Russian | Soviet | USSR Lens Survival Guide

[Ilya O.]

So now to the Helios-44 58mm f2 footage, most shots wide open if I'm not mistaken.

Helios means Sun in Greek. All soviet lenses love Sun, plz enjoy:

Frame garbs for those short of time:

And horses at uprise, backlighted, a bit of warm veil, wide open:

 

[Jon Carr]

I recently just made a set of the Russians in EF mount. Got the 20mm, 28mm, 35mm, 37mm, 58mm, 85mm, 135mm. Below are some stills from some jobs with them. All from the Weapon Dragon.

 

[Ilya O.]

What a punchy look you squeezed out of them Duo-toning light and color correction seems very solid here.

I see you're using Mir-10A 28mm quite often, ha?

Me too, I somehow love more and more that lens' color and push.

 

[Jon Carr]

What a punchy look you squeezed out of them Duo-toning light and CC here seems very solid.

I see you're using Mir-10A 28mm quite often, ha?

Me too, I somehow love more and more that lens' color and push.

Thank you, most of the stills were shot in REDwidegamma log3g10 with a 3d Lut applied. Didn't do much more then what REDcine-x can do.

Yea the 28mm is becoming my favorite lens of the set. Has such nice characters in it. Even gives the 58mm a run for the money. 3.5 f stop is a little annoying at times but upgraded to helium so it's all good now

 

[Jon Carr]

Also thank you Ilya O. for making this thread. Been reading it a lot and slowly building my set with this as my guide. Do you know anyone who converts these lenses into PL mount?

 

[Ilya O.]

Thank you, most of the stills were shot in REDwidegamma log3g10 with a 3d Lut applied. Didn't do much more then what REDcine-x can do.

— wow I adore less color correction tweaking. What you say means you light very well and get what you want on set. Very good job!

Yea the 28mm is becoming my favorite lens of the set. Has such nice characters in it. Even gives the 58mm a run for the money. 3.5 f stop is a little annoying at times but upgraded to helium so it's all good now

— aha hah completely agree!!! I've made a couple of docs at f3.5m iso 800-1600, that's okay even for poor indoor babushka lights.

 

[Ilya O.]

Also thank you Ilya O. for making this thread. Been reading it a lot and slowly building my set with this as my guide. Do you know anyone who converts these lenses into PL mount?

You're welcome!!! I'm very happy you shared your stills here since not so much participants:-( I once started to think I'm the only one in this Sonora desert talking to coyote

Have you seen this conversion on Ebay? http://www.ebay.com/itm/6-lens-with...D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557
I personally do not know who the seller is but this seems solid.

 

[John Brennick]

I recently just made a set of the Russians in EF mount. Got the 20mm, 28mm, 35mm, 37mm, 58mm, 85mm, 135mm. Below are some stills from some jobs with them. All from the Weapon Dragon.

JESUS these frames are awesome!!! Amazing job Jon. The contrast ratio on these shots really give that bleak and dark feel. Reallly love these frames.

 

[Lee Kelly]

Ilya,

What do you think about M42-PL mounts? Do most of these lenses with that type of adapter allow for us on any PL mount camera? I have a bunch of cheap EF mounts which work well enough but PL is often a little tricky with many other lens options.
I do love my russian lenses.

 

[Ilya O.]

Lee, unfortunately I have no experience with m42 to Pl adapters. There are several types and manufacturers.

Drop a line to Rafael at rafcamera@gmail.com and ask for compatibility issues (there are). He is trustworthy seller and he produces solid, precise and well priced adapters.

You see, I believe Pl is not the best option for these lenses. I assume this set as superb for personal use, no follow focus, no DP crew. When you add Pl, caps, big front rings and huge gears these little babies become too bulky and awkward, you loose size and mobility, and now all of them won't fit on your belt attached in lens pouches.

To sum up, some lenses are easy to adapt, others need back modification to work. For adaptation, see table http://www.vintagelensesforvideo.com/using-m42-lenses-on-pl-cameras/
For modification, I once saw a set on ebay, and it looks like the backs of some are modified, see the details in the pics in this item http://www.ebay.com/itm/6-lens-with...D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

 

[Ilya O.]

