The Beauty of a Vintage Helios 44-2 for Video

We filmed a new video over the weekend showing the work preparing the gardens for fall. During the filming we used an adapted Soviet-era lens called the “Helios 44-2,” which is well-known for its interesting optical effects.

Here are a few freeze-frames:

It’s quite interesting. Sorry there are so many pictures of me… the perils of hosting YouTube!

I need to take this thing out as a photography lens and shoot the swamp. It costs much less than the modern lenses I’m used to using but it has way more character. There is a warm, soft, dreamy look to the shots. It only cost $16 for an adaptor that would adapt the Helios 44-2 58mm lens to my Canon 80D camera. The lens itself costs less than $100 on ebay.

I should have the video up tomorrow. We did a lot of shooting and it took a day to edit everything down. Rachel shot the entire video on manual mode, adjusting the light and focus herself. These old lenses don’t work with autofocus, which is an interesting challenge. Unlike modern lenses, this lens also has amazing lens flares.

Rachel is a fast study and is really enjoying improving her videography. We’re going to test another old lens on the next video.

See you tomorrow.

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