In the last years this has become one, if not thé, of the most notorious vintage lenses around. This is partly thanks to his very nice bokeh, more specific: the swirly(or swirley) bokeh effect.
The 44-2 is a Russian copy of the Carl Zeiss Biotar. This Biotar lens also produces this swirly bokeh. However, it is less popular due to the normally high price you pay for the lens and the condition is also, in general, less than of the 44-2’s you can find.
So, for the swirly bokeh effect the 44-2 seems to be the better option: a reasonable build quality, optical performance that is very neat for a vintage lens and with the desired swirly bokeh effect.
In this review I shall discuss the Helios 44-2 in more detail and look into the fact why this lens is so popular. I do this from my own experience with the lens, that I own for about 5 years now, and from my experience refurbishing (cleaning glass and/or re-lubricate) the countless copies I have had of these lens. Also, I keep in mind the other vintage lenses that are out there and that I have owned/ still own. This will not be a review where I discuss the exact optical resolution of the lens and let you show pictures of lens charts.
BUILD QUALITY
The build quality from the 44-2 is what you can generally expect of a vintage Russian lens. It is built very well, although this can vary somewhat different per copy. Most of the time the back of the lens is a bit loose compared with the whole of the lens. This is probably due a less high tolerance, precision tolerance, but this does not affect the overall performance of the lens. The aperture ring can sometimes run a little stiff, but is still very well usable. On the aperture blades itself there is, more often than not, some oil present. This, again, does nothing about the performance of the aperture blades itself. It will not run more or less smooth with or without oil on them. The focus does differ a lot per copy of the lens. One time it is very smooth and the other time it is very stiff. There can also be cases where you can feel/hear there is something like sand in the focus helicoids (this of course is not really good for the lens). Depending on what you like and how stiff it is, a re-lubrication with (white) lithium grease solves all earlier mentioned problems, also the ones with the sand(most of the times).
Of course, this vintage lens is also made entirely out of metal :)
At the end a good 7 out 10 points, mainly due to the fact that the build quality can differ per copy and the most of the time little loose back-end of the lens. Keep in mind that with some little effort you can make almost every copy of this lens a 8/10.
OPTICAL QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE
The optical quality of the Helios 44-2 is, especially for a vintage lens, very good. In the center of the frame you can even compare it to the nifty fifty of Canon. Do you go outside this center of the frame than the sharpness will quickly go back and you will get a somewhat soft and slightly distorted look. This is the case with most vintage lenses, however the sharpness in general is a lot better than most of the vintage lenses, especially in the center of the frame.
The colours that come straight out of the lens are a bit dull and unsaturated, this is a bit exaggerated, so in general this gives a soft vintage look to the image. To emphasize this effect somewhat better, I advise to gear down the colour and contrast settings on your camera (my settings on the Sony A7R -3 contrast and -1 saturation). This can in combination with the final post-processing of the picture give you a full vintage look.
If you do not like chromatic aberration you are good with this lens. There is almost no to none chromatic aberration.
The only downside of this lens is, as is with most vintage lenses, the enormous lens flares you often get when shooting at the sun or at a sunny day. Nice if you want them, but not the whole time. Even if you use a sun hood, the lens flares can get the upper hand in the picture.
The best for last, the swirly bokeh. This makes, in combination with the sharpness, the fact that this lens has become so popular. Because of this bokeh, the lens is ideal for portraits or centered close-up work and nature photography. The bokeh helps to emphasize the subject and is not too busy, as is the case with for example the Trioplan lenses.
To achieve this bokeh effect the light needs to come for a large part from behind the subject and depending on the distance to the subject, the distance of the subject to the background, you also need to find the correct combination of these distances. It works the best with trees in the background. The leaves of the trees let some points of light trough, the lens takes these points of light and ‘’swirls’’ them around your subject. For example, you do not get the effect if you take a picture of the subject when the subject is standing in front of the sky or the background is far away from the subject.
However, even without using the lens for the swirly bokeh you can achieve some nice shots due to the colours produced by the lens and the soft bokeh.
CONCLUSION
At the end this is a really neat vintage lens, a real must-have. The optical quality is very good and the swirly bokeh it can produce is very nice. Recommended!
Do you also want to buy this lens? Make sure that the focus and aperture runs smoothly and there is no fungus present in the lens. A few minor scratches will not affect the image quality. Remember, this is an old lens with no or ‘’historic’’ coating, so eventually you will get some minor scratches on it due to the fact the coating is not harder than glass, as it is nowadays.
If you have any questions regarding this lens, or the Helios 44, 44M, 44M-4 and up? Feel free to ask!