Further on to Jupiter-9 85mm f2 M39, my creamy delicate portrait master.

freeze frames:

Now to other tonality and feel:

screeshots:

At last plz proceed to old Ingush folk music therapy

grabs:

 

[Ilya O.]

Well then, now to 135mm.

Never underestimate a 50$ slow underdog, I mean Jupiter-11 135mm f4. I personally always grab it with me to the outdors instead of Tair-11 135mm f2.8 cause it weighs nothing and the size is tiny. So, welcome the mighty Jupiter-11, a classical Sonnar design, in SLR m39 aluminum mount:

J-11 is, well, a soviet recalculation of Sonnar: ultrasharp, no CA, contrasty and has very smooth bokeh. You'll be shocked at how well this 50 years old lens performs. It is so sharp so that the canon's codec can not handle it and smashes the moving objects when there's many grass or trees in the frame...

I have not yet made a prorper review of J-11 here, but instead I've made this 4min short music video edited out of only J-11 footage. Plz enjoy:

Storyboard stills:

 

[Vladimir Cazacu]

Ilya, my friend: do any of the Lomo OKS lenses offer macro capability or at least have decent close focus ability?

I noticed that the old Lenkinap made 22mm that Alan Besedin reviewed here goes down to 25cm but from what I remember, OKC3-22-1 only offers 50cm as the closest focusing distance.

Also, were diopters ever made for these lenses like the ones for the Foton anamorphic zoom?

Cheers.

 

[Ilya O.]

Hi, Vladimir.

Well, frankly I never put my interest on that...

It mainly depends on the barrel / housing type which are of high variety, and some do have close focus at 0.3m or so.
I found a good database with close focus data on OKS lenses here, take a look for instance at oks3-22-1 with 0.3m cfd: http://allphotolenses.com/lenses/item/c_3341.html

As for diopters, yes, there were cine ones, I have a couple, it is single coated lens. Sad, they are rare beasts, you'd better buy some contemporary achromatic ones (Marumi for example, but keep in mind it has no coating at all ;-( ).

 

[Vladimir Cazacu]

Thank you.

 

[Ilya O.]

you're welcome and plz plz share

 

[Ilya O.]

I always wondered, how a performance progress in popular 35mm photo lens' designs look like? What if we take into the test a lens of 1950-s and of 1970-s? A Soviet and the West German one? What would be the progress which can be seen in our pictures? And how does it look like?

Besides, it's quite interesting to know what's the difference between respected West and 'poor' East block lenses, both in build quality, factory quality control and it's optical performance.

So plz welcome my little test!

So I take 2 lens designs:

— normal fov lens of ~55mm, Opic (widely known as Planar, or Double-Gauss lens), namely I take Helios-44 2/58 vs 1970-s Planar T* 1.4/50 vs Helios-77m-4 1.8/50 which look like this:

— and a moderately wide lens, Flektogon derivatives, namely Distagon T* 2.8/28 versus MIR-10A 3.5/28, look:

Methodology. I can not allow myself to publish just one another lens test, which takes lenses of unknown optical state for comparison. That's simply absurd and much alike to make a 100 meters ride on two "equal" Ford cars, one of which is in its top state and the other has misaligned engine...

So, guys, what is first and the most crucial thing for a proper lens test, in relation to the fact that any mass-produced lens is subdued by lens performance variation caused by the production tolerances / copy-to-copy variation / wrong service?
Simply put, the answer is: a scientific lens test is the one which takes only the best lens sample into consideration. Optically, that means that a lens for the test must be centered and properly assembled, with no aberrations, at lest on-axis. That is what people usually call 'best lens sample'.

Well then, I got lenses like that for us now! All lenses in this test have their optical passport and most are in their top shape. Let's see what I mean.

50mm.

