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stoppingdown · (This post was last modified: 09-04-2016, 11:48 AM by stoppingdown.)

I haven't been able to decide about it for two years... curious for some things, but on the other hand I decided to avoid what I did in the past Nikon life, that is buying lenses that in the end I didn't use. Think before buy. I gave first priority to the Trioplan and waited for a year before stating that I'm able to decently use it, and then look at another legacy lens.

Yesterday, even though I'm on a tight budget because of the unexpected expense for the new laptop, I saw a Helios lens that is cheap and in alleged mint conditions on eBay... So I ordered it. Within a week I should start shooting with it. Let's see what happens...

Brightcolours · 09-04-2016, 11:54 AM

Very sharp wide open, especially on APS-C. the outlining and mechanical vigetting make for busy or swirling bokeh, at close up it can even look smooth. On your APS-C it makes for a nice portrait lens (focal length) for next to nothing.

Brightcolours · (This post was last modified: 09-04-2016, 12:03 PM by Brightcolours.)

Other legacy lenses which are cheap and pretty nice: Canon FD 50mm f1.4 (nicer bokeh and more blur), and the Canon FD 35mm f2 SSC, 1st version with concave front element and radioactive (thorium oxide in the glass mix) element. Much nicer lens than other 35mm f2 lenses (sharp, pretty nice rendering), nicer than my EF 35mm f2.

FD lenses tend to be pretty affordable, so depending on how much an FD adapter costs, worth to look at if you don't have these focal lengths already in the native mount, or even with a focal length reducer.

09-04-2016, 07:39 PM

Quote:I haven't been able to decide about it for two years... curious for some things, but on the other hand I decided to avoid what I did in the past Nikon life, that is buying lenses that in the end I didn't use. Think before buy. I gave first priority to the Trioplan and waited for a year before stating that I'm able to decently use it, and then look at another legacy lens.

Yesterday, even though I'm on a tight budget because of the unexpected expense for the new laptop, I saw a Helios lens that is cheap and in alleged mint conditions on eBay... So I ordered it. Within a week I should start shooting with it. Let's see what happens...

You cant go wrong with a Helios 44-2, best of the range in my view, the preset is a good system and the ring is nice and loose!

What body are you using it on?

stoppingdown · (This post was last modified: 09-04-2016, 08:00 PM by stoppingdown.)

Quote: You cant go wrong with a Helios 44-2, best of the range in my view, the preset is a good system and the ring is nice and loose!

What body are you using it on?

The a6000, that is APS-C, that is a portion of the area with the swirly bokeh will go out of the frame. But the swirly bokeh is not the primary thing that interests me... I've seen many photos with the swirly bokeh and I liked only a few of them. It's a difficult feature to manage.

PS In any case... there's a "turbo booster" M42 / E-mount adapter with a lens inside that "shrinks" the FF area into the APS-C area, like the similar Metabones adapters for Canon mount. It's not cheap (150â‚¬) and I've read mixed reviews about it. But it could be a future thing, low priority, that would enable to have the full swirly bokeh on the APS-C...

Brightcolours · (This post was last modified: 09-05-2016, 02:46 PM by Brightcolours.)

The is more than 1 other manufacturers for such focal length reducers.

It would be wise to pick one with a more flexible mount.

Canon EOS mount would be a candidate, as to it M42 can be adapted with cheap adapter rings, and also Nikon F-mount, Leica R-mount, Olympus OM mount, Pentax PK-mount, Yashica/Zeiss C/Y mount. And Canon EOS mount itself of course.

Canon FD has a nice short flange distance, but it is harder to find adapters to FD mount.

toni-a · 09-05-2016, 01:45 PM

Quote:The is more than 1 other manufacturers for suck focal length reducers.

It would be wise to pick one with a more flexible mount.

Canon EOS mount would be a candidate, as to it M42 can be adapted with cheap adapter rings, and also Nikon F-mount, Leica R-mount, Olympus OM mount, Pentax PK-mount, Yashica/Zeiss C/Y mount. And Canon EOS mount itself of course.

Canon FD has a nice short flange distance, but it is harder to find adapters to FD mount.

When it comes to adapters, the you can find plenty of Chinese low cost adapters, as long as no optics included you will be just fine, you can even have adapters with AF confirm chip.

I will be ordering some staff via http://www.aliexpress.com, the prices for adapters are dirt cheap ( same price as a piece of cake at a local cake shop) I guess it would be worth trying.

stoppingdown · 09-12-2016, 07:53 PM

Thanks for the link.

I got the lens today, but didn't have time to try it. Just ran the quick decentering test, and it passed.

For what concerns the adapter, at the moment I'm going to use the same I'm using for the Trioplan. For convenience, though, it probably makes sense to buy another.

Do you think a lens hood would make sense? The front element is about 1.5cm recessed... Today there was no sun so I couldn't try flare resistance; but a quick test done at home with an artificial light seemed to show that with a light source just out of the frame there is quite a few contrast reduction; and shielding with my hand improved things.