Information on my received Helios - 103 lens

[former member]

RAFcamera, thankyou for checking. The very rare "converters" that have been made essentially allow use of Nikon S-Mount and Contax RF lenses on Leica cameras by building an entire contax mount that screws into the 39mm (or M-Mount) body. It has the entire focus helical built into it, and a cam that connects to the RF coupling of the camera. They typically go in the $1,000 range. They are anything but a simple adapter. I found it cheaper to buy 5 Nikkor lenses in LTM than to buy one of these "converters".

 

[xayraa33]

Cozva, the Helios 103 is a very good lens, I prefer it to the Jupiter for colour work. it is very simialar to a good Zeiss Biotar, nice OOF areas with velvety colour renditions esp. on portraits. As one member said, it is too bad it was not made in LTM. The Jupiter 8 is also a classic esp. for B & W shooting in low contrast situations, so that what I use the Jupiter for.Eventually you should own both, the price is certainly affordable.

 

[RafCamera]

I lost track of what is going on with these adapters. Did anybody made some sort of reverse adapter (to mount Helios lens onto LTM camera)?
If not, may be it is worth to try this?
BTW, why I don't receive notifications about new posts in this thread?

 

[wlewisiii]

I wonder if the lens block from a Helios-103 would fit into the Jupiter's body? That would be one relativly easy way to have a LTM Helios.

William

 

[taffer]

Raf, as far as I know, the idea a crazy group of people (myself included 🙂) had a while ago of building these Contax lens to LTM body adapters using Kiev lens helicals is still going on. The first prototype is being built and will be sent to SKGrimes for testing and evaluation. If it goes well, the idea would be to have them machined there.

 

[Mark D.]

I'm bumping an extremely old thread, but it is very relevant to my current interests.

Was anyone successful in making a DIY Contax adapter with the Kiev helical? Is it as simple as buying a broken Kiev and attaching the adapter to it then testing and modifying the depth of the adapter until it focuses properly to infinity?

 

[former member]

Amedeo did one better than this with a custom made helical. Several adapters were available from Hong Kong as well, under $250 or so.

Almost forgot: I hacked a Helios-103 into LTM using a close-up adapter for a Summar.

 

[Mark D.]

Amedeo does make amazing adapters.

The idea of making it myself along with the low(er) price tag is appealing to me. I'm hoping to find a bit of background information from the people that have attempted it before trying it myself.

 

[former member]

If you have s specific lens, it is often easiest to transfer of optics module into the focus mount of an LTM lens. I prefer that for making Zeiss Sonnars into Leica Mount. I've converted a Zeiss Tessar using Industar-61 mounts. I just bought two Exacta mount Tessars for conversion.