Helios 44M
Leica CL + Helios 44M 58mm f2
Among my collection of M42 mount lenses that migrated from my former DSLR setup to the new mirrorless setup, is the Soviet Helios 44M. I do not have occasion to use this lens often, but I keep it for sentimental reasons: It came ‘native’ to the Zenit camera I used as a child and still own today {see here for my camera ownership history, if that is of interest}.
In the process of doing some online research on using M42 mount lenses on mirrorless crop sensor camera bodies, I was surprised to come across all kinds of sensational stuff written about the Helios M44. I had no idea that this was such a well-known, and apparently infamous, lens, associated with crazy distortions and the kind of tunnel-like swirling ‘bokeh’ that makes images appear photoshopped. Honestly, I did not recall my Helios producing anything remotely as wild as some of the example images I was seeing. To my eye, it was basically just a bit more surreal than my beloved Zeiss Jena Panacolar, as well as a bit less sharp. For that reason, I tended to favour the Panacolar and thought of the Helios as redundant. But now I was curios to revisit my old friend the Helios. And today I finally did.
All photos taken at f2.
I suppose I can see what people mean by the frantic swirling and such. But: I had to deliberately try to make this happen; it wasn’t as if every photo shot with the lens the looked like this. In fact, most of them were fairly tame and the ones I am posting here are the ones with the most exaggerated distortions I was able to tease out.
Granted, as someone who is not especially interested in bokeh I am not well-versed on the best ways to elicit those kind of effects. I am also aware that on my cropped sensor the widest aperture is not quite as wide as it would be on a full frame {although: I have questions about this as well.}
Still… maybe my standards of what constitutes acceptable levels of distortion are just wildly skewed, but I don’t see anything radically different here from what I am accustomed to seeing with other vintage lenses. The main thing I am noticing, is that this lens is a bit less sharp at f2 than I would like. I would probably not shoot it lower than f2.8 under normal circumstances.
Backlit bokeh.
Okay, I made a real effort here and yes it can be wild. But I am pretty sure I can get similar effects, under similar lighting conditions, out of my Zeiss Jena lenses, and my 1951 Leica Summicron, and my 1940s Rolleiflex, etc. I don’t know. I think a lot depends on how you take the picture, what’s in the background, etc.
In any case, I have a sentimental attachment to the Helios, and will try to use it more from now on. I do like the way the light circles and swirling branches form a halo around the wreath in this photo, as well as echo the circular shapes in the sweater’s colourwork motif. So the distortive effects do not necessarily have to be distracting; they can be part of the composition.
