I have to admit, I was scared to unscrew the front ring on my Helios 44-2 and remove the front element in order to flip it. I saw some amazing photos online and I wanted to find out how to create the effect.
After a bit of searching on YouTube, I found some videos on how to get into the lens and especially with the Helios, it’s super easy.
I needed to get a lens repair spanner (you can buy it here on Amazon), but I think a small screwdriver would have been OK too.
I was initially inspired by Elżbieta Łapczyńska from Poland, you can see her work on her Instagram page.
She encouraged me to reverse the front element and confirmed it was easy.
Taking photos with a reversed front element on the Helios 44-2
Sharpness is pretty much out of the window! But it’s not about sharpness, but more about feeling and getting pulled into an image.
I found myself moving the camera forward and backward to get some sense of sharpness of whatever was in the center of the frame, but the crazy swirls were immediately visible.
Be prepared to take lots of images to get some of them to make sense 🙂
Below you’ll find a small gallery of my first steps with this setup.
