![]() ![]() Sharpness: 10 Aberrations: 10 Bokeh: 10 Handling: 10 Value: 10 Camera Used: K-3įor the $40 total I paid including the shipping from Russia, I have to say this is a 10/10 lens. Lower contrast and less resistance to flare as modern lenses Sharp, excellent bokeh, good low light abilities Buying a Helios is always a lottery, but considering the ticket price, I think it's a lottery worth playing. Shooting Helios 44-2 is like driving a Lada: if you learn to do it you will have no problem driving any carĪs Russian photographers say: "Among ten Nikkors there aren't two different ones, among ten Helios' there aren't two similar ones". I highly recommend Helios 44-2 for amateurs who want to step away from the kit zoom and try a manual prime lens without breaking the bank. You don't want to shoot against the light with it – the flare is hideous! A screw-on 49mm hood makes big difference. The main drawback of this lens is poor coating and inner blackening. I set the clicked ring to F8 and adjust the aperture smoothly between F2 and F8 which covers most of my shooting needs. There aren't any chromatic aberrations to speak of.īuild quality seems pretty good, obviously my lens wasn't made at the year end The focusing ring is very smooth and rotates 270 degrees allowing for precise focusing. Is it sharp? Surprisingly, yes! Wide open the centre of the frame is sharp enough for portraits and the corners become decent at F8. On a cropped sensor it makes beautiful portraits and flower shots with impressionistic bokeh and pastel colours. The lens is in great optical and mechanical condition. Sharpness: 8 Aberrations: 9 Bokeh: 9 Handling: 8 Value: 10 Camera Used: Samsung NX30, Pentax Z-1P ![]() Just DON'T pay a huge amount from a seller who tries to sell you one as 'rare' or 'sought after'!īeautiful rendering and bokeh, easy to focus, small, cheap! So a cheap lens for your arsenal, and you can end up with sharp wide-open examples as much as you can find VERY soft versions! But they are a lovely lens in use, and make a decent portrait lens on film and digital given the 58mm focal length. ![]() Surprising when you consider the use those machines must have had over the decades since 1945!) Not as well finished as the Zeiss, but every screw hole lines up, and every internal screw uses the same pitch thread. (The same applies to a number of other Russian lenses and cameras, of course-and when repairing a pre-war Contax shutter the much later Kievs provide an excellent source of parts. The lens of course is not actually a 'copy' of the Zeiss Biotar, technically it IS a Biotar because when the Russians seized the Zeiss photographic machines and designs-plus the personnel, of course-they continued to maufacture the same lenses using the same equipment for decades, and apart from modifying the body of the lens and improving the lens coating to make it slightly less flare-prone, it remains nevertheless a Biotar at heart.Some I dismantled back in the 1960s still had German markings on some of the inetrnal parts. Some of my favourite shots are from those days. They all printed fine using Ilford HP3 and then HP4 film. Still have the lens and camera, still working.not bad for £18 from Jessops when they only had one tiny shop in Leicester!Īs I said above, the lens is prone to flare, and also a little soft wide-open, but back then I managed many candid shots indoors using the lens wide open, and hand-holding at a guestimated 1/5 second. My first standard lens, bought with a Zenit E back in the mid 1960s. Sharpness: 8 Aberrations: 8 Bokeh: 8 Handling: 8 Value: 10 Camera Used: Zenit E, Pentax KS-1 Lovely effects contra-jour if you use the flare right Tips on using Helios 44 with pentax M42 adapter (loose fit, light leakage around mount edge) see this thread. Takes 52mm filters.Ĩ blade 44 (very similar to this lens) listed here. KMZ was probably the most prolific producer, the one in pic 1 however has the Valdai logo.įocuses down to 0.5m and has a mag ratio of 1:6.5 at closest focus point. Helios 44's were made in more than one factory. There are also non-preset "M" versions, and "K" versions with PK mount. More recent versions include multicoated lens elements. It is a classic preset lens with two rings, one to set the desired f-stop, one to open/close the iris, f2-f16. The earliest versions were just "-44", later they acquired the additional -2, -3, -4 etc up to -7, the latter is supposed to be the highest resolution version and normally commands highest prices, however sample variation is likely to be more significant with soviet lenses! This page reviews the 44-2 - probably the most common version. The Helios 44 (-x) is the standard, fast, 58mm lens typically found as the kit prime on the Zenit-series russian SLRs. ![]()
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