Helios 44-2 58mm F2 Russian Lens for Sony E NEX (for E-mount cameras)

Product Information

However, I find that it appears over too much of the image and covers important features such as the eyes. The majority are using Helios 44-2, but there are also people, who prefer bokeh and build of other modifications.

Later lenses had a different coating to earlier models, which has an impact on their propensity to flare. Now I’m no genius by any stretch, but I get the feeling this isn’t the original case that comes with the Helios 44-2 58mm lens. Though constantly hailed as one of the most mass-produced lenses, Helios is — for lack of a better word — a stunning performer. The minimum focus isn’t great compared to other 50s, but otherwise it performs beautifully, in my experience. Using an EF to FX Metabones and adding a lens hood would likely help avoid this lens flare from happening.

This of course won’t appear in every image, you sort of have to get the distance and focus just right to get it to get the out-of-focus area to swirl this crazy.

Beyond that, there are many variations, and even within one model type there are variations between colours (black with white and red paint, black with yellow and green paint etc), and where they were made (note the different symbol on the body that denotes which factory in the former Soviet Union). After a quick test shoot I decided I was going to shoot this Helios 58mm 44-2 exclusively for the entire trip.

In any discussion about manual lenses, inevitably, the Helios 44 is bound to come up sooner rather than later. But you can definitely put it to the test when passing animals that are a little less weary of human presence. Also, they started making Helios lenses from early 1970s, while the early Helios 44s were made in KMZ factory since 1952.

Hi Adam, I’ve never tried because when I’ve started looking into M39 lenses in the past it’s quickly become complicated, due to differences in the distance to film/sensor and the variation of M39 mount. Its slightly narrow focal length suits my style of shooting very well, and the images it makes impress me almost every time. In this blog post I want to share with you why you should consider using vintage lenses on your digital camera. If you like the creative impact of a “swirling bokeh” lens, but shoot with a micro 4/3 camera, then your comment that the helios 44 is “too long” gets a supporting vote from me.The received wisdom is that the various Helios 44 models share the same optical design, and should be pretty similar. I advertised a job lot of brownies and other pieces I didn’t use on Facebook Marketplace and quickly sold them. Something that is fairly interesting is that each lens has the logo of the plant where it was made visible on the front, so you can work out who (probably) made your lens by referring to this handy page (or this one if you’d rather avoid Google Translate).