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

Jupiter-3 50mm f/1.5

KMZ · Contax RF + LTM · 1948 · Sonnar

Also known as: Jupiter-3 50mm f/1.5 · ЮПИТЕР-3 · ZK 50mm f1.5

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
ZK (Sonnar Krasnogorsk) Contax RF 1948–1950 #000949 (1948) — Kiev bayonet; sovietcams' earliest recorded ZK 1.5/50
#000096 (1948) — Leica thread, its earliest recorded ZK in that mount
Six digits, plain sequential, no year in front: the ZK lenses predate the dating scheme 		No figure published
Contax/Kiev bayonet Contax RF 1950–1990 #492091 — 1949, in the six-digit form
#5000015 — 1950, sovietcams' earliest recorded lens of the ZK 1.5/50 version
#0000102 — 1955 or 1956; the recalculated version restarted its numbering, see the serial notes 		No figure published
Leica thread, Zorki LTM 1950–1990 #491123, #492258 — 1949
#5001663 — 1950; #5102801 — 1951; #5501231 — 1955
#5710589 — 1957 and #6206273 — 1962, ZOMZ-built
#752713 — 1975, ZOMZ, in the six-digit form again
#851420 — 1985, built at Valdai 		No separate figure published
Leica M and M42 adaptations LTM 1950–1990 — No figures published
  1. No plant published a serial-number table or a production table for the Jupiter-3. What exists is a collector registry: sovietcams gives, for each version, an "earliest so far known" serial contributed by owners. That is a floor, not a first day of production, and in several places it falls later than the version's own stated first year.
  2. An independent source for everything except the serials. ZENITcamera's lens archive is compiled from KMZ's own documents — the 1949 "Каталог фотообъективов завода № 393", plus the GOI catalogues of Lishnevskaya (1963) and Yakovlev (1970–71) — and it confirms, without depending on sovietcams, that the lens was first issued as the ZK (Зоннар Красногорский), that it was renamed Jupiter-3, that it was recalculated in 1954 with series production of the new version from 1955, that ZOMZ took it over in 1956, and that the Valdai "Юпитер" plant built it from the late 1970s. What that archive does not publish is a single serial number range, so the block-by-block dating in the variant table above still rests on sovietcams' owner-contributed registry alone.
  3. Two end dates. ZENITcamera gives the production span as "с 1948 г. (КМЗ) по 1980-е годы (Валдай)" — into the 1980s. camera-wiki and the variant table above run to 1990. Both are recorded; the 1985 Valdai serial in the table sits comfortably inside either. The design did outlive both dates in a strict sense: KMZ built a New Jupiter 3+ for the Lomographic Society, designed in 2013, in pilot production from 2014 and series production from 2016, multicoated and focusing to 0.7m in Leica thread. That is a new lens on an old formula, not a continuation of the run in this table.
  4. The mounts do not match across sources. KMZ's archive lists the lens as made in M39×1 with a 28.8mm flange, in the Kiev-Contax bayonet with a 31.85mm flange, planned for the Kometa camera, and in a bayonet form built by GOI for its experimental GOI-Leningrad bodies. camera-wiki instead records adaptations to Leica M and M42, which the KMZ archive does not mention. Neither list contradicts the other outright — a factory record and a collector's record of what has been seen are different kinds of statement — but no factory M or M42 Jupiter-3 is documented in anything consulted here.
  5. Figures from KMZ that no collector site publishes: seven elements in three groups, thirteen diaphragm blades, f/1.5 to f/22, a 45° field, a single-layer chemical coating with 0.8 transmission, and a specified resolution of 30 lines/mm at the centre and 14 at the edge. The screw-mount lens weighs 160 g and focuses to 0.9m; the bayonet lens weighs 145 g and focuses to 1m. The design focal length is 52.54mm, not 50.
  6. 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-3 can usually be dated from its number while the body it is screwed into cannot.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • The fastest of the Jupiters, and the direct descendant of the lens the Contax was built around
  • Made by KMZ from 1948, and later by other Soviet plants

ZK (Sonnar Krasnogorsk):

  • Marked ZK; built from remaining Jena glass

Leica thread, Zorki:

