If you’re interested in beginning a vintage lens collection from the ’80s and ’90s, the Helios 44 series is an excellent starting point, renowned for its stunning, large swirling bubble bokeh.
The series encompasses several variants, each with unique characteristics. I personally own the 44M, 44-2, and 44-4, all built to emulate the Zeiss Biotar lens.
Overall, these lenses offer impressive quality and performance for the price, making them an excellent non-radioactive vintage lens option.
In this particular review, I will focus solely on the 44-2.
You can buy these lenses on eBay or even on Amazon. I’ve bought a few from Amazon and a few from eBay. I prefer Amazon personally, but sometimes they are harder to find.
I also don’t buy UV filters for these old lenses since it’s sometimes almost just as cheap to buy a new lens if anything happens.
You’ll also need an adapter, depending on your camera. I use the Fotasy adapters.
Lens
- Helios 58mm f2 44-2 M42 Mount Lens – Amazonย
This lens is not radioactive.
Adapters
- M42 to Sony E-Mount – Amazon
- M42 to Fujifilm X-Mount – Amazon
- M42 to Canon EFM – Amazon
- M42 to Nikon 1 – Amazon
- M42 to M43 Mount – Amazon
- M42 to G-Mount – Amazon
Helios 44-2 Filter Size
The filter size of the Helios 44-2 is 49mm.
Helios 44-2 First Impressions
While the Helios lens series has many options, the 44M-2 ranks low on my favorites. Nonetheless, it produces some of the most striking renderings I’ve seen.
The main drawback of this lens is its “preset aperture,” which can make aperture selection a nuisance. Essentially, the aperture has two rings – one for setting the aperture limit and another for adjusting the aperture within that limit. If you set the aperture limit at f5.6, the secondary ring allows you to shoot between f2 and f5.6 without ever passing f5.6. While this feature may seem cool, the secondary ring doesn’t indicate the actual aperture value within that range, making aperture adjustments unnecessarily complicated.
However, if you’re filming a video and need a de-clicked aperture with a preset limit, the 44M-2 may be an ideal choice. Some companies even repack these optics into cine housings for this very purpose.
Like other vintage lenses, achieving optimal results with the Helios 44-2 requires careful attention to detail. While this lens has decent sharpness and stunning bokeh, it flares excessively compared to many modern lenses and is prone to spherical aberrations.
For this shot I was at about the minimum focus distance from my daughter in her car seat, focusing on her eyelids. I was somewhere around f5.6.
Corner To Corner Sharpness
Center Sharpness is possible on the Helios 44M-2, but the edge performance is pretty bad, and the corners are even worse.ย
This is not unusual for old 35mm lenses that are being adapted to deal with the microlenses found in modern digital sensors, especially full-frame ones. Perhaps curved sensors will solve this problem one day.
On an APS-C camera, the crop gets rid of the worst of it, but you’ll still notice it in the extreme edges.
The soft edges in images captured with the Helios 44-2 are not necessarily due to the lens’s inability to produce sharp details in the corners and edges. Rather, they are slightly out of focus due to the lens’s significant spherical aberrations. While it’s possible to focus on the edges, doing so will cause the center to be out of focus.
Increasing the f-stop will increase the depth of field, resulting in sharper corners. However, it’s essential to note that using a higher f-stop can also lead to diffraction, which may result in an overall loss of resolution. Thus, aperture adjustments are necessary to mitigate this effect, and you’ll generally find a sweet spot at around f5.6 to f8 with most cameras.
The issue with soft edges is less pronounced the further away the subject is from the lens, as greater distance results in increased depth of field at infinity. Here’s an example of an image taken with the Helios 44-2 straight out of the camera on an APS-C XT2 at f5.6. Considering the price point of under $100, the image quality is decent for an APS-C camera.
Below is a sample where I try to focus at the edges at f2. You can see the center falls out of focus, and there is very little distortion. This was a full-frame shot on the A7rII.
In terms of overall sharpness, I’ve yet to get an image that has blown me away as I get with the Fujinon 56mm f1.2, especially wide open. However, it still can produce some very nice detail at the right f-stop (around f4-f8) and at the right distance. What’s really nice about this lens is the smooth rendering.
Diffraction & The Sweet Spot
I like to do these diffraction tests because they always help me find the lens’s sweet spot. Typically, diffraction is influenced by the pixel pitch of the camera sensor, but sometimes, some lenses still perform better than others.
At f2, even several feet from the wall, the lens is hardly usable unless you want to sacrifice sharpness for big bubble bokeh and shallow depth.