Where's there my old and beloved Helios-44 58mm f/2? Here's it in aluminum barrel and m39 thread mount:

Helios, as any 6/4 Double Gauss lens, is a derivative of TTH Cooke Series 0 (Opic) Lens and at the same time direct Zeiss Biotar 2/58 (1946) clone because of the historical reasons. Early ones even had the name of "Biotar Krasnogorsky" (Biotar of the KMZ factory), but later one were obviously not a direct (here means literally: all the drafts and the glass were German) Biotar clones, but those re-calculated to the USSR optical glass lenses with the name of Helios-44.
It's just all 6/4 formula lenses had the name of Helios in USSR, and if we look into the GOI (State Optical Institute in St.Petersburg) design papers, it is clear that there were even pre-war calculated Helioses, like Helios-1/2/3 of 50, 75 and 100mm for cine usage, calculated in may 1937 as an original project (still, optical German influence is an open quest due to Nazi-Soviet pre-war technical collaboration). See:

Anyhow, I bought it some time ago for cheap in bad shape. After KMZ made the lens in some late 1950-s or early 1960-s, #0085831, I'm pretty sure that no one ever dismantled that Helios-44' optics before me since the factory used special lacquer or shellac varnish to fix all the retaining rings in the optical unit, and it was all there untouched. So before I started full overhauling to make it perfect both externally and internally, I've done an optical bench test to see it's native performance, and this test is a lens per se test, with no camera as a limiting factor included (click right mouse button for 100% pixel peep in new tab):

On the left is an ultra-sensitive to any aberrations (both of optical design and assembly faults) test known as a diffraction dot test, or an Airy disk pattern test, done here on-axis. It's widely used in the Astronomical and Microscopy devices production facilities. But no photo/cine factory in the world nowadays uses this test in their mass-production runs, it's too time consuming and thus pricey.
It shows every fault of a given lens like spherical aberration, coma, astigmatism, CA, pinched optics, even glass melting defects...Well, further on Airy Disk read here. I'd call those nice pics as lens ID or certificate or lens optical passport further on.

So, what that gives us concerning the from-the-factory optical state of Helios-44? Airy disk pattern is pretty nice, well within any production company in the world, old and contemporary, quality control and standards. I'd even say it surpasses most of the standards. As for the Resolution test reticle data, this lens gives ~724 lp/mm (the on axis, with minimal contrast, 13th component is seen) . Off course, well trained optical guy, a perfectionist, would see here a touch of astigmatism, and decentering leading to a bit of coma, and a spherical aberration...that's all here, I agree, but it is all within acceptable tolerances and circle of confusion as a limiting factor for 35mm film.

What that means for the myth of ultra low or absent QC in Soviet factories? We definitely see a properly centered (all glass positioned on optical axis with very high tolerance) and factory collimated lens! So I tend to think that myth is, well, partially destroyed, at least for KMZ m39 lenses of 1960s. To say more, I've made similar tests to other 100% untouched-after-the-factory lenses like Helios-40, Jupiter-9, Mir-20m, etc and most were obviously fine-tuned in-house and gave good to OKAY Airy Disk patterns and thus the resolution.

Factory standard is good, but I want more for our test! So I adjusted the glass elements of the Helios-44 to get no astigmatism and get superb centering with no coma. As for spherical aberration, it is always there, even on-axis, for any 6/4 or Planar, it's just the design flaw itself (click to open 100% size in new tab):

See how Airy disk became almost perfect? And it's symmetrical now, after fine-tuning: see before and after the focus disk patterns, which are now circle not oval, that means no astigmatism. Besides, look at the center of after the focus pattern (right one), can you see that now a bright core dot and the bigger less bright circle have now the exact same position? That is how coma eliminated, by moving a lens in x and y coordinates. As for on-axis resolution, there's definitely more clarity and contrast with no smear (coma gives that), and the resolution itself risen up a bit, from 724 to 768 lp/mm (15th component now reveals), ~6%.

OKAY then, now we have Helios-44 lens ID. It's ready for the fight.

