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.

Same place. Different person. Wisbech.

If you stand in one spot and wait, things will eventually happen. 

Just pre focus, set the exposure and wait. 

And if your really lucky, well not that lucky because the majority did, people will look at you and give you that 'ugh!?' face.

Spalding

Time is precious.

Any chance to use a camera and shoot some pics i want to take it.

Any excuse.

Ive purchased a 6D to replace my back up body as it was becoming a bit long in the tooth for me. The 6D is supposed to be a low light monster. Let me tell you it certainly focuses well in a dark room. I need to compare my 5d and 6d and see which really does perform better.

So 2 full frame camera's and 2 Fujifilm cameras for weddings. Its a good job I've got a big bag.

Im still not ready to leave Canon fully. Every time i put a big camera in my hand it feels so right. Big camera, big lens, big smile. Quit those dirty thoughts!!!

T
he fuji's are great for the candid moments, where you want to capture people having fun, when you don't want them to notice you. With Fuji's you can blend in. They're less intimidating.

But throw on a 70-200 on a full frame body and the images just have... something.

So. It turned up the other morning and in the constant challenge mode that I'm in, instead of throwing on one of my nice lenses, i chose to put on an old lens that i realistically paid about £2 for with a film body attached. 

The Helios 44-2 58mm, has a good write up by people who use it for swirly bokeh portraits and other images. 

'Swirly Bokeh' google it.

I just put it on because its small and i can use the depth of field scale on barrel to estimate focus for street photography. Ive not really shot street photography with a 'big' camera before, its always with a small Fuji. A new challenge.

Image quality from the 6D is nothing to worry about.

The 44-2 however suffers terribly from soft corners, so don't go putting the subject in the corner of the frame as you may/will be disappointed.

Spalding was the location for this Street photography outing. Not my favourite place in the world, though i have a great fondness for a night out there.

Much like my local jaunt of Wisbech, Saplding also has a huge eastern european population. Beer cans a plenty then.

There's alleys and claustrophobic streets, empty shop fronts and a general grey feeling to the place. Perfect for me then.

Look closely at your surroundings and you might find interest

Going manual

Having scoured shops and boot sales for the past few years I've built up a small collection of different lenses. With the beauty of the internet and the popularity of photography its possible to mount lenses from different camera systems to your system of choice, very cheaply.

I think in the grand scheme, the adapters to mount these lenses to my Fujifilm X-Pro1, cost more than the lenses themselves and the adapters were perhaps only £5-£10.

Compact system cameras, like the Fuji X system, make these old lenses very usable via the aides; focus peaking & magnification, used in tandem you can focus with an old manual lens quite easily.
My X-Pro 1 is now an old model, so a newer model, oh X-Pro 2 you will be mine!!!!, the focus peaking capability will be even better and so the process even easier.

Because i like to challenge myself to keep things interesting ive mounted different lenses and have carried them around during dog walks, car journeys etc to see what can be done with them.

The 1st lens, not an old lens at all but a manual one, something very different; the Lensbaby Composer. Ive had it for a number of years now, it usually gathers dust in my drawer as i just don't get on with it. But i need to challenge myself, so why not start with my least favourite lens.

I should also mention that its not one of the £5 - £10 lenses either. The prices of these are very high considering what you get.

Being very picky, i like photos to be sharp in focus, i don't like the subject to be soft; the edit or the feel of the image can be soft but the focus needs to sharp; the Lensbaby however is not sharp; in focus at all is usually a small success.

Manual lenses slow you down; fine adjustments of focus, check & check again, then take the shot. With the lensbaby, its a case of focus, tilt the lens, focus again, check, check again, focus, tilt, focus and cross your fingers and hope for something thats remotely decent. Can you tell I'm not a fan?

This is where i hope you all like dogs as the majority of photos coming up are all of my puppy; Doug.

He's a Jug, a cross between a Pug and a Jack Russell, he has the looks and colouring of a pug but he has a longer snout, which i think makes him a far better looking dog. He's my best friend and i take him everywhere, luckily we've trained him well and so he sits and poses for photos regularly.

He makes me laugh.

So this ones surprisingly sharp on the eye closest to the camera.
Easily done if your dog is happy too sit there.

Not a great photo.
What it does show though is the odd qualities of the Lensbaby; the out of focus warping around the edges.

If you go down to the woods today.

I had a quick go on this.

Heavenly

This image is more than a little frustrating for me.
I love the red 'light leak'  on the left side that was present at capture, its not part of the edit.
However, when zooming in on the image there is a pattern that i could only put down to the image sensor that is visible in the image, very odd and very annoying. I'm wondering if this is something to do with using the camera and lens combo whilst shooting into the light?

The 2nd lens used in this blog is the Jupiter 11, an M42 mount 135mm f/4 lens produced since the 1940's. On my X-Pro 1 it has the focal length of 202.5mm (est), very telephoto.

I think I paid a couple of quid for the lens, I'm sure I got an SLR with it too.

Shooting with a 202.5mm (est) focal length with no stabilisation on a rangefinder style body is no mean feat. The slightest bit of wind combined with the focal length can lead to a very wobbly viewfinder. Having no stabilisation means that the shutter speed becomes very important to freeze any possible movement.

To summarise my thoughts on this lens; I like it!

It's sharp!

The low contrast quality of the lens makes for nice 'vintage' portraits.

Teaching Doug to wait. (nice bum bag Laura)

Living in near the coast has many opportunities, especially for exploring Pillboxes from WWII.

Im itching to use the Jupiter 11 again, its a great lens.

Keep shooting.

Forever Your Rose, new film project for Holbeach Film Company

A new year, a new film for The Holbeach Film Company.

2016 see's the creation of Forever Your Rose, a romantic comedy, much different from 2015's Dishonoured' thriller-esc genre. Dishonoured is soon to be released by the way.

Being part of the Dishonoured crew, i was naturally included in news about the new project.
I want to help out where i can.

All films need a cast and crew, so its audition time.

There were people coming and going all afternoon, the waiting room filling up and changing round continuously.

The waiting game

I spent a couple of hours in the audition room, at some points literally hiding behind a sofa. I wonder what the budding stars thought when they walked into the room and saw me crouched behind the sofa?

Judging the auditions was handled by director, camera men, actor and actresses. Im sure their are different job titles in there somewhere.

There was fun to be had amidst the nervous faces.

I had to get behind the action and capture the gestures of the hopefuls.

The essence of photography is capturing the light. As soon a i see the spotlights in the room, the idea was a light bulb, no pun intended, moment.

Staring into the abyss

My favourite images from the day.
The beauty of shooting into the light.

I love the haze at the bottom caused by the light reflecting off of my silver Fujifilm X100T placed just under the Fujifilm X-Pro 1 that i was shooting with.

The lens flare on the left and the flick of the hair on the right, does it for me. 

My last objective of the day was to join the judges and use them to frame the candidates.

Use focus selectively to tell a story.

Many of the above photographs were taken with a 1980's Canon FD 50mm F1.8 lens that i bought years ago for £10. Manual focus of moving targets, at large apertures in low light is not an easy task, however its important to challenge yourself. The images are much more rewarding....which reminds me, i need to shoot some film again!!! Does anyone want a wedding shot on film???

For any more information on the local film being made, follow this link https://www.facebook.com/ForeverYrRose/

Its been a while since my last blog, hopefully this will be the jump start it needed.

Thanks for looking.