Soviet Vintage Lens SET (EF) 20/37/58/85
20mm F3.5 MIR-20 Wide Angle Full Frame Vintage Lens
37mm F2.8 MIR-1B Wide Angle Full Frame Vintage Lens
58mm F2 Helios 44-2 Soviet Vintage Full Frame Lens
85mm F2 Jupiter-9 Portrait Full Frame Vintage Lens
MIR-1B 37mm F2.8
This lens very popular wide/mid-range lens, same as Mir-20 was also closely based on Zeiss Flektogon equivalent.
It’s a favourite lens of many thanks to its incredible flares, if that is your thing (see 00:45 & 01:23 for a few examples of those flares).
This lens also has one big downside: the closest focusing distance of just 0.70m making it somewhat unusable for capturing proper close-ups.
If you want to learn a bit more about this lens, make sure to check out my review.
Specs:
Min Focusing Distance: 0.7m
Angle of View (FF): 60°
Focus Throw: Approx. 270°
Aperture Blades: 8
Aperture Range: F2.8 – F16
Weight (with mods): 311g
58/2 HELIOS 44-2
Best vintage lens: small, cheap, far from perfect, but incredible in so many ways.
There are many versions of this lens with the 44-2 model being the most common.
All versions though were based on the amazing Zeiss’s Biotar 58mm, which explains why Helios 58mm is so well regarded.
It’s always the first lens I recommend to anyone wishing to try out vintage lenses.
It pretty much has it all including the beautiful dreamy flares, very unique swirly bokeh and a great sharpness (providing you get lucky with your copy).
Minimum focusing distance is 0.50m, so gets you pretty nice close-ups with this lens, making it very popular for mid/close portrait shots.
Specs:
Min Focusing Distance: 0.5m
Angle of View (FF): 40°
Focus Throw: Approx. 270°
Aperture Blades: 8 (13 blade version exist and IronGlass can install a 16 blade version)
Aperture Range: F2.8 – F16
Weight (with mods): 319g
JUPITER-9 85mm F2
This lens competes the very popular Soviet Trio (37mm 58mm 85mmm).
This one based on Zeiss Sonnar equivalent and shares most of the characteristics with the other 2 lenses it’s often used with.
One of its coolest features is the 15 blade aperture, which keeps that bokeh nice and round at any F-stop.
Even though at 0.8m its minimum focusing distance is not outstanding, it’s great for really tight “bohehlicios” shots.
The only reason I don’t use it more is that I love my Helios 44 so much!
Specs:
Min Focusing Distance: 0.8m
Angle of View (FF): 28°
Focus Throw: Approx. 250°
Aperture Blades: 15
Aperture Range: F2 – F16
Weight (with mods): 474g