Let's take a popular Planar T* 50mm 1.4 #9555393 MMJ Contax/Yashica, Japan-made, for the test. (Mr. Morrison, the father of magnificent Contax Zeiss Survival Guide, are thou here? Is there a way to know what is the production year of this Planar by its serial number? MMJs should be from 1984 to 2005?):

This Planar is not of classical 6/4 lens design, but it has 7 elements in 6 components (4th and 5th elements (after the iris) are cemented) for advanced aberrational correction. What's it's from-the-factory state? I again say this lens' optical unit was never touched, since all the screws / rings / helicals of the lens are fixed with a kind of Zeiss Japan factory Loctite of various colors, red, black, white and blue. So, Planar lens certificate:

Planar's Airy disk pattern is well, not quite nice, but actually within appropriate limits. And keep in mind this is very crazy sensitive test. Besides, to assemble and collimate f1.4 lens is harder than f2.0 like Helios. Here you can see a bit of coma (look at the tail to left at the in focus Airy pattern), decentering (look at after the focus pattern), and, again a lot of (inherent to Planar design) spherical aberration which is seen as a lot of light energy focused not in the core but in divergent circles (in focus pattern) and you for sure can recognize it in the Resolution pattern as all these yellowish muddy halo around the lined squares. Still, f1.4 is f1.4, and in the optics its the aperture who rules the resolution solely. This Planar, with minimal contrast, can draw all lines in all squares of the 12th component, which means it resolves 729 lp/mm, that's pretty high for that Airy disk pattern! Helios-44 was 724 lp/mm before the tweaking!

Can we maximize this Planar's performance so it could participate in our top lens test? Let's try. A side note: iris assembly module is just crazy idiotically complex and weak here, German/Japanese over-engineered themselves here for sure since every second Planar for CY has iris problems caused mainly just by a small amount of oil evaporated from the helical grease and then sticked to every detail and the leafs, it just stucks and then can not nor open nor close...This is how high tolerance top class engineering with tiny gaps and fitting leads to malfunction when used in the wilds.

So, after some hours of efforts I could get this maximum outta of this particular Planar lens unit (new tab for 100% scale):

Not 100% ideal, there's a bit of triangular pinched optics (look at the core of in focus pattern) but that's better than to lost collimation after a bit of sudden shake on a shoot It will deliver top results, believe me Here again, too thin tolerance gate of famous German design school in the lens element's housings leads actually to bad things: you can not tweak more this Planar! There's no more space for lens positioning to get better and ideal centering (see after the focus Airy disk structure: bright core is not in perfect fit with the little tail at 8 o'clock).

[part I ends here]​

 

[Ilya O.]

[part II]​

Anyhow, look now to the Resolution pattern. Can you see that it's now more contrasty and clear? Here's the numbers: now Planar with its big aperture kicks in with shocking 1094 lp/mm (19th component is distinguishable with very minimal contrast). That's 1.5 times growth compared to the factory result of 729lp/mm! WOW. F/1.4 is F/1.4, what can I say

Speaking about the f-stop its direct impact on the lens' resolution I suddenly decided to test fine-tuned Planar at an f-stop matching to Helios, namely f2. How would it be then? Does it changes and in what way? Here it is, guys:

Notice how Airy Disk, in focus and out of, becomes nearly perfect, like in Wiki article on diffraction.



At the meantime, pure nerds can open 100% scale image in new tab and take a thorough glance at the components to the right of 16th. You see, Planar at f1.4 can draw max a 19th component, and when stopped to f2, it gives only 16th (to clearly see all this you'd better invert the picture colors). That straightly shows how resolution is lost during stopping down: Planar gives 1094 lp/mm for an f1.4 and 'only' 918 lp/mm for f2.0. Why is that? The reason is in the size of Airy Disk: when closing down, it grows in size thus giving less info. Simple.

We are used to think that stopping down rises an image IQ In a way, that's true, but remember the pure resolution is lost. Whilst the truth is: when stopping down you are just rising the contrast and eliminating aberrations (and remember that the whole process occurs on the pretty low-res sensors, and not like in my samples where you see only the lens performance by itself without the sensor influence). And in this pics you see that the resolution reticle became more contrasty at f2 and there's less spherical aberration.

