“You’re really enjoying that nifty fifty, aren’t you?” Rick McGinnis asked. Yes. Yes I am. The fact that I own the Reversed Helios is Rick’s fault as he was the one who told me it existed last winter. I looked at sample images, my jaw hit the floor, and a healthy specimen of said lens made its way from the former Soviet Union to Canada. Where it sat for months and months. And months. Waiting.
It was a very long wait. I did pull the lens out a few times over the winter and into the spring, but it was mostly no bueno. The Helio comes with a learning curve. You need to shoot a lot to get the feel of it. That requires an interesting subject to shoot and moderate temperatures to shoot in. When I had one I didn’t have the other, so the months slowly rolled by as I waited for our current outbreak of blossoms.
Sadly, most of the flowers you see here have been stripped of their petals by this week’s harsh and unrelenting winds. I have a few days worth of images left from the apple, cherry, and Mayday trees, but after that I am down to a few lilac bushes. Here’s hoping the local gardeners are active and friendly to photographers this summer.
Today’s kit was my Canon EOS R5 with the now infamous Helios 44m-2 58mm f2.0 lens.
