Helios 103 vs M.Zuiko 45mm

Helios 103 is a successor of Jupiter 8M.  It is a product of the USSR in early 80s.  It has a focal length of 53mm and maximum aperture of F1.8.  It has a contax RF mount, which means the lens itself has no focus mechanism.

To see how good is Helios 103, the best way is to compare it with a decent modern lens.  In this test, I chose Olympus M.Zuiko 45mm to make the comparison.  This is the native m43 lens I own with focal length and maximum aperture size closest to Helios 103.

Cost
Helios 103 is quite cheap on ebay, it is around USD40 including shipping.  However, you need a special contax RF mount to m43 mount adapter, with focus mechanics.  This adapter is quite expensive, it can cost for more than 5 times of the lens itself!!  I got mines for about USD150.  It is made by Kipon.  So, unless you are very into Contax RF lens, otherwise, it may not be economical to invest on such adapter.

For M.Zuiko 45mm, it is about USD350.

Image Quality
All the photos below were taken with OMD with the below settings:

M.Zuiko 45mm F1.8

Helios 103 F1.8

Helios 103 F1.8 (with hood)

M.Zuiko 45mm F2.8

Helios 103 F2.8

Helios 103 F2.8 (with hood)

M.Zuiko 45mm F4

Helios 103 F4

Helios 103 F4 (with hood)

M.Zuiko 45mm F5.6

Helios 103 F5.6

Helios 103 F5.6 (with hood)

M.Zuiko 45mm F8

Helios 103 F8

Helios 103 F8 (with hood)

M.Zuiko 45mm F11

Helios 103 F11

Helios 103 F11 (with hood)

From the photos above, M.Zuiko 45mm is clearly the winner. Helios 103 suffers from serious internal reflection problem, the problem is quite obvious at F8 and F11.

Macro Photography - Volna 9 vs M.Zuiko 60mm

Volna 9 50mm is the only "Macro" lens (some people may argue it is a close-up lens instead as it only has a magnification ratio of 1:2) produced during the Soviet era.  It has a focus range from 0.24m to infinity.  For macro photography with m43, Volna 9 is probably one of the cheapest lenses which delivers high quality images.  Also, Volna 9 has relative high quality control among soviet lenses, image quality is quite consistent and the risk of getting a bad lens is low.

Cost
Volna 9 is about USD130 on ebay (including shipping).  In order to use it on your m43 camera, you need a m42 to m43 adaptor, which is about USD20.

M.Zuiko 60mm is about USD499 on amazon.

Magnification Ratio
To see how the magnification ratio affects the image size, I tried to shoot the coin with the closest working distance of Volna 9 and M.Zuiko 60mm.  You can see the size of the coin is similar to a micro SD card:

Volna 9 has a magnification ratio of 1:2

M.Zuiko 60mm has a magification ratio of 1:1

Sharpness and Bokeh with different aperture
M.Zuiko 60mm produces very sharp image starting right from its maximum aperture.  Both lens produces very sharp image from F4, which is amazing for the old Russian lens!

The bokeh of M.Zuiko has nice circular shape, but nothing special.  Volna 9 has unique star shape bokeh between F5.6 and F8 that enables you to create very interesting effect in some circumstances.

(The following photos were taken with OMD-EM5 using natural tone)

Volna 9 F2.8

M.Zuiko F2.8

Volna 9 F4

M.Zuiko F4

Volna 9 F5.6

M.Zuiko F5.6

Volna 9 F8

M.Zuiko F8

Volna 9 F11

M.Zuiko F11

Volna 9 F16

M.Zuiko F16

Resolution

Here is the 100% crop at F8 (The focus points of the two photo were not the same, my bad!! but you can get an idea how close are the two lenses in term of resolution!!):

Volna 9

M.Zuiko 60mm

Here is another illustration.  I have targeted the communist part logo using both lens and made a 100% crop.  Indeed, the resolutions of both lens are very close!

Volna 9 F5.6

M.Zuiko F5.6

Volna 9 F5.6 (100% crop)

M.Zuiko F5.6 (100% Crop)

Conclusion

M.Zuiko 60mm F2.8 is clearly a winner, mainly in terms of magnification ratio, size, sharpness at wide open and its weather proof capability.  This is expected as Volna 9 is a lens designed 20s years ago.  However, the performance of Volna 9 50mm F2.8 is not bad at all, it produces very sharp images with high resolution starting from F4, I would say it is almost on par with M.Zuiko.

Some may consider macro photography occasional and it is not worth getting an expensive macro like M.Zuiko.  In this case, the Volna 9 is definitely a good economic alternative.  The only drawback is lack of auto-focus mechanism, yet, some people may prefer manual focus, as a way to enjoy the process of photography.

Bird in Flight @ Cheung Chau