To finish up with the Planar, one more note. Nerds 2x squared can find such a strange abnormality in my Helios vs Planar resolution data:
— tweaked Helios-44 at f2 resolves 768 lp/mm, 15th revealed;
— tuned Planar at f2 gives 918 lp/mm with 16th component.
— the resolution pattern is of the same size, and 15th and 16th components is pretty close in its line width (17.8 and 16.8 microns).
So how on Earth the resolution could be so much different of 718 and 918 lp/mm? Here's where exact focal length and the conventional focus number naming at the marking introduces all the unclarity. First, Helios-44 is known to be 58mm and Planar is 50mm, yeah? ahahha strictly speaking, no. The Helios is actually 58.6mm±2% (so it could be actually 59.77mm or 57.42mm at the extremes), and Planar is actually not 50mm, but 51.8mm and there must be some ± which Zeiss papers pass over in silence
Second, and this is the reason for such a difference in resolution numbers, Planar's 51.8mm vs Helios' 58.6mm is actually a 1.13x jump in focal length and thus in more image magnification of Helios. And that magnification directly influences resolution calculation formula, that's why 718 vs 918 whilst at the same f2 stop.

No we finally move to the third contender, Helios-77m-4 MC (multi-coated) f/1.8 50mm m42 thread mount, made by VOMZ (Vologda Optical Factory) in 1991. This model was in production run in 1984 to 1994 and represents some late 6/4 evolution lens of the USSR ans was planned to be a more powerful replacement for Helios-44. It has more speed, multi-coating, (should) have more resolution, and it's focal length is closer to the desired 50mm standard — it is 52mm actually. I'll show you its opt ID before and after adjustment straight away to save space:

Is the patterns on the left, being factory-set, good? Well, not so, but again well inside the tolerance needed for 35mm slr film. At the same time, for those who think it is awful, browse back and behold: it's of more or less on the same aberrational level as famous 'top-quality' Planar was, untouched and straight from the Japan. And for sure such a picture proves there were pretty good QC and a practice of lens unit adjustment even at bad 1991 year in USSR, — the myth says there none and all glass was like made from the green bottle of soviet nasty beer.
Second, and that is not a mistake, can you see that the patterns on the right, after tuning, are, well, worse? Yes, that can happen, and this is reality, let's face it and leave adverts for marketing managers. You see, I can not even reach factory tuned level of performance after ~3 hours of trial, which again shows that not all technicians at the factory were drunk and of a bad qualification (ahahah for excuse I can say that I purposed the tune for the all-angle-rotations best centering of a lens (none of the posted photos show that aspect), and finally I succeeded so lens became more mediocre but solid and equal at any of the 0 90 180 360 degrees but at the same time less in that 0deg).

So, what is the diagnose of adjusted Helios-77? Although the lens is now almost perfectly centered, (all lenses and components are located on the same axis, = almost no coma), still Airy disk is not so good and distorted mainly by astigmatism (see at oval shapes, cross lines in Airy disk and the fact it draws vertical but not horizontal small lines in squared components), and a medium spherical aberration. Why is that since usually good centering and rotation of elements lead to a perfect disk? Well, I suppose the case is in the glass itself with polished astigmatism such a thing happens (it's when the curvature is not top spherical but with a touch of squareness to it). Or maybe the cemented components are not in perfect collimation. Anyhow, all attempts to correct that lead to no result. This glass defects empowers the myth of bad quality control in late USSR lenses, though at least, partially since the collimation was there, done at the factory, after all.
To sum up, it is actually good for our test to have "mediocre" lens, so as to see how it renders in the final landscape shots against the top-state performers.

Resolution for this "mediocre" adjusted Helios-77 @f1.8 is 726 lp/mm. Is it good or what? A conservative theoretical maximum resolution for f1.8 lens is 820 lp/mm. So, that Helios-77 delivers 88.5% out of the possible max. I think, it is pretty OKAY and would easily pass on any QC...
For comparison, remember that ideal Helios-44 @f2 resolves ~768 lp/mm, and Planar gave ~1094 lp/mm @f1.4.

