Winter with the beautiful Helios 44-2 lens

The camera geeks the Helios 44-2 needs no introduction. It's got legendary status. That swirly bokeh!

Bokeh????

The out of focus loveliness.

Some lenses are better than others; soft, harsh and sometimes swirly.

I'm not sure any of these images are swirly but they have got some absolutely fantastic lens flare. I'm really into shooting into the sun although it can't be good for my eyes or camera! Shooting into the sun get some amazing looks though.

I've got 3 copies of this lens. Each from a different year/era. Each apparently have their own characteristics. All versions together though make this lens likely to be the most mass produced lens ever. In production from 1958 through to the 90's in Soviet Russia.

This photowalk was cold, very cold.

The big coat was on and so were the big head phones to keep my ears warm and you can't knock a pair of walking boots to keep your feet warm and dry.

Damn I love these old lenses.

Autumn in Sutton Bridge with the Hanimex Automatic MC 1:2.8 35mm

Another cheap lens with a poor reputation on the internet.

The Hanimex Automatic MC 1:2.8 35mm is apparently a cheap and rebranded bag of crap that you could pick up from Argos when people were wearing big hair and shoulder pads.

I can't quite remember when I got this lens. I can think of 2 possible times both easily 6-7 years ago and it has sat in a cupboard ever since. But put it this way, both possible times were bulk buys of camera and lenses so this lens cost me around 50p at a guess. It can happily sit in the cupboard.

But 2022 was the year for the Hanimex 35mm lens. Out it come, pretty much looking brand new apart from a loose manual focus ring and by that I mean the grip is loose; it focuses perfectly fine.

Another head clearing bit of exercise out in the cold and grey of Autumn/Winter in Lincolnshire; a little village photowalk with my headphones on just shooting what I see.

So leaves, leaves and more leaves.

The lens wasn't as bad as what I thought it would be; it's not super sharp in the middle and the corners are smudgy but just don't put the subject in the corner and it will be fine.

Shoot close and you can soon get out of focus backgrounds too.

Happy.

Winter with the HOYA HMC TELE-AUTO 135MM F/2.8 EXC. Manual focus and the amazing lens flare

One of the best £10 charity shop buys ever!

It could have been a total waste and better spent on a couple of beers in Spoons; yeah you know me!

But on this occasion a cheap ol' lens for the 1980's has done wonders.

I could find much out about the HOYA HMC TELE-AUTO 135MM F/2.8 EXC on the net. This time google come up pretty much trumps apart from other people trying to find out more about this lens.

In my search whilst walking around Lynn I read peoples opinions on forums saying that it wasn't great and I was gutted that I'd wasted that tenner; those 2 beers!

But it was now in my possession and it went in the cupboard until I had time.

Come the start of December and I'd caught up with Autumns weddings and I had a couple of weeks before they started again. I needed to get away from the computer (funny that as here I sit again in front of the screen typing this) and out of the house. Winter was in full effect and it was bloody freezing outside. Time for the big coat, hat and cold hands as well as my Sony A9, the Hoya 135mm 2.8 and a cheap Sony FE to M42 adapter, so I could mount the lens on a camera far superior to what it was ever intented for.

Thats the thing about these old cheap legacy lenses; they were produced in the days of film, a media a little more forgiving than modern digital cameras with ever growing pixel counts. On a modern digital SLR or mirrorless camera their weaknesses are soon highlighted.

So don't go diving in the deep end thinking you're going to get crystal crisp images like you do with a nice new lens.

They're often soft as hell wide open and a mission to manually focus.

I've set up a custom function button on my Sony A9 to zoom in (digitally) so I can get as close to spot on focus as possible; with focus peaking too I usually manage to get something acceptable. A bit of wind blowing a leaf though and you'll have to fire a few shots to get one in focus.

But....

This little Hoya 135mm 2.8 is....little. It's easy to carry around so why not carry it around.

And then...

That f@#*ing lens flare is amazing!

Rainbow lens flare. I've never seen anything like it; not without trying to by using lens prisms etc. With this lens its straight out of the box.

Yeah I was lucky with the weather; the sun being low in sky and easy to get in the back of my photos, ready to give me all these perfect imperfections.

Sharpness? I forgot all about sharpness!

AMAZING!