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06-24-2022, 06:06 AM - 4 Likes   #4171
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MC Kaleinar-5N 100mm f2.8





06-28-2022, 02:58 AM - 7 Likes   #4172
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Industar-61A/3-MC @F11


Seascape, Bremerhaven
by Jerome, auf Flickr

@idk

Anonymous watching
by Jerome, auf Flickr
09-09-2022, 07:23 AM - 4 Likes   #4173
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09-09-2022, 07:29 AM - 8 Likes   #4174
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09-09-2022, 07:30 AM - 7 Likes   #4175
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MC Kaleinar-5N 100mm f2.8

09-14-2022, 08:32 PM   #4176
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^^^^^
@pepperberry farm: I really need to put you on "ignore" so I don't follow you down any more equipment rabbit holes.
10-08-2022, 08:12 AM - 2 Likes   #4177
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Helios-44K-4 58mm f 2.0.

Garden shots with the Pentax K-01 and Helios-44K-4 f 2.0.

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10-08-2022, 08:15 AM - 3 Likes   #4178
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More with Helios 58mm

More garden shops with the Helios-44K-4 58mm f 2.0.
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10-08-2022, 06:14 PM - 10 Likes   #4179
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I finally finished going through my pictures from a trip I took to Oregon in June. I brought just one lens again, this time a Helios-103 53mm f/1.8.



I've posted about it before. Made in Kyiv, Ukraine, in the '80's, it was available only for the Kiev 4M, one of the last in a series of rangefinders based on the Zeiss Ikon Contax. There was never a Leica-based FED-Zorki version, unfortunately. The lens is tiny, partly because it has no focus mechanism. That was built in to the camera, so to use one on a modern camera, you need an adapter handmade from the necessary parts an old Kiev camera. These adapters are available almost exclusively from Ukraine for very reasonable prices, often bundled with a "free" Helios-103 or Jupiter-8 for a total of around $60.



It's far from the best lens I've ever used, but it's perfectly adequate and a little quirky, which is the kind photographic experience I'm after these days.



The coatings reflect a lot of blue light, which can make it challenging to get the colors to come out the way I like. All that reflected blue light bounces around in the lens and taints the shadows, which becomes apparent if you push it in post: darker areas turn strongly blue compared to the rest of the picture. It can look weird without careful correction.



There's only a tiny bit of the swirl we associate with the "Helios" name. It's on par with other tiny, fast rangefinder lenses (the filter diameter is only 40.5mm). Something about mechanical vignetting, I believe.





This trip had a recurring theme of dead cars, I guess.



Despite my nit-picking above, overall, the Helios-103 is a great little lens to travel with.

10-08-2022, 09:13 PM   #4180
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QuoteOriginally posted by scratchpaddy Quote
I finally finished going through my pictures from a trip I took to Oregon in June. I brought just one lens again, this time a Helios-103 53mm f/1.8.



I've posted about it before. Made in Kyiv, Ukraine, in the '80's, it was available only for the Kiev 4M, one of the last in a series of rangefinders based on the Zeiss Ikon Contax. There was never a Leica-based FED-Zorki version, unfortunately. The lens is tiny, partly because it has no focus mechanism. That was built in to the camera, so to use one on a modern camera, you need an adapter handmade from the necessary parts an old Kiev camera. These adapters are available almost exclusively from Ukraine for very reasonable prices, often bundled with a "free" Helios-103 or Jupiter-8 for a total of around $60.



It's far from the best lens I've ever used, but it's perfectly adequate and a little quirky, which is the kind photographic experience I'm after these days.



The coatings reflect a lot of blue light, which can make it challenging to get the colors to come out the way I like. All that reflected blue light bounces around in the lens and taints the shadows, which becomes apparent if you push it in post: darker areas turn strongly blue compared to the rest of the picture. It can look weird without careful correction.



There's only a tiny bit of the swirl we associate with the "Helios" name. It's on par with other tiny, fast rangefinder lenses (the filter diameter is only 40.5mm). Something about mechanical vignetting, I believe.





This trip had a recurring theme of dead cars, I guess.



Despite my nit-picking above, overall, the Helios-103 is a great little lens to travel with.
Impressive! I particularly like how the lens rendered the light and colors in the first two of your photos. I have a Kiev 3AM that came with the Jupiter 8. One of these days I hope to get one of those adapters with the Helios-103 so that I can use the lenses on my Sony mirrorless camera. I suspect the Helios is a better lens than the Jupiter.
10-09-2022, 10:30 AM   #4181
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QuoteOriginally posted by scratchpaddy Quote
I brought just one lens again, this time a Helios-103 53mm f/1.8.
I'd give you two thumbs-up if I could...nice work!
10-11-2022, 06:21 PM - 6 Likes   #4182
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QuoteOriginally posted by paulh Quote
I'd give you two thumbs-up if I could...nice work!
Thank you very much!