Ok, at last I have represented all three near fifty mil lenses, now let's move on to the actual 6k stills (6000x4000), taken with the Sony Nex-7 still camera powerful sensor boasting 3.88 microns pixel pitch (Red Helium has 3.65µm, 50Mpix Canon EOS 5DS R has 4.13µm). Nex-7 is APS-C camera, 23.5 x 15.6mm sensor size. Pictures are much more interesting that these boring diffraction disks and numbers.

 

[Ilya O.]

[part III]​

Here's the overview of this simple setup:

All shots below show the native lens' color reproduction, since all are shot at white balance preset to Daylight, picture profile Neutral with 0,0,0 Contrast/Sharpness/Saturation.

This is how a perfect Helios-44 2/58 (58.6) renders test city shot at f2.0, live view focus point is at the Hebrew star in the very center of the shot, as usual plz open a new tab to see 6k:

Here goes OK opt ID Planar T* 1.4/50 (51.8mm) at f1.4:

And the "mediocre" Helios-77m-4 1.8/50 (52mm) at f1.8:

Planar gives that well-known Zeiss punchy look with lot of contrast and resolution, as if someone added unsharp mask filter to the picture, with only minimal fall-off due to the growing towards the edge spherical aberration, inherent to any fast Double-Gauss quasi-symmetrical design. The price you pay for that clarity and resolution is, typical to many Zeiss' designs, purple fringing, chromatic aberration around any high-contrast areas. Planar design is not APO (where all three color focus at the same plane), but it is pretty close to that correction, only leaving 380-450nm light out of control. That can play a bad thing with a color reproduction in a motion pictures, especially when shooting some macro shots: your b/w coins or text would be rendered not as black on white, but as purple on white, which is just false:-( The key is simple: just close the iris to f2.0 or a bit more and the problem is solved.

Helios-44 is insanely sharp with OK and mild contrast with almost no CA, nice correction, almost APO (there's actually some reddish outline around high contrast areas, but not as prominent as in Planar ant they are way smaller in size. Resolution fall off is there (again thanks to spherical aberration), but I find it nice and not distracting: subjectively it forces viewer sight to the center of your composition. Classic Cooke Panchro 6/4 cine lenses have it of similar look.

Helios-77m-4, built to replace Helios-44, being of "modern" (~1984) design, needs, I would say, himself to be replaced I see nor optical improvement here nor special look. Is there an evolution here? I do not see it frankly. I'd better find Helios-81 2/50 which is said to be really an improvement over Helios-44, it incorporates ultra heavy crown glass as a special design feature and should be on par with Planar concerning the resolution...
Yes, there's more contrast and the picture resembles Planar somehow (in the center), but with such a fall-off with muddy white halos...better not, or better yes, just depends on your purpose: kinda light monocle effect as a free option, two lenses in one offer And do you keep in mind this is on a cropped sensor?! What it does to the outer 2/3 of a frame wide open?

Let's view at the central region of all three put together:

[Helios-44 versus Planar 1.4/50 versus Helios-77m-4 city daylight shot]

Is it only me biased thinking that grandpa Helios-44 actually shows the same or even more (!?) definition than Planar in the central region since Planar exhibits more spherical aberration even the the central region: look thoroughly at the trees in lower part of the frame, they are surrounded by a light touch of brighty clouds in Planar's stripe whilst H-44 has them crystal clear. Or is just foreground defocusing due to the thinner grip of 1.4? Besides, on the contrary, Planar is far better in the upper image part where there's no spherical aberration and Helios is worse, or is it fall-off already ruling? Yet, undoubtedly Planar has more of perceived resolution due to the high contrast, our eyes love it. As for Helios-77, it is simply a black sheep here

Also you should keep in mind that this test is way limited by the sensor with its anti-aliasing filter and the Bayer structure. Theoretically, Nex-7's sensor's 3.88micron pixlel pitch gives ~128 lp/mm of resolution if you assume that to get 1 lp/mm you need 2 pixels, which is simply not true if we test it practically. In reality, any modern sensor including Helium uses ~3pixles to get 1 lp/mm. So take as a rule that top modern (2016-2017) sensors can do at max 90-100 lp/mm. Now recall that lenses in this test can do 700-1100 lp/mm in the very center (yes, I hear you, that is with ultra minimum contrast, but anyhow you see the perspective for the evolution).

