Industar 22 Collapsible
We talked earlier about my cleaning my Russian Industar 22 Collapsible lens. That operation appeared successful but I was anxious to try it out. I was concerned that my repair worked and also what effect the obvious small scratches on the lens would have on photographs.
I encountered problems trying to work on my Zorki camera that the lens came on and I was anxious
Industar 22 Fixed
to try out the lens. So, I mounted the Industars, one at a time, on a Canon L1 rangefinder body and took some pictures through each. It was very interesting.
As the Canon body and the two lenses all used the Leica M39 thread mount the focus should have been accurate.and it turned out to be as you can see below. I used Ilford HP5 at ISO 400 which is its nominal speed. The lenses worked fine. The only disconcerting thing was that the iris settings had no detents to keep the f stop setting from drifting. It seemed strange but it seemed to work without difficulty. Being aware of the problem, I kept and eye on it, and it turned out to be no problem.
The Industar 22 Collapsible mounted on my Canon L1 Rangefinder body.
I was not out to create art. I wanted to see how these lenses performed. So I went looking for images with good contrast and sharp details. I expected a certain amount of grain with this film and I found it. It was accentuated by the post digital processing. I am coming to like the grittiness of film images and I am taking no steps to suppress the effects of grain.
My first three images below are taken with the colapsible Industar. I was surprised, pleasantly, with the performance of this lens. There was no discernable effect from the scratches on the front element.
The images did lack in contrast which was easily corrected once I was into my digital processing. I also made sure not to bring the lens too close to the sun which would have caused problems. Having taken those simple steps the images did surprise me.
“Log Booms on the Fraser” So what do you think? The grain is very apparent but I like it. It creates a moody image. And, obviously, this is a useable lens. It does take a delicate picture.
“Tug” These three images are all taken from the same spot within about a half hour of each other.
“Trestle” I have cropped these images and you are seeing only about 80% of the original negative.
These negatives have been scanned on a flatbed scanner at 2400 dpi although I don’t put much stock in that number. The software that comes with the Canon 9000F Mk II is pretty simple. It says that I can scan up to 9600 dpi but really I don’t see much improvement beyond 2400. That is fine by me because I can get a good impression of my negatives at this setting and it is certainly ample for the Internet.
OK, so lets look at the fixed Industar 22 with which I also used on this roll of film.
“Abandoned” This is an overgrown stretch of track in Richmond that gets little or no traffic now. This and the next two images below were all taken with the fixed Industar 22.
“Tool Shed” Here we are back in Susan’s garden. This is her tool shed.It began life as a playhouse for the children but they have grown up and flown the nest. So it is full of tools now.
“Fall in the Garden” Susan’s garden in the fall. The beans in the back on the left are ready to pick. The lettuce we have been eating all summer. The little tree just to the right of center is Rosemary.
So there you have it. These two lens are very usable and on the right subjects could be excellent choices. This is a very subjective test and was really carried out for my own pleasure and curiosity. But considering how inexpensive these lenses are why not have them in your kit and use them occasionally.
There is another use for them. Body caps for M39 camera mounts are hard to find and they often cost more than one of these lenses. So I will be acquiring more to use as body caps.