F2.8 is a significant improvement over F2, and between F4 and F8, the lens seems to give the sharpest results.
Bokeh / Swirling Cat Eye Effect
The Helios 58mm f2 lens is known for the swirling bokeh effect, especially the 44M-2. 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.
You also won’t get as much of the swirly effect if you’re shooting on an APS-C camera. Below is a sample from the Sony A7rII’s full-frame sensor.
Here are full lens bokeh samples using the Mitakon M42-Fuji FX Speed Master. This allows for a full-frame circle of projection on an APS-C sensor. The speed master adds four elements and reduces clarity and contrast slightly.
Flaring & Ghosting
Flaring and ghosting on these retro lenses is usually quite the spectacle, and the 44M-2 is no exception. My lens doesn’t specify if it’s multi-coated or not, but honestly, I don’t mind what it’s doing here.
What’s cool is you actually get that classic ring pattern lens flares that modern lenses typically don’t produce.
I was somewhere around F5.6 on the left. On the right, you can see what flaring becomes at f16.
The flaring is very interesting compared to other lens models. The 44M seems to bloom and glow more, and the 44-4 maintains a bit more clarity.
Helios 58mm F2 44M-2 Review | Bottom Line
These old Helios lenses are by no means amazing compared to what you get with some of the new stuff; this mainly comes down to the build quality.
Obviously we’re not seeing modern coatings and you’ll have to work with the flaring these lenses produce. Corner-to-corner sharpness is not that amazing but you can get some nice results in the center of the image. What really makes this lens special is that buttery smooth rendering when shot at the faster apertures.
That doesn’t mean the Helios 44M-2 sucks. They don’t, far from it actually, and they can be a lot of fun on APS-C cameras where you’re cropping for only the best parts of the lens.
The 44-2 lens exhibits impressive center sharpness and adequate micro-contrast, while its corners can resolve details when shooting subjects from a distance and using a stopped-down aperture. Additionally, the lens creates beautiful and usable patterns through flaring, which adds to its overall appeal.
Overall, the lens offers unique image rendering characteristics that are not easily found in modern lenses, all for a reasonable price of approximately $60.
However, the lens’s preset aperture can be a drawback as it was a design flaw from the early ’80s and makes it difficult to determine the current aperture setting. As a result, the 44M-4 or 44M are often preferred. Despite this, the 44-2 looks slightly different from the other two lenses.
Is the 44-2 the best Helios lens?
Although I currently only own three Helios lenses, I can already discern that the 44-4 lens offers sharper images and better contrast than the 44-2. This difference is particularly apparent when shooting at faster apertures, and I have tested this across three separate copies of the 44-2.
While I am still in the process of testing and comparing the 44-4 to the 44-2, I plan to write up a full review eventually. It is possible that the 44-4 may have other flaws that are absent in the 44-2, but at present, I would recommend the 44-4 over the 44-2 unless one desires a de-clicked aperture or anamorphic conversion.
Moreover, I have heard that the 44-7 lens is quite remarkable if one can acquire a copy.
Helios 58mm F2 44-2 Sample Images
Many of the images here are colored with the Core Color Presets.
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what film preset do you use for this photos? it’s look like old 35mm film camera ;D
Some were VSCO, some where just Classic Chrome which I gave some adjustments to and faded.
I use this Helios 44-2 with an MTF body and consider buying either Meike 35mm f1.7 or 7Artisans 35mm f1.2 because 35mm seems more suitable to portrait photography. How does the Helios stack up against these two Chinese lenses when it comes to center sharpness? I do not care about the edges or corners but the center is essential. Many thanks in advance.
The 7Artisans 35mm f1.2 is not sharp at all. The Meike is decently sharp and some of their lenses are very sharp, I think it depends a little on copy to copy variations. I can’t remember how sharp the Helios is. I don’t remember it being very sharp wide open. The Meike might be the winner there.
Thanks a lot! I will go with the Meike.
If you have followed to this part of the thread – you may see very different answers to the question today – compared to the answers you would have got only 5 years ago. Just rememeber this if you have come here after looking at older postings elsewhere.
Over the last 3-4 years, the arrival of fast, modern, inexpensive Chinese and Korean lenses with native mounts for M4/3 and Fuji APS mirrorless from Mieke, 7-Artisans, Kamlan, Cheecar/Fujian and others in the $30-120 USD range have been a game changer over adapting old film camera lenses. You get a compact modern lens, with multicoating, free of fungus and dust – as well as avoiding the need for a lens adapter which increases rigidity in the system. This means a lighter weight, smaller size piece of kit – and to me, means that I can carry more lenses in my camera bag than before. It also means – no long evenings searching eBay for dubious quality 40 year old film lenses !!