By the way, all three lenses can gain a little contrast rise, — for some reasons none, including the Planar, wich is supposed to be highly devoted to any image-forming tiny design details and tricks, have the black matting at lens edge (true at least for the front and back lens element)! I suppose the matting could give ~+2 to +10% better contrast and veiling flare control:

Here's the left edge image part:

Planar is simply brilliant holding the plane as flat as it can wide open at 1.4 Others, well, give up. Here we come to the feature which really prove there's lens evolution and where it is obvious: it's when nearly all the frame is well corrected for any aberration and literally planar.

When that Planar's purple CA go away? Close the iris to ~f2.0 and voila, its gone and the look is crystal clear, and besides, almost no spherical aberration (see the trees at the bottom):

***​

I also wondered how each one renders at night, wide open. This is Helios-44 2/58 (58.6) night city shot at f2.0, live view focus point is at the crane, it's joint point, in the very center of the shot:

Planar T* 1.4/50 (51.8mm) at f1.4:

And Helios-77m-4 1.8/50 (52mm) at f1.8:

All, shown in stripe for center region pixel-peeping, here again Helios-44 amazes me with complete absence of chromatic aberrations while others do have fringing and halos around city lights and all highlights:

[Helios-44 vs Planar 1.4/50 vs Helios-77m-4 night shot]

This is the same shot, but here shown the left image part / edge (without re-focusing):

Up here both Helioses are subject to pretty severe coma (see that comet-like and tails around lights), it always grows towards the edges. Planar also has it, but to a lesser extent and together with the way smaller spherical aberration, it is very well corrected and obviously the champ here.

 

[Ilya O.]

[part IV]​

Now we proceed to a moderate wides, Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 2.8/28mm (precisely, it is 28.5mm) C/Y versus KMZ MIR-10A 3.5/28mm (measured 28.02mm) m42:

[Mir-10A 3.5/28 vs Distagon T* 2.8/28 optical diagrams + look]

Here's Mir-10A optical ID, before and after optical adjustment:

Mir-10A, 1985 made, had a bit of on-axial coma from the KMZ factory, but I again say that's within OK tolerances for that kind of alignment.
Yet, I only approve top Airy disk lenses for this (and any scientific one) test, so I adjusted the lenses to stay on one axis so the disk pattern became nice and centered. The resolution went up tiny 5.7%, from 450 lp/mm to 476 lp/mm (6th component is resolved). What you see on the right, the misty halos around the resolution reticle is a lot of spherical aberration.

Distagon T* 2.8/28, AEJ, despite the age (build 1974-1985; Can anyone plz help to determine the exact date for this #5996422?), have been holding its factory adjustment well till now so it needs no fine-tuning, here's lens ID:

Whilst there's a nano decentering (see after the Airy disk after-the-focus pattern, core and bigger circle are not on-axis), just look at that resolution pattern, what a contrast and crisp aberration-free image! I predict it will rock! Resolution is measured to be ~626 lp/mm (11th component). That is ~1.3x times better than of MIR-10A.

Now to the city landscape. The weather got cloudy, no sun, so low contrast ratio. Mir-10A at f3.5 gives a cold (cyan-blue highlights) and misty look, same Hebrew star focus point, new tab for 6k:

Distagon 28mm is clear, punchy and warmer (reddish highlights) at 2.8:

Here's both, the same shots, put mirrored center-to-center, plz open new tab and zoom to the center to compare:

[Mir-10A 3.5/28 vs Distagon T* 2.8/28 both wide open]

Mir has far less resolution and definition in the center, a result of relatively slow aperture of f/3.5 and on-axial spherical aberration. Distagon, is, well, like somebody boosted unsharp mask filter up

Wait!..What if I apply Unsharp Mask filter to Mir? Can it reach Distagon in the central region?! Here it is, with Unsharp Mask (Amount: 200%, radius 0.5, threshold 0):

Funny, yeah? Mir is subjectively sharper now than Distagon This is how post- and in-camera processing rules the viewer impression nowadays. What you see here is how Mir's spherical aberration is easily killed with the Unsharp Mask filter. Though, Distagon still have more true definition and fine details, it's just our brain is fooled with the edge contrast boost technique.

