#helios44-2_58mmf2

[thevendimiaexp-blog]

26th February 2017, a date that I was excited for from a long time. It was the date for the 1st North East Style Awards by North East Style Magazine.

For other photographers it was more of a normal day but for me it was my very first experience with event photography. The anxiousness was more because of the fact I chose to cover with a complete set of vintage lenses adapted to my Sony a5000. I knew I could trusted my Helios and Focal MC lens but the Soligor was bit doubtful as I hadn't used it much and I did notice it could miss the focus even when the peeking showed it was focused (not that the lens was defective , it’s just the fact that I didn't practice much with it).I did take  that risk for some moments but once the Fashion Sequence started showcasting the creations by Jyoti & Kashmiri , I decided lets not take the risk anymore. The Focal MC is comparatively a heavy lens than the others but it enabled me a versatile range of focal lengths.

Speaking about the Fashion Sequence, it was a great surprise for me as the designers had chosen the theme of “Vintage” too. And so it was a day

“FOR THE VINTAGE,BY THE VINTAGE and OF THE VINTAGE.”

[thevendimiaexp-blog]

[thevendimiaexp-blog]

Couldnot stop myself from sharing his video by @vintagelensesforvideo showing the magic of Helios 44-2 58mm f2 lens, one of the best lenses and I guess the one which every vintage shooter has.

Do follow his works at

Twitter: http://twitter.com/VintageLenses Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VintageLense... Instagram: http://instagram.com/vintagelensesfor... Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/alanbesedin Website: http://www.vintagelensesforvideo.com/ Tumblr: http://vintagelensesforvideo.tumblr.com/

[thevendimiaexp-blog]

Why and How Vintage?

I got my first camera in 2015. It was a Sony a5000. I had always wanted a camera that was small and light weighted. And upon the suggestion of a beloved friend of mine Mr. Andrew Bret Wallis , I bought the a5000. However, I did a miscalculation of the prices and ended up not buying the 55-210mm lens for Sony E mount. The 16-50mm Sony E mount was my only companion. Also the fact that all my friends had Nikon or Canon DSLR made it impossible for me to borrow one 55-210 for somedays from them. And then somewhere I heard about third party lenses. I thought it would be good to check if I could find one for myself but bad luck strikes again. No suitable third party lenses were available for me. 

However, I did see some people using some uncommon lenses with their mirrorless system. I got fascinated by those and did some more research and found them that they were using some of the old manual lenses adapting them to their cameras with suitable adapters. After investing a sufficient amount of time in researching about these lenses and adapters , I chose the Helios 44 58mm f2 lens to be my first vintage lens. This lens had a uniqueness as it gave a swirl to the bokeh or out of focus background. Luckily this time, I found it at Ebay India. So I had a lens made in USSR from the world war 2 era with an aperture to go wide upto f2 and with declicked aperture in just about 3600rs along with the adapter.

The lenses of those era definitely have some defects in them such as flares, distortions, color aberrations but I loved those as they defects giving each image a characteristic to itself.

Till now I tried my hands with 4 vintage lenses viz. Helios 44 58mmf2, Jupiter 8 50mm f2, Auto Soligor 135mm f2, Focal MC 80-200 f3.5. I will be sharing the images clicked in the future posts.

[thevendimiaexp-blog]

“The Helios 44 58mm f2 : My First Vintage Glass.

The Helios 44 58mm f2 is one of the most mass produced lenses ever. Although the production has since stopped, there are still millions of them around making it a very affordable alternative. The russian Hellios 44 is a copy of the Carl Zeiss Biotar 58mm. Although its naming might suggest otherwise, the Helios 44 is not a 44mm lens but a 58mm f2 lens.

It was manufactured with M42 mount, Pentax K mount and even M39 thread mount for the Zenit 3-M and the Revueflex M39 SLR cameras. Most lenses were manufactured in M42 to be used on Zenit cameras.