What a sensational looking lens.

peterm1

peterm1

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Sonnar2 said:
Borderline crazy like all these vintage 85/1.5 lenses... but looks good at the Pentax K10!
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The Helios 40-2 was still being manufactured in the 1990s with MC, so although the design is oldish, all the examples may not be.

The right camera for this lens is without a doubt some Zenit TTL series up to 12XP or, if you must have long exposure times and other capitalist rubbish, a Praktica. A modern digital camera, even a Pentax despite its M42 heritage, looks like a chimaera with it. The stupid thing would not have a slightest chance of surviving even a modest EM pulse whereas a Zenit TTL would just keep on taking pictures. :D
 
peterm1 said:
The Helios 40 85mm f 1.5

http://galactinus.net/vilva/retro/eos350d_helios.html
http://www.photozone.de/8Reviews/lenses/helios_85_15/index.htm

Unfortunately this only appears to have been made in M42, not in LTM and because it is an 85mm f 1.5 that rules out adapters. But what a sexy looking hunk of metal and glass this is. Has anyone used it? I had never heard of this until I stumbled on it yesterday when researching FSU ultra wides.
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I used to have one that was 39. It had a very thin ring to make it 42, no RF coupling of course. I used it on a Cosina.
Nice lens, big and heavy but nice. Not very good but it makes interesting portraits.

Cheers,

Michiel Fokkema
 
Sonnar2 said:
This is what I prefer in the f/1.5 short telephoto class, Dr. Seltsam...

Weighs half of the Helios monster. Also can be sure that every single lens (or camera) was quality checked before leaving the works.
;)
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CZJ Biotar 1.5/75 Series II right? Took me some time to find, since I knew about the Biotar 1.5/75, but the f/22 minimum f-value and unfamiliar shape was puzzling. So I resorted to googling and found out that the Series II was made with f/22 as the minimum aperture.

Yes, it's much lighter than the Helios 40, and made with superior quality control, but the Soviets were already planning for a more distant future, even past EM pulses and WW3. Just remember what Einstein said about WW4. And a Zenit TTL + Helios 40 make a hell of a "stick".:rolleyes:
 
This is very flattering here in Russia to hear that Helios-40 is great lens.
Actually it is complete rubbish. But about a year or so, the biggest Russian photog`s forum gone crazy about Helios thus making price go higher about 4-6 times. From $50 to $200-300.

Helios seduced weak minds of Canon users with two things:
f/1.5 speed and price.
So they started to shoot something like this using Canon 1Ds M2:

f7417ea9346a.jpg


As for me - see above. Helios-40 the Son Of Biotar75 made mostly for oscilloscopes in 50s is complete suckz.

The link to Russian `Helionatic asylum` is here: http://club.foto.ru/forum/11/261862


By the way, after enough Helios mesurbating these people shoot:
- Spy and obsevation optics
- Lens blocks from tank sights
- Superspeed Cine-lens
 
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And just forgot to add.

The prototype soviet rangefinder of 50-60s - Kometa (Comet) was targeted to have Helios-40 85/1.5 as one of system lens.
 
I had the Helios 40 for some time, used it on my Minolta X700. Very big and very heavy. Soft wide open, ofcourse. In the end I found it to be just too big and heavy. Not for me.
 
QUAsit said:
This is very flattering here in Russia to hear that Helios-40 is great lens. Actually it is complete rubbish. But about a year or so, the biggest Russian photog`s forum gone crazy about Helios thus making price go higher about 4-6 times. From $50 to $200-300.
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Oh, I guess then prices inside Russia have just equalled out with those outside; back in Germany it's been difficult to get a Helios 40-2 for under 100-150 EUR for at least two years already.

QUAsit said:
The link to Russian `Helionatic asylum` is here: http://club.foto.ru/forum/11/261862

By the way, after enough Helios mesurbating these people shoot:
- Spy and obsevation optics
- Lens blocks from tank sights
- Superspeed Cine-lens
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Thanks for the link to that thread, it is actually quite funny reading even though the 2800 or so replies are a bit much. Tigra Girl appears to be a scary person. :)
Also some talk about Lensbabies, cinema projection optics etc. Í missed the tank optics, though.

Philipp
 
rxmd said:
Oh, I guess then prices inside Russia have just equalled out with those outside; back in Germany it's been difficult to get a Helios 40-2 for under 100-150 EUR for at least two years already.


