#72 Helios 44-2 vintage dereliction
January, 2024
The Helios 58mm f/2.8, hailing from the USSR era, is a budget-friendly lens with a cult following. Its charm lies in its imperfections: quirky swirly bokeh at wide apertures, a unique characterful rendering, and a manual focus that harkens back to a slower-paced photography. While not the sharpest or most technically proficient, it excels at creating dreamlike, vintage-inspired images, perfect for portraiture, artistic expression, and capturing fleeting moments with a touch of nostalgia. It's a lens for photographers who embrace the unexpected and find beauty in the unconventional.. Experimenting [and failling] with the Helios 44-2 lens. The reason I say it's a fail is because this lens from 1971 is from a batch that had the aperture labels in the wrong direction, meaning I was accidentally shooting wide open at f2.8, which this lens is notoriously soft at. Aside from the softness, the lens is a fun manual lens to play around with, though, and the subject matter felt fitting.
