Cleaned the electronic contracts, tried it outdoors in bright light and larger apertures, no difference. I thought it was the camera body, so I changed the body. However, when I attached it to the camera, it could not focus fast enough. The glass was clear, the focusing ring was smooth. When my lens arrived, it looked in good condition.
It had the silent-wave auto-focusing system, meaning that the autofocus mechanism was in the lens and not the body, theoretically making it faster to autofocus. It is small, light and cheap and had relatively good reviews.
BEST SWIRLY BOKEH LENS SERIES
The lens was primarily targeted as an inexpensive, large aperture option for users of the entry-level (D40 / D40X /D60) series of DSLRs. This particular Nikon lens was released in Feb 2009 primarily for Nikon’s DX range of DSLRs (digital SLRs). While I was not planning to get the lens, I thought this was a bonus. Recently I acquired a Nikon SLR with an AF-S DX Nikkor 35mm f1.8 G lens attached to it. In fact so much fun, I am taking one out for a spin in the near future and hopefully post more swirly bokeh photos in this blog. These lenses are fun, relatively cheap and have a cult following. This was the primary reason I did the test. Hence the only usable ones to me for photography are the 44M and newer 44M-4 (SN88158346). The 44-2 and older 44M-4 (SN87405245) do not focus to infinity. Perhaps this difference is from the coating of the lens – single coated vs multi-coated lens. The verdict? Seems like all have a similar bokeh effect and more or less the same center sharpness (handheld). Helios-44-2 (8 blades, stepless aperture)
BEST SWIRLY BOKEH LENS FULL
These were attached to a Kipon M42-FX BAV-Eyes 0.7X adapter and mounted on a Fuji X-T1 to have full lens coverage with no crop (and hence full extent of the swirly bokeh) on the APS-C sized Fuji sensor. They are, in order of manufacture year, the Helios-44-2, Helios-44M, Helios-44M-4 (2 lenses). Recently I conducted a quick and dirty comparison of four Helios-44 lenses for their swirly bokeh and center sharpness. Camerapedia has a good description of the many variants. The Helios-44 lens comes in many variants and were made by several different former Soviet eastern bloc manufacturers. The sharpness falls off steeply toward the edges at this aperture. The subject matter is best placed in the center of the frame as that is where the lens is sharpest at full aperture. Lastly, you need to open up the lens to its largest aperture – f2. With modern lenses perfectly designed through the aid of computers, you only get perfectly round light bokeh. It is a unique imperfection of the Helios lens design. For example, light coming through leaves or light coming from the many buildings in a city background at night or light coming from a lighted Christmas tree. So the background should have many points of light. The swirling effect of the bokeh seem to come from imperfect formation of light circles from the center of the frame (where they are round) to the edges of the frame (where they are elliptical). The right conditions usually mean the right camera to subject distance, in this case from about 2 to 4 metres for the camera to subject distance. It suits portraiture best when the right conditions are met for the bokeh to swirl around the subject. I must admit I love the swirly bokeh of the Helios 58mm f2 lens.
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