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Never to Infinity & Beyond: When Your Camera Rejects Your Lens
The trials and tribulations of shooting an old Soviet lens that can't focus to infinity
I’ve never been very good at following trends.
The problem is that I’m so behind the curve ball that by the time I find out that something is in vogue, it’s either become a little bit passé or it’s just no longer worth pursuing.
I’m talking about life in general, but the same principle applies to photography.
A few years ago, I found out about the Helios 44–2, an old lens from the USSR, renowned for its swirly bokeh — the kind of blurriness you see in photos shot with a wide aperture. Apparently, it had even been used in the latest The Batman movie.
As a totally irrelevant aside, I also liked the fact that 44–2 sounded an awful lot like 4–4–2: the traditional English football formation featuring four defenders, four midfielders, and two attackers.
So as a photography enthusiast and a football fan, I was immediately love-struck. But hesitant to pay the requisite 80 or so euros for a 40-going-on-50-year-old second-hand lens on eBay, I put off hitting the BUY NOW button.
