Helios 44-2 58mm f/2

The most produced lens on the mount and the swirl-bokeh king: a Soviet Biotar derivative made by the million across several factories. Factory marks and serial prefixes are their own collecting field.

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58mmFOCAL LENGTH

f/2MAX APERTURE

6e / 4gOPTICS

52mmFILTER

BRANDKMZ / Valdai / Jupiter (USSR)

MOUNTM42

PRODUCTIONc. 1967-1992

MIN FOCUS0.5 m

Before you buy

Aperture blades: dry and snappy. Oil on the blades is the mount's most common disease and a real repair cost.
Look through the glass at a light: haze, fungus threads, and balsam separation all announce themselves. Cleaning marks on front coatings matter less than sellers fear.
Focus ring: smooth, even resistance end to end. Grit or a loose helicoid means a reluble at minimum.
Thoriated designs yellow with age. A week of indirect UV largely reverses it; factor the cast into what you pay.
Auto/Manual switch and pin function: the stop-down pin should move freely and the switch should actually stop down.

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Adapters for this mount
M42 adapters for modern mirrorless bodies

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