run the wrong way round. The variants above give both finishes from 1950, with black ending in 1970 and chrome running to 1990. The Kievaholic Klub says the opposite of the Kiev rangefinder lenses as a group: "The older lenses are generally chrome barrelled while the newer lenses are often black", and adds that there may be no real difference in coatings or performance between them. Neither account is specific to the Jupiter-12's own dates, and sovietcams — the only registry that exists — sorts by plant and marking rather than by finish, so nothing here settles it. The finish is not a dating tool.
  7. Independent specification, from USSRPhoto's catalogue entry citing Fedka: focal length 35.7mm rather than a round 35, aperture scale running 2.8 to 22, field of coverage 62°50', focusing from 1 metre to infinity, filter thread M40.5×0.5, coated glass, black enamel barrel, and an M39×1 screw mount on the Leica-thread version. It calls the lens a copy of the prewar Zeiss Biogon and "one of the best Soviet made lenses" in both mounts.
  8. Corroboration searched for and NOT found on the serial numbers, which are the bulk of this page. The Kievaholic Klub publishes no serials. USSRPhoto's Jupiter-12 entry publishes no serials and no production figures. Fedka's own pages on the lens are gone — the address that once held them now returns 404 — and survive only as the text quoted through USSRPhoto. Camera-wiki refused connections when this check was run (2026-09-04). Every dated serial on this page therefore still rests on sovietcams' owner-contributed registry alone, which is why the single-source flag stays set.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • A rear element that protrudes far into the body — the Biogon's signature and its danger
  • Non-retrofocus construction, which is why the correction is so good for a cheap lens

Leica thread:

  • 39mm thread — and the same protruding rear element

Serial-range notes

the exception the rule hides
The year-prefix convention is Arsenal's from 1947 and the lens plants' from 1949 — it is not Soviet-wide and it is not KMZ-wide. KMZ's own Zorki bodies of 1948–54 run in a single sequence with no year prefix, so the rule fails there silently and plausibly: a 1951 Zorki 55325 reads as 1955, a 1953 254580 reads as 1925.
the first two digits
THE RULE. On a Soviet lens the first two digits of the serial number are the year of manufacture: 5101531 is 1951, 6310981 is 1963, 8303289 is 1983. What follows is a running number within that year, of no fixed length — six, seven and eight-digit serials all occur on this lens — so the year is read off the front and not by counting digits backwards. Mike Eckman states the rule for Kiev cameras and lenses, JAPB for Soviet equipment generally, and sovietcams' variant tables, which quote a dated "earliest so far known" serial for nearly every version, are the working evidence.
#000012, #000274 — six digits beginning 000
THE EXCEPTION AT THE START. KMZ's 1947–48 output under the BK-35 name — Biogon Krasnogorsk, before the Jupiter name existed — was numbered plainly from 000001 with no year in front. sovietcams marks the changeover explicitly, noting of the 1949 versions that there is a "date prefix in the serial number already"; from #49xxxxx onward the scheme holds.
#4901947, #5000412, #5101531, #591348, #7105862
The Kiev-bayonet lenses, in sovietcams' order: 1949, 1950 and 1951 at KMZ; #591348 a 1959 lens built at Arsenal; #7105862 a 1971 lens from LZOS. Three plants, one convention.
#591348 and #710004 — six digits — against #5101531 and #7105862 — seven
The length of the number is not a clue to the decade. Six-digit serials appear in 1959 and again in 1971 alongside seven-digit ones from the same years, because the running part after the year was set by the plant and the batch. Read the first two digits and ignore how many follow.

Specifications

Formula
Biogon
Construction
6 elements / 4 groups
Aperture range
f/2.8–f/22
Min. focus
1 m
Weight
140 g
Filter
40.5 mm (0.5 mm pitch)
Years manufactured
1950–1990
Country
Russia
Coating
Coated (USSRPhoto, from Fedka's specification)

What reviewers say

History

The Jupiter-12 is the prewar Biogon, and it inherited the problem along with the design. Its rear element protrudes deep into the camera — that is how a symmetrical wide-angle achieves its correction, and it is why the lens performs far better than its price suggests — and it is also why it does not fit everything.

On a postwar Contax IIa the German original would strike the shutter slats, and the Soviet lens raises the same question. The Kievaholic Klub makes the Jupiter-12 the one exception in the whole Kiev rangefinder line: every other Kiev-mount lens will go onto a Contax or a Nikon rangefinder, and this one will not, because the rear element protrudes just too far. Beyond the Contax the record gets muddier. On digital bodies the protruding rear sits where a sensor housing needs to be, which is well attested by people who have tried it; on Leica-thread bodies the sources disagree, and the specification USSRPhoto carries from Fedka says the screw-mount version couples with any Leica or Leica copy. Check clearance before mounting one on anything it did not come with, and see the table note for what is actually established and what is not.

What you get in exchange is a genuinely good wide-angle for very little money, sold in black and chrome across four decades, on a design that Zeiss drew before the war and never had to improve.

Expand Collapse

This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.

Example photos

Sample photo taken with the Jupiter-12 35mm f/2.8
Jupiter-12 35mm f/2.8 — Latente 囧 www.latente.it, via Openverse (flickr) (BY-SA 2.0)

Sample photo wanted — shot with a Jupiter-12 35mm f/2.8? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $110 across 42 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $85–$160). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: unchanged from $110.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$110$85–$16042
2026-09-06$110$85–$16042

Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.

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Listings updated 2026-09-11. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Biogon 3.5cm f/2.8 · Jupiter-8 50mm f/2 · Orion-15 28mm f/6 · Russar MR-2 20mm f/5.6

Sources (8)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this lens, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.