I’ve always been very wary of taking cameras apart, especially after trying to free up the diaphragm mechanism on a Minolta lens back in the Eighties. So it took a little convincing when I came across the suggestion that you can do interesting things with a Helios 58mm lens if you take it apart.
Why, I hear you ask, would I want to take a lens apart? Well, there are two possible reasons: one is that I believe that if you alter the separation between the element groups you can achieve infinity focus with the lens mounted on a conventional DSLR. I admit I haven’t tried it, and I’m not sure if you can get the spacer ring that you need to do this. But what I have tried after watching a 3 minute video on YouTube is reversing the front element to achieve interesting Bokeh.
There are some ifs or buts and caveats to this. First, not every Helios lens was created equal. Some of the more common FAD versions are built in a way that doesn’t allow you to put the front element in back to front (as fitted in the factory, the front of the element is curved, the back flat. Reversing it moves the front edge forwards!). They just have slightly less screw thread for the retaining ring to engage with. I was fine: my Helios was the manual version that came with Zenith B and Zenith E cameras in the Seventies. However, I did need a lens wrench to remove the ring and that cost me £12.00 from eBay.
Then it was simple: it took less than 5 minutes, a tiny amount of desk space, and a microfibre cloth to hold the front lens element between taking it out and dropping it back in. The results are spectacular, although they probably won’t delight fans of high quality optics. As well as swirly Bokeh towards the edges of the frame there is a strong diffusion effect and considerable softening of the image everywhere including the centre of the picture.
The procedure certainly transforms the Helios from being a competent vintage performer into a really weird lens. If you like weird lenses, and you have a Helios around that you’re too worried about, you know what you’re going to be doing the next few minutes I suspect. If you see you an elderly Zenith in a charity shop, it’s worth getting and playing with.
As always with manual lenses it’ll be easier with a mirrorless camera, but whichever way you go you’ll need an adaptor to allow you to fit an M42 lens onto your camera. Unless, of course, you have a fully working Zenith and still shoot on film…
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