OK, forget it. Let's see how's the performance at the edges? Again wide open, flipped edge to edge:

Mir has quite a fall-off whilst Distagon shows flatter image plane (still, not without a mess).
Mir almost does not have axial color aberration (only a bit of light brown), Distagon has some unnoticeable purple fringing.

Both have lateral color aberration (look at the white building at the edge): cyan to red/brown of Mir, and purple/violet-light green of Distagon (most of Zeiss lens have that lateral CA colors):

[Mir-10A 3.5/28 vs Distagon T* 2.8/28 wide open EDGE CA]

What's the difference between these two CA (color aberrations). It is easy: axial (longitudinal) is when a lens can not focus one color to the point of focus of the other colors, it can be seen anywhere in the frame. Hence the purple as a typical of Zeiss' designs. APO lenses focus all there basic colors in one spot. Can be reduced if you close down the iris.
Lateral (transverse) CA is seen and rises only towards the edges, it is when a lens has magnifies various colors differently. Can NOT be cured when stopping down.

Then, what if we compare both at f5.6, at more realistic landscape shooting aperture?:

[Mir-10A 3.5/28 vs Distagon T* 2.8/28 both at f5.6]

UP here in the central region both go pretty close with Distagon being still clearer and definitive I would say. Mir-10 at f5.6 is pretty close to Distagon's IQ level without an Unsharp Mask filter.

Here's what happens at the edge, at f5.6:

Up here Mir improves its result, but still far far away from the increased Distagon's performance (now it has flat plane). Look at the trees below white building — Distagon renders them with the famous 3D look and feel, while Mir displays just a mash or a Gaussian blur applied in vignette mode.
Is it bad? Optically, yes. Yet, for artistic vision it is very nice and I myself prefer that Mir's look to emphasize the center region which centers the composition and/or holds the character; besides, its best for portraits; again, too much details everywhere in the frame crashes the brain and exhausts the viewer fast.

I'd finish up with the night shots to give another tonality and feel. Mir-10A, at f3.5, focus is at the crane, at the very center of a shot:

Distagon, at f2.8:

Now please follow me and you'll make a little discovery. Open each of the above two shots in new tab, then switch between the tabs fast and try to catch your scene depth impression. Please carry out, don't just believe me but try yourself. Pay attention to the foreground (bottom left), center and the background (center right towers with red lights) layers separation. Do you notice the very strange thing happening? Here's both lenses in strip to glance diagonally for the effect I'm talking about:

Distagon is 28mm f/2.8 and is expected to give deep depth of field with more or less equally sharp layers. It indeed is. Every layer is kinda sharp and thus plane and flat.

Now switch to Mir. It is even slower being f/3.5 and should for sure render much deeper DOF and thus flatter image with none of separation between the for-, mid- and background composition layers.
But it DOES NOT! Moreover, quite the opposite is happening: it almost feels like 28mm f/1.4 or something separation! I'll crop out the mid- and background layers for you to compare:

Now do get what I mean? Look at the sharp crane at the bottom left and now move up and right to the smooth, creamy and luminous towers — can you feel Mir's look forms a kinda of bokeh impression with actually no bokeh here!? Do you think Mir is defocused? No, it is not: take special attention to the sharp windows and a smaller building under the towers — everything is in proper focus. Impression you get is caused by haloes and diffusion on the bright lights which Mir delivers.

This is incredible and truly new aspect for me, and I consider this as positive result of Mir's spherical aberration. An unexpected 3D-effect of plane separation, nice looking solely at deep night shots