58mm Helios & Biotar - my first step in your world

[56 DIN]

today the first M42 adapter arrived and i could mount my Biotar 58/2 and my Helios 44-2, just catched in ebay.
By the way - probably this question is not new: why has the Helios a vice versa printed aperture ring ?
I did both wide open to f 16 and am quite confident that i´ll take them to try serious pics. Here i only wanted to see, how details and colour are managed in a difficult situation - even with direct flash. From reading your posts i expected a bigger difference...the advantage of the expensive lens is clearly in the reflecting area - not so much in structuring the dogmade testtool


Helios at f2


Biotar at f 2


Helios at f 16


Biotar at f 16

Thomas

[Arctures]

Excellent shots, einrah and what a great lens choice for the 'first step'! Helios really rocks but I also like Biotar's 3D

[JohnBee]

Wow the Biotar really shines in this test!
Do you mind telling me what version of 44-2 you used(ie. classic, silver etc)?
And how do both lenses have the same no. of blades?

I'm thinking its time to turn my attention toward the Biotar now

[56 DIN]

arctures...the helios is my personal surprise - i´d never bought this wobbeling lens on a fleemarket, it only was the recommenation in the forum here
johnbee...the Helios is a 44-2 with 8 blades, black std, think built from 2 lenses, because the aperture ring is labeled vice versa function
Biotar is black precise mechanic, even it has been opened several times, but with this age it is probably normal, with 17 blades,
both are M 42 used on a Nikon converter.

The interesting thing is that i come down from a automatic attitude to see my mistakes, knowing that they exist, but having them ignored, cause Matrix metering and AF and Flash automatics have told me to forget, that i am the responsible part. I start from zero now.

Taking MFlens means go for fishing instead going to the mart freezer

Thomas

[kansalliskala]

Helios is preset lens: you turn the ring that has the aperture numbers so that the number is aligned with the red dot on the very front ring of the lens. So you restrict the movement of the aperture and don't have to look at the lens after focusing. The just close the aperture. Very handy when using non-TTL metering and you really have to know the aperture before focusing.

[56 DIN]

@ kansalliskala

thanks a lot, this was going so hard, that i didn´t realize it, but now i testet it and everything is super