  • 39mm thread

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: 5102801 is 1951, 6206273 is 1962, 851420 is 1985. What follows is a running number within that year, and its length varies — six, seven and eight-digit serials all occur on this lens alone — 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.
#000096, #000949 — six digits beginning 000
THE FIRST EXCEPTION. KMZ's 1948 output — the ZK lenses, before the Jupiter name — 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 #49xxxx onward the scheme holds.
#000001 upward, as #0000102
THE SECOND EXCEPTION, and it belongs to this lens rather than to the family. The recalculated Jupiter-3 of 1955–56 — new diaphragm control, new optical calculation, a very small batch — was given, in sovietcams' words, a "new serial numbers system, starting from #000001", in both Leica thread and Kiev bayonet. So a Jupiter-3 whose number begins with zeros is either a 1948 ZK or one of these; the body and the diaphragm ring, not the number, settle which. Independent physical evidence for the restart exists: ZENITcamera reproduces the factory passport of lens №0000080, from the 1955 pilot batch of the recalculated version, with a measured focal length of 51.8mm written in against the design figure of 52.54mm. That document also corroborates the reason for the recalculation and the year — KMZ's own account is that the captured optical glass ran out in 1954, the lens was recomputed by M. D. Maltsev for Soviet glass types, the aperture-setting ring was redesigned at the same time, and series production of the changed version began in 1955.
#491123, #492091, #492258
The 1949 lenses are six digits: the year, then four. By 1950 the number had grown to seven (#5000015, #5001663) and the running part to five digits. The prefix is the constant; the length of the tail is not, and reappears at six digits at ZOMZ in the 1960s and 1970s (#752713).

Specifications

Formula
Sonnar
Designed by
Bertele Ludwig — Original Sonnar 5cm f/1.5 calculation, Zeiss, 1930 · Maltsev M. D. — Recalculated the lens at KMZ in 1954 for Soviet glass types, after the captured German optical glass ran out
Construction
7 elements / 3 groups
Aperture range
f/1.5–f/22
Diaphragm blades
13
Min. focus
0.9 m
Weight
145 g
Years manufactured
1948–1990
Country
Russia

What reviewers say

History

The Jupiter-3 is the f/1.5 Sonnar, made in the Soviet Union. camera-wiki dates its first release to 1948, under the name ZK — Sonnar Krasnogorsk — built after the Carl Zeiss factory was rebuilt and using what remained of the Jena glass. The name changed to Jupiter-3 around 1950, and by 1954 the lens was made entirely of Soviet glass.

That sequence is worth reading slowly, because it describes a design changing hands without changing shape. The same lens, from the same drawings, made first from German glass by a rebuilt German factory, then from Soviet glass by a Soviet one, then sold for another forty years.

It was made for the Contax and Kiev bayonet and adapted to Leica thread, Leica M and M42. As with the Jupiter-8, the screw-mount versions were often calibrated to the Contax focusing standard, which is why a Jupiter-3 on a Leica may not agree with the camera’s rangefinder.

KMZ’s own archive tells the middle of the story more precisely than the collector sites do. The captured German glass ran out in 1954; M. D. Maltsev recalculated the lens for Soviet glass types, the aperture-setting ring was redesigned at the same time, and the changed version went into series production in 1955. ZOMZ at Zagorsk took the lens over in 1956, and from the late 1970s it was built at the Valdai “Jupiter” plant. The surviving factory passport of lens №0000080, from the 1955 pilot batch, records a measured focal length of 51.8mm against a design figure of 52.54mm — the lens has never actually been a 50.

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-3 50mm f/1.5
Jupiter-3 50mm f/1.5 by KMZ (Igors Jefimovs) — Igors Jefimovs, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)
Sample photo taken with the Jupiter-3 50mm f/1.5
Eruption — shot on a Jupiter-3 (Mike Maguire) — Mike Maguire, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
Sample photo taken with the Jupiter-3 50mm f/1.5
Virginia bluebells by the Potomac — Jupiter-3 (Mike Maguire) — Mike Maguire, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Sample photo wanted — shot with a Jupiter-3 50mm f/1.5? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $220 across 46 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $200–$320). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: unchanged from $220.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$220$200–$32046
2026-09-06$220$200–$32046

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: Sonnar 5cm f/1.5 · Jupiter-8 50mm f/2

Sources (9)

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.