QuoteOriginally posted by Andrew_Oid Quote
Impressive! I particularly like how the lens rendered the light and colors in the first two of your photos. I have a Kiev 3AM that came with the Jupiter 8. One of these days I hope to get one of those adapters with the Helios-103 so that I can use the lenses on my Sony mirrorless camera. I suspect the Helios is a better lens than the Jupiter.
Full disclosure, I selectively de-saturated the dirt a bit in the desert pictures to give them a more overexposed, sun-bleached look to better reflect the feel of the place. The lens tends to bring out the browns a little too prominently, so I have to dial it back a bit in post.

The Helios-103 does sharpen up more quickly than the Jupiter-8 as you stop it down, but I think I prefer the Jupiter overall, mainly for the colors. With old rangefinder lenses like this, especially Soviet ones based on ancient designs, it's entirely about your subjective aesthetic preferences. Most SLR lenses of the '70's and '80's were already far superior to these two lenses, at least from a technical perspective. I wouldn't use either one unless I was looking for "something different."

A couple more from the same trip:









10-11-2022, 07:20 PM   #4183
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QuoteOriginally posted by scratchpaddy Quote
Thank you very much!

Full disclosure, I selectively de-saturated the dirt a bit in the desert pictures to give them a more overexposed, sun-bleached look to better reflect the feel of the place. The lens tends to bring out the browns a little too prominently, so I have to dial it back a bit in post.

The Helios-103 does sharpen up more quickly than the Jupiter-8 as you stop it down, but I think I prefer the Jupiter overall, mainly for the colors. With old rangefinder lenses like this, especially Soviet ones based on ancient designs, it's entirely about your subjective aesthetic preferences. Most SLR lenses of the '70's and '80's were already far superior to these two lenses, at least from a technical perspective. I wouldn't use either one unless I was looking for "something different."

A couple more from the same trip:








Thanks for the response. The delicate colors of the desert images remind me of Kyle McDougall who shoots medium and large format and posts on YT. It's a good look IMO. That you can get such results with the lens speaks to your ability in post-processing then.
10-20-2022, 10:31 AM - 7 Likes   #4184
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QuoteOriginally posted by Andrew_Oid Quote
Thanks for the response. The delicate colors of the desert images remind me of Kyle McDougall who shoots medium and large format and posts on YT. It's a good look IMO. That you can get such results with the lens speaks to your ability in post-processing then.
Wow, thank you! That's high praise. I looked through some of his work and I really like what he does. His framing and colors work really well with the desert landscape. I've passed through many of the same towns he's visited. I see he's been to Amboy, too.

I got to drive up north again this past weekend, and I took an Industar-61 52mm f/2.8 this time. Mine is the Leica-mount version, made at the FED factory in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Most Soviet factory names were pragmatic descriptions of their location and purpose, like Krasnogorsk Mechanical Works (KMZ) or Leningrad Optical Mechanical Institute (LOMO). FED is unusual in that it bears the name of a person instead: Felix E. Dzerzhinsky, Polish noble turned revolutionary, architect of the Red Terror, and founder of the Cheka, the first Soviet secret police and predecessor of the KGB.



My copy was made in 1985. Just like the Industar-50, there was also an M42 version which was optically identical, so you can use basically this same lens on Pentax. I bought my copy for $21 seven years ago, and it's still a dirt-cheap lens today. Unfortunately, the M42 version is less common and 2-3x more expensive than the FED Leica-thread-mount (LTM) version.



I admit I really didn't like the lens at first. I've read high praise about its sharpness, and it is indeed sharp, but I didn't like anything else about it: the rendering and colors in particular. I just didn't get along with it. I haven't used it much since I bought it years ago, and I took it with me on a whim. Now, I'm really glad I did. Back then, I was hung up on one style of shallow-DOF, hyper-saturated photography that the lens isn't well suited for. I've tried to be more flexible lately, and it turns out, it's the perfect road trip lens. We get along just fine now.





As with all Industar lenses, it's a Tessar 4/3 formula, a Zeiss design dating back to 1902, which is a modified triplet with the last element replaced with a cemented doublet. Thanks to the simple formula, contrast is very good for a Soviet lens. As I mentioned before, it's very sharp, but the out-of-focus rendering is bland at best, jittery and distracting at worst. It's not the best portrait lens.







The consistency across the frame is some of the best I've seen in a rangefinder lens. Even the corners are pretty good.



I think I'll be using this lens a lot more in the future.

10-21-2022, 01:25 AM - 1 Like   #4185
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QuoteOriginally posted by pepperberry farm Quote
MC Kaleinar-5N 100mm f2.8

There's some really nice work with that lens, I don't think it comes up that often if I remember correctly
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