Thanks for the link to that thread, it is actually quite funny reading even though the 2800 or so replies are a bit much. Tigra Girl appears to be a scary person. :)
Also some talk about Lensbabies, cinema projection optics etc. Í missed the tank optics, though.

Philipp
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The Helios is certainly priced over its quality. I wouldn't pay more then 50 € for it. I wouldn't say that it "sucks" like QUAsit, but it certainly is not among the best Russian lenses. If I had to choose a Russian 35 mm SLR lens for portraits I would probably just use the Helios 44M. It has a slightly narrower field of view than your standard 50 mm normal lens and it's fast enough, but not too sharp for portraits at wide open or f/2.8.

By the way, I do not advocate national or ethnic stereotypes, but the model on the shots looks like an archetype of young Russian woman. Now somebody will probably tell me that she's not an ethnic Russian...:eek:
 
Okay, I am a bit rough in my words, but somehow after that long-long Heliotopic on foto.ru I suddenly started to hate that rouunded-whirlpool type bokeh of badly corrected old planar-like lens. The problem is that too many people consider that 'Amazing picture!!!'.
from Soviet portrait lenses I think Jupiter-9 and -11 (Sonnar 85 and 135 copies - both rangefinder and SLR versions) the best
From Soviet glasses for 'value for money' portrait and all-around photography. Helios-40 costs imo - 1400-1500 rubles ($50-60) and this is fair price. I bought Helios for 50 dollars and sold it in 3 months for 50 dollars. That`s all. No hystery, no helionatic scandals. And still I keep J9 and J11 lenses in both variations.

P.S. If considering that all slavic-like girls from ex-USSR: Russia + Ukraine + Belorussia are russians, ok - this girl is an archetype of young Russian woman. But in fact she is from Belorussia as far as I know (Tigra Girl guy who make a shot is from Minsk, capital of Belorussia).
More or less we are all the same, the difference is that:
- Ukrainians have vodka with lard (salo)
- Belorussians have vodka with dranicks (potato fritters)
- Russians either have vodka with vodka or vodka with any spicy/salty dishes they can reach. ))))))))
 
I used to have a Helios 40-2. It had some neat effects, but in the end, it really was a gimmick lens and really unsuitable for day to day shooting. It was HEAVY and focusing was stiff. Atleast it was cheap!
 
By the way, I do not advocate national or ethnic stereotypes, but the model on the shots looks like an archetype of young Russian woman. Now somebody will probably tell me that she's not an ethnic Russian...

I agree and I am married to one! Far from the cold war stereotype younger Eastern European women including Russians often have this "look." ie very attractive

What I have noticed about some Russian women (my wife included) is that as soon as you point a camera in their direction they tend to go into the kind of pose the young model in the Russian forum is using. Kinda sweet really. Makes for good photography however..............!

P.S. On the topic of the Helios, I certainly agree it is over priced right now and would not be tempted to buy one at the price they are going for. But I like the look of big very fast lenses even if they are a pain to carry around. And I like the short depth of field they offer.
 
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Thank you Huss. Wow this is an old thread. So old I had forgotten I started it. But now it is alive once more, like the mummy that has been resurrected from its tomb, if anyone else has more examples from this lens I for one would be interested to see them. It is even more relevant now than in 2007 when this started because of the advent of so called evil cameras which has brought so many lenses back into service. Strangely enough I did recently read once more about this lens on the internet, having not thought about it for years. Synchronicity!

http://bobatkins.com/photography/reviews/helios-40-2_85mm_f1-5_review.html
 
Since I'm only one decade late to this thread, I'd like to remark that I'm ready now to purchase that EUR50 cr*p lens.
With the zoom function of modern EVFs I can nail focus with it for sure.

:D
 
It's funny how sometimes you see a thread here at RFF that seems new and you start reading it because it's interesting then suddenly realise it's ten years old. :D

Good thread though! :)
 
Every now and then one of these threads gets posted or revived and I think, wow that's a cool lens. I've got an M42-FD adaper, so I can use this lens on all my FD bodies, and I've got an FD-M43 speedbooster, so I can use it on digital... and then I remember I have a Canon FL 85mm F1.8 (which is also a 'character' lens, but with better quality control). So, really, how often would I use it?

Stupid GAS for cool/quirky lenses... Despite all logic, I'll probably own one someday.
 
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