USSR lenses (Soviet lenses). Best and worst

My name is Arkady Shapoval and I have passed through my hands an incredibly large number of various Soviet optics. I was asked to write an article about the five best and worst Soviet lenses. But the very wording of such an article is abstract. Soviet optics is very diverse. She exists:

1. For SLR and rangefinder (mirrorless) cameras
2. For narrow, medium and large format
3. Film optics and photo optics
4. Military and civil, technical optics (for example, for projectors, enlargers, overhead projectors, etc.)
5. Optics of different factories, years of production and directions (for example, for export)

Mass Soviet optics and optics of the countries of the former CIS are most often associated with full-frame (narrow format) SLR lenses. It is about some of these popular solutions that I will write here.

It must be clearly and strictly understood that Soviet lenses received a second life  due to the appearance of inexpensive digital SLR and mirrorless cameras, as well as thanks to the enthusiasm of many amateur photographers.

In general, I consider Soviet optics to be very weak. It has many critical issues:

1. The mass character of optics had a very bad effect on its quality. Many Soviet lenses are very weak mechanically. So weak that after just 100 frames they can start to have serious mechanical problems. First of all, this is aperture sticking, oil on the aperture blades, aperture blades falling out, focus ring sticking and poor lens assembly tolerances.
2. The difficulty of identifying a particular lens. For example, there are more than 50 different versions of Helios-44. There are more than 20 versions of the same Helios-81N. It is extremely difficult for the end user to understand the “zoo” of Soviet lenses. Often attackers take advantage of this and give out one lens after another. A particular example – lenses of the AUTOMAT series are sold under the guise of ordinary lenses. The problem is that all the lenses of the “Automatic” series cannot be adapted to modern cameras in a simple way. The same thing happens with lenses in variants for the Contax-Kiev RF mount.
3. The age of optics also had a very bad effect on the quality of products that have come down to us. Finding a copy in good condition is getting harder and harder. Usually, almost all Soviet optics literally smells of old age. Often, a special lubricant was used to lubricate the helicoids, which has a specific odor.
4. Old optical design. Many optical circuits are very outdated. Many of them are built on the pre-war developments of Carl Zeiss. Carl Zeiss technology was taken from defeated Germany as reparations (payment for war damage). The same legendary and well-known Helios-40 is a remake of Biotar 75/1.5.
5. Many Soviet lenses have gained legendary status thanks to skilled photographers. The problem is that the beautiful photos that photographers have shown and show are more dependent on the skills of the photographer himself than on the quality of the lens. Many amateur photographers are psychologically prone to believing that the same lens can be used in exactly the same way. But this is self-deception. Separately, I want to highlight the contribution of the photographer Tigra Girl to the popularization of Helios-40. It is to her that the modern KMZ plant (now it is the ShVABE holding) should pay big money for being an ambassador.

Another hidden feature of Soviet optics is that there are practically no wide-angle lenses for modern cropped cameras. I am often asked what wide-angle lens to take on a cropped camera so that it is at least around 18 mm focal length, like, for example, kit lenses of the 18-55 / 3.5-5.6 class and at the same time has more advanced optical performance. But there are simply no worthy solutions from Soviet optics. More or less worthy and affordable wide-angle lenses start at 35 mm focal length, but on a 1.5x crop, such a FR already turns into a “standard” one (in terms of focal lengths).

I was asked to prepare a general summary table for Soviet lenses, but I do not see any point in this. Data on resolution in general does not play any role, since in the end it all depends on the particular instance that has survived to this day. Even the same lens, with the same name, produced in different factories, may have different data on resolution and other characteristics.

Some Soviet lenses have received their update and are still produced on the territory of modern Russia. So, for example, the legendary Helios-40 received bayonet options and minor updates. True, such modern solutions have a rather high price tag, and therefore I believe that this is just an attempt to cash in on old developments. I am extremely skeptical about such “updated” solutions. The whole world is doing something new, but in the countries of the former CIS they continue to resurrect the classics. I should note that the same Chinese industry offers a huge selection of lenses for ridiculous money and with very interesting optical characteristics.