Bringing an Helios 40-2 at the opera

At the end of the post about the test of a Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar 135/4 I concluded: “I didn’t miss more modern gear, and I didn’t lose a single shot because of the oddness of such an old lens. However, I wouldn’t do this experience again.”. So, how it comes that now I am commenting once again the performance of a manual lens such as the Zenith Helios 40-2 at the opera?

Well, technically speaking I am not contradicting myself: in fact, I didn’t bring the Zeiss —which I said I wouldn’t— i brought the Helios. However, hairsplitting apart, truth is that the temptation to try this lens on my X-T5 in a real-life scenario was too strong, so —as Oscar Wilde brilliantly said— the only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it. And I gave in. So, in my next assignement I also took with me this Russian-era relic.

Being an 85/1,5, it is no surprise that Helios’ forte are portraits. This one was taken just before the play began. What makes the photo interesting is that, perhaps due to the make-up, the singer looks more like a waxwork than a human being. This is the magic of theatre — and of the Helios, too.

The Helios performs well also in close-up shots,

and the crop factor extends the focal length to around 120 mm, allowing for stronger foreground/background management.

Stage lightinging is always a difficult issue in opera and prose. However, the Helios performed fairly well.

By contrast, banding caused by LEDs continues to be problematic, as it is dependent on the camera rather than the lens.

In order to reduce the need for a high ISO, I kept the lens wide open. This helped reduce image quality loss, but made focusing more difficult, as is demonstrated by all the photos displayed in this post. The X-T5’s focus-check feature worked pretty well, but as the camera is not manufactured in Vatican City, the firmware does not include the ‘miracle-making’ option.

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