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.