https://casualphotophile.com/2018/06/28/one-roll-five-countries-with-the-half-frame-agat-18k-film-camera/

Optics transferred from the M39 mount to the M42 began to be marked by adding the ending “-2″after the main numeric index. Another potential issue can be lens flare. When the lens is wide open the light coming at narrow angles can reflect between the glass and produce a lens flare effect. In some cases, this adds to the charm of a photo while in other cases it produces an undesirable effect where images become unevenly lit, with a bright yellow tint. Helios 44-2 58mm is really sought after by the more experimental photographers and cinematographers. The lenses’ bokeh is unmatched and has remarkable color retention. I use it on my BMPCC and URSA Mini 4.6k and it looks amazing. It gives your footage an instant vintage look. Initially, the Helios-44 was created on the basis of the Biotar 2/58 lens (Carl Zeiss Jena), and even at first it was called “BTK — –“BioTar Krasnogorsky”. And the most common mount was M42, developed in the late 1930s, and used extensively in the 60s and 70s especially by manufacturers like Asahi Pentax, Praktica, Fujica, Yashica, and Zenit.

More Helios 44-2 Swirly Bokeh From More Photographers

Helios 44's were made in more than one factory. KMZ was probably the most prolific producer, the one in pic 1 however has the Valdai logo. Overall, these lenses offer impressive quality and performance for the price, making them an excellent non-radioactive vintage lens option.

In this post, I talk about Helios 44-2 since it is the most popular modification and that is the one I have the most experience with. I bought mine for around 35 euro. Helios 44-2 swirly bokeh effect is achieved primarily with the aperture around f2-2.8. This is a manual focus lens, so getting things in focus can be quite challenging. I use DSLR, which means no focus peaking. I decided that I only focus on subjects that stay in place. Some people criticize Helioses swirly bokeh because it is too strong and takes attention from the subject. I can partially agree. On this image, you can clearly see the swirly effect, but it doesn’t make the image better. The shot made in Espoo archipelago, Finland. The 44-2 lens exhibits impressive center sharpness and adequate micro-contrast, while its corners are capable of resolving details when shooting subjects from a distance and using a stopped-down aperture. Additionally, the lens creates beautiful and usable patterns through flaring, which adds to its overall appeal. Thus, Industriar-50-2, Tair-11-2, Helios-40-2, Jupiter-6-2 appeared simultaneously. Perhaps there are others.So if you want to shoot at f/5.6, you set that on the outer ring, then open up the aperture using the inner ring, compose, focus, then stop down the inner ring (which will stop at f/5.6 – it literally won’t close down any further) and shoot. I absolutely love this lens and you will get unique and beautiful images out of the Helios 44-2 58mm. I own the Helios 44M, which is built a bit more solid and weighs more but the optically the same as the 44-2.

I repeat, only Helios-44 has such a system for the M39 thread and Helios-44-2. Later versions have lost the ability to smoothly close the aperture. The Helios-44 of various modifications is one of the most popular lenses in the world. It was produced for about half a century in many varieties and variants at several factories in the USSR. The majority are using Helios 44-2, but there are also people, who prefer bokeh and build of other modifications. Because it’s a simple screw thread, a plethora of simple adapters were (and are) available to allow mounting an M42 lens on to a camera with a bayonet mount, like Pentax K, Minolta MC/MD, Canon EOS or Contax/Yashica C/Y, to name a few. I like to do these diffraction tests because they always help to find the sweet spot of the lens. Typically diffraction is influenced by the pixel pitch of the camera sensor, but – sometimes some lenses still perform better than others.on an APS-C sensor with 1.5x crop factor (DSLRs, Sony E mount etc) will give an equivalent field of view of 87mm. It’s worth noting that you can use these lenses with some pretty good results on a Leica M digital body using an M42 to M39 adaptor ( like this one from RAFCamera), and then an M39 to M adaptor. You can of course also mount the lenses on other Leica M bodies, but as the lenses aren’t rangefinder coupled, you really need Live View to make the most of them. Use isn’t restricted to just the Leica M either… you can get adaptors from M42 lenses to various different mount systems, and I know of people that use the Helios 44 with a Canon 5D, but this isn’t something I’ve tried out personally. Leica M Typ 240 and Helios 44-2 My Experience At f2, even several feet from the wall, the lens is hardly usable unless you’re looking to sacrifice sharpness for big bubble bokeh and shallow depth. The Helios 44-2 58mm was manufactured mostly in an M42 mount to be used with the Zenit camera but it was also made in a Pentax K and M39 mount as well.