Hello dear visitors, dear subscribers, dear friends of my youtube channel Retro Foto House.
Today I'm ready for another review, but this time it won't be a review indeed but an exhaustive
buying guide dedicated to very well-known and so loved by photographers and filmmakers vintage
lens helios 44 -2. Based on German Carl Zeiss Biotar optical design and with its focal of 58
millimetres and f2 fastest aperture it brings a lot of value for money spent for buying it. People
love it because of its cheapness, incredible swirly bokeh, volume it gives to practically every
shooting scene and beautiful colors. In brief this is a must-have lens of every person in love with
creative photography. This lens was in production from 1967 to 1991 in USSR and was produced in
huge quantities-around 3 million pieces were built. In different years it was in production
in three factories and totally there are eight modifications of this lens. For example KMZ plant
here, Belomo plant-five modifications and Valdai plant- two modifications. Me personally I've sold
almost 2000 of helos 44 -2 and I can claim that I know it pretty well. And in the meantime I've
received a lot of queries from my subscribers and customers asking to explain in details what helios
44 - 2 modification is better and which one is worth to buy. As a result you are watching this
video where I share with you my seven years of experience dealing with this lens. Additionally
I had a chance to gather in my hands all modifications of hellos 44 -2 lens, so I'm able
to show you all strong and weak points of every modification, so you will be able to select a lens
that fits the most of your needs, depending if you are photographer a filmmaker. So let's start one
modification by one. What are the main features of every modification of helios 44-2 lens. I'll show
you. So this is a little quite little lens waiting 230 grams approx it has M42 mount,
so this lens can be used on almost every modern camera via adapter. For example here I have M 42
to Nex or Sony E system adapter and it works very well. So you screw in the lens, then you take your
Sony camera you attach it to the camera and you have the full range focusing from infinity to half
a meter, a bit little bit more than half a meter. You have your aperture control. I'll show you-you
have an aperture control her, this is preset lens, the maximum aperture if F2 the minimal
is F16. So for example how to use it. If you want to shoot at F/4 you turn the ring with the clicks,
you focus at wide-open and then by turning ring counterclockwise, you stop down to your desired
value. This how preset aperture feature works. The filter thread is 49 millimeters. So that it,
the details, it's it's a 8 blades iris, it has a 8 blades iris and as I said, 49 millimeters of
thread for filters and it has a single coated optics. So here I have in my hands the KMZ
modification, very early one and it's quite rare I would say, among all quantities all modifications
produced this modification represents around, I would say, maybe four five percent of total
production. The KMZ plant you see the sign. This modification is considered to be of a good built
and optical quality. However sometimes but not all the times it suffers as all helios family from oil
on the blades. In my copy as we may see,there is a bit of oil, but this is common thing as I said. So
this is rare KMZ modification of helos 44-2 lens. This one was built in 1972. Let's pass to another
plant, this is a Belomo plant, in it was produced in Belarus and there are different modifications.
I will show you the bodies like here. As you may see all the modifications of Belomo plant.
These modifications, first two modifications are quite rare. This one the earliest for example,
this one was made in 1971. Zebra modification, also of a good quality. So there is a,
you should pay attention to the rear flange part. Because often on the latest model there is a free
play on it and if you are shooting video for example, and you will turn the focus ring on
extreme positions, there will be wobbling of image, of your footage, because of this free
play on mount. This modification is free of play. All the same things, the focusing, the aperture,
filter thread, eight blades iris, here as you may see, there is no oil, this is very good. So it is
not quite good blackened the aperture petals and the white marking on the body, quite rare
modification. I would say around 2% of hole lenses of this modification. Next one also rare, this is
a this is a black varnished body Bellomo made 1973. All the same except the body appearance.
Also very good build quality, focusing is smooth, a bit of more free play, but still very tolerable,
sorry. And here you have. Also the single coated optics, but varnished black body with white
markings. Good quality. Next modification, this is also Bellomo although the petals are better
blackened, as you may see here, without oil from the plant, 1973 of year production. This
is a glossy black finish, this is extremely rare modification, me for example I have seen maybe few
pieces of this modification, so this is maybe less of 1% of all production was in this modification,
this lens is worth to recommend. A little bit of free play, but still everything is
OK. Single coated glass. Glossy black glossy body with white markings. Another one. This
one in Cyrillic writings 1978 modification, so this modification is worth to recommend because
very good build quality, generally no oil on the blades all very very limited quantity is here.
Green markings of aperture of depth of field and the distance scale in in yellow. No free
play on rear on rear part very important for filmmakers, smooth generally smooth focusing,
plates a free of oil and really very good build quality. So this is my personal preference I would
say. Because this modification of helos Belomo made which represents around 15% of all production
and it still can be quite easily found on ebay or in over the internet for buy. This one I recommend
for filmmakers. And the last latest modification, this is from the late 80s also Belomo made
helos 44-2 in Cyrillic writings, but body is completely different. There is no free play on
rear partб but please pay attention-sometimes the amount in flange is more deeper than the
focusing ring. In this situation if you will mount it onto the adapter, I will show you
sometimes it will not work. Here it's still okay. But sometimes, if the flange is deeper
than focusing ring, it will not be able to turn focusing when lens is mounted on to
your camera via adapter, please pay attention to this particularity. Otherwise it's a very
good lens also the preset aperture, the aperture control ring, a good blackened aperture petals,
good coating quite good lens. This a new body. So this is five modifications of the Belomo
plant as I said, and now we will pass to Valdai plant. This lens is these two modifications they
represent I would say maybe 60% of all production and they were in production for long time in this
plant and these modifications, they have the worst build quality. I will show you details
So the Valdai plant logo also here. What are the difference between them?. So the earliest
early modification has a serial number on the ring here, the later modification has serial
number on the body. So the worst build quality. Why? Quite important free play on the rear lens,
Very often, almost in all the cases, all the blades,, as you may see here,
but in fact this one is still ok, but a lot of oil, but if you take this modification,
also big free play and as you may see here the oil it's not even the oil,
this the grease on the blades, you see. It's just I don't I don't know it's it's just unacceptable
things I would say. But these two modifications are most most common. All the rest is the same,
optics is more or less the same, all the rest is the same, but build quality is the worst,
so if you have a choice I would recommend you to avoid this. Also they try to make this cheaper
and cheaper and for example here, the earlier modification and all the other modifications
,they have the lens block, rear lens block here, you see. The unscrewing lens block and you have
the two the three optical elements in your hand and here, there is no lens block, it's just lenses
are put inside the body. They made this to make the production cheaper. So you may see excessive
oil and big free play. Focusing is okay here and here. So now you saw all the modifications.
What is my preferable one? the KMZ is pretty good no free play, a very little free play,
very good optical quality, but it's quite rare, these modifications are really rare to find,
this one is very good to excellent and can be foundm this one also very good and quite
relatively easily can be found, these are very common modifications but low quality.
Please do not turn off your video, please keep watching and passing to
a second part of my review where I will test all the modifications of this lens
in different shooting conditions. Thank you for attention, good bye!
you