I have one of theses new lenses in 8mm f2.8, 25mm f1.8, 35mm f1.6 and 50mm f1.8; giving me a prime les that covers the film-era “full-frame” perspective from 16mm to 100mm. All share the same image quality of old lenses – in that without expensive & complex internal lens arrangements and high density of aspheric glass of new lenses from Olympus, Panasonic and Fuji, they have central sharpness and moderate edge softness when at wide aperture. I see these faults as their positive “characters” to be used creatively, rather than their flaws . However are all certaily good enough for full field sharpness in 10×8 prints or HD computer screens when the aperture is closed to between f5.6 and f8. They are all small, and take up the room of 2 legacy film era lenses.
As with legacy lenses, and indeed all lenses, the contrast and colour in your pictures is helped significantly by using the correct geometry lens hoods.
I agree with Alik – The “ultra fast” new lenses for M4/3 and APS Fuji with apertures of F0.95 to F1.4 look fun – but they all make too much of a sacrifice in acuity and contrast or colour rendition to get such wide apertures. And – you can have such a thing as “too little” depth of field in a composition ! This is just the same issue as in film era lenses – where the “basic” F2.0 standard lenses were often sharper than the expensive F1.2 and F1.4 models.
Each of the new lens makers has a “signature” quality factor: Meike and 7-Artisans have great mechanical build, and compete very closely on price. Personally, I like the Meike approach in favouring high microcontrast in the image with “film style colour balance” because, to save time later, I like to shoot JPEGs and get the picture right “in camera” (keeping RAW images only for low light or obviously challenging lighting). But since post-processing can fix near anything today, don’t let this unduely sway your choice.
The only thing I miss about my old “film-era” lenses – is that they had “click-stop” aperture rings. You could adjust them without taking the camera from your eye. Modern lenses are built to help film-makers and so have smooth “clickless” aperture rings – so you may need to take the camera from your eye before shooting. Personally – this is no hardship – since if I wanted fast shooting I would be using my dedicated AF / stabilised zoom lenses.
This is why I like Alik’s website – because we get to read about these newer lenses tested in the real world – and see the results as photographs too. Just remember – any lens has “faults” if you zoom in to see each pixel – so read any reviewer’s comments from the photographic standpoint – not that of an optometrist. Given the wide range of inexpensive lenses now on offer – we really need good reviewers to try these lenses out to help make choices —- so keep up the good work Alik !
Thanks Paulc I was actually talking about this in a review I recorded. These little lenses are usually better than adapting. I’ve gone through 5 helios lenses and of those 5 only 2 are still usable. They just have too many issues but those Chinese lenses are great.
Lens Helios 44-2 With adapter for camera
I have a Helios 58mm f2 on the way. A gift from a friend. I need an m42 to Nikon F converter. Hopefully something that will allow focus to infinity. Suggestions?
Thank you
I’m not sure if there are adapters that will work with infinity on a Nikon F system. Might have to do some searching for that. I used to use the Fotodiox on my Canon 5D and it worked well.
Really Great Work, Awesome Article and Review of The Helios 44-2.
Hi, Alik. Terrific write-up. Question about the 44-2. Using it on a Sony A6600 to film a podcast in a controlled light environment. The camera is 11 feet from the talent, and the talent is seated approx 6 feet in front of a fireplace background. Trying to find the best settings on the 44-2 to focus the talent’s face but adequately blur the fireplace. Just wondering which of the aperture presets you’d start with to achieve these desired results. I don’t mind blurred edges at all, and I have a bumper sticker framed above the fireplace in the center that I’d like to be blurred but still legible. That’s been my biggest challenge working with this lens: Getting the talent razor sharp while blurring the background just enough where viewers can still make out what the bumper sticker says. I keep toying with the preset aperture, but keep getting frustrated with the results. And let’s just say that the problem isn’t the lens. It’s quite impressive and has the look I’m going for. I just think I’m not getting the best out of it because of these damned preset aperture settings. Blessings.
I’ll usually set the preset between f2 and f2.8 or f4. But it’s tricky because once you preset the aperture, the numbers don’t line up; it’s very unintuitive. But you could also just set the preset to be at f2 and leave it. But you might want f2.8 for sharper images.