| Latest Review Posted | Helios 44-2 58mm F2
Where do I start... the price! It's an absolute bargain, for $20 nothing comes close for value- it out-dose my $600 da* 55mm in terms of Bokeh and colour rendition! The Bokeh is smooth and quite busy- which personally I like. The sharpness is very good even wide open at f2. One may think that f2 isn't that wide but believe me that extra 8mm over a normal 50mm 1.8 makes a considerable difference. I have noticed absolutely no fringing or aberrations of any shape or form when shooting with this lens. It works well on both film and APS-C but with film tends to portray slightly cooler colour when inside under artificial light but this is of no major hindrance to the final image at all. Now for the bad. The build quality in terms of "what would happen if i where to drop it on to concrete out of a five story window" is rather good, bearing in mind it Russian so it's going to be made out of tank-grade iron! It's more the functionality of the build, like the fact that the focus ring gets stuck/slips if you move it too quickly. Also it has a aperture pin which isn't pushed down when used on a K-mount camera so you have to super glue it down! Also the Aperture Ring is quite flimsy. Finally being m42 mount isn't ideal, meaning you have to put the adapter on the camera, screw in the lens, then figure out that the aperture pin has come out so then you have to unscrew it...........!!!!!
But all the negatives are outweighed by the sheer stupid value of this thing! I have no hesita... |
