Fuji GFX100 with Helios 44-2 58mm f2 lensThis is my new (to me) Fuji GFX100 - with adapted Helios 58mm lens attached.

As you can see in this photo above, the lens is very small. It's metal and glass, so it is light, but not super light. It's all manual, and has a preset ring for the aperture, which is set by the ring near the front edge of the lens (which is unusual for camera lenses - even old ones like this). This lens is called a Helios 44-2 and it is 58mm and can open up to f2 (a pretty wide aperture, though the aperture of some lenses in this range can open up to f1.4 or even wider).

Below are a couple of shots, with crops, that show how sharp this cheap little lens is. They also show how little vignetting there is, even though this lens is for 35mm cameras, and I have mated it with a 44mm sensor (which is 33mm high).

Street scene shot at f5.6This scene shows how little vignetting there is with this lens, and gives an idea how wide the view is, when this little 58mm lens is put on a medium format camera with a sensor about twice the size of the sensor in a full-frame (35mm) camera. Crop of photo aboveIn this crop you can see how much detail the photo contains, even though it was shot with a lens that's more than half a century old, and only cost about $50.

Below is another shot with a crop following.

Another street scene shot with the Helios 44-2 58mm f2 lens on the GFX100This shot shows the lack of vignetting too.

Crop of photo aboveAnother street scene cropped to show the detail visible in a shot from the old Helios 58mm lens.

What do you think?

EDIT: I decided to shoot some photos at f11 with the Helios 58mm lens. Here's two of them (with crops):

Bicycle shot with 100 MP Fuji GFX100 and Helios 58mm f2 at f11I shot this bicycle at f11 using the Helios 44-2 58mm f2 lens on the Fuji GFX100. I'm pretty satisfied with the detail and lack of vignetting, when using this little lens. Crop from image aboveAs you can probably see, the detail in the bottom right corner is quite good, so setting the Helios 58mm lens to f11 works well. Flowers with Helios 58mm f2 lens set to f11 on Fuji GFX100I figured these flowers in the sun would be a good subject to show off the detail this Helios 58mm lens can produce at f11 on the Fuji GFX100. Crop of flower shot made with Helios 58mm f2 lens set to f11 on Fuji GFX100In this crop from near the bottom right corner of the image above, you can see the fine detail the lens and camera can be used to capture.

EDIT: I couldn't resist adding some more photos. Here they are:

Duck Pond - shot with Helios 44-2 58mm f2 on Fuji GFX100The ducks were far, but I thought the whole scene looked nice, so I shot it with this normal lens on my GFX100, the Helios 44-2 58mm f2. Crop of Duck Pond shot made with Helios 58mm f2 on Fuji GFX100This crop shows how sharp the distant subjects are on the GFX100, when shooting with the m42 mount Helios 44-2 58mm f2 at f8 (or maybe it was f11). Cactus flower buds shot with Helios 44-2 58mm f2 at f8 (or maybe f11) on Fuji GFX100I like how sharp these cactus flower buds and cactus thorns are, and this photo shows how little vignetting there is with the Helios 44-2 58mm f2 lens set to f8 (or was it f11?). Crop of cactus flower buds photoThis crop makes it easy to see the fine detail captured using the Helios 58mm lens on the 100 MP camera (Fuji GFX100).

If you want to see the originals in a gallery with these crops, just follow this link: https://www.bigprintphotos.com/gfx100

Soon I'll add some more photos, shot with the Pentax 6x7 135mm f4 macro.

DSC_2467Here's a sample jpeg image right off the card from my Nikon D810, using the 135mm f4 6x7 lens at f8. I wanted to step up to f11 to get more depth of field, but I felt that would compromise the sharpness of the image a little, and I wanted to show how sharp this lens is. I really need to shoot some more photos, such as some photos of something with a sign/sticker with small writing on it.

That photo above is from my Nikon D810 - not the new (to me) Fuji GFX100. I don't have the adapter to mount the lens on my Fuji yet.

Here's what that old Pentax macro lens looks like on my Nikon D810:

SDQH1746

I shot this photo above with my Sigma SD Quattro H and my 50mm f2.8 EX macro set to 1/800 sec. (The image above is just an OOC jpeg.) I just wanted you to be able to at least see the old macro lens I plan to use on my new (to me) Fuji GFX100.

This lens should be a good fit for the Fuji GFX100, since it will be equivalent to a shorter focal length on that camera (about equivalent to a 105mm macro on the Nikon). The Fuji has IBIS too, so I should be able to handhold down to some pretty slow shutter speeds, like 1/30 or even 1/15 second. I'll create a gallery of photos from the GFX100, using various lenses (only this one at first, no doubt). Eventually I plan to get Fuji's 45-100mm and 110mm f2 lens (for portraits/fashion mostly). I also plan to get some longer lenses and the new Fuji 20-35mm wide-angle zoom, but that lens is quite pricey, so it will be a while before I can post anything from that lens. In fact, I don't even expect to get the 110mm f2 this year, because that too is quite a pricey lens.

I'm hoping the Fuji GFX100 will help me step my photography up to a higher level. I know there are plenty of people who would say it's not the camera or the lenses, but the photographer behind them. I agree to a degree, but I did step up my game when I got my Canon 5 D and some really good lenses, so maybe I can make that happen with this new camera too. Ultimately I need to just get out and shoot more. This should help me with that. I sure hope so.

Once I have the adapter, I'll make a new blog post all about the 135mm f4 6x7 macro lens on the Fuji GFX100, with photos of the lens on that camera.

EDIT: I ended up ordering two adapters, and the m42 adapter came in first, so I mounted my Helios 58mm lens on the GFX100 instead. See the blog post here: https://www.bigprintphotos.com/blog/2023/10/first-shots-with-gfx100

Enough of this equipment talk!

;)

What I plan to do with the medium format equipment that I'm getting is produce photos that look better when printed extra large (i.e. 4 feet by 6 feet or bigger). Currently I don't use any camera with a tilt screen, so I will be happy to have that feature in my camera once more. (I miss having that, from when I used my Sony cameras.) Another interesting thing about the Fuji is the tilting viewfinder. No other camera that I have been shooting with for the past few years has had a tilting viewfinder, but there is an optional attachment that will allow me to make the viewfinder of my GFX100 into a tilting viewfinder. I'll be getting that this year for sure!

So this is the first post of my new blog. You'd think I would have posted something here a long time ago, huh? Considering how long I've been shooting and all the posts I've made in other places (over 18,000 at DPreview alone), I certainly SHOULD have started a blog here long ago.