It's vintage! It's got what photographer's crave!

@eatstoomuchjam +1

"I do not understand this product which means that everybody who buys it must be an idiot."

@matticusmaximus I figured the name might have been a joke, or at least the logo being a play-on-words. But there are people out there who wouldn't think about it and just buy it.

The fact they are tinting old Soviet era lenses is bothersome to me. The tint is destructive in terms of editing: you can't get that color back. If you tint the lens, all your footage will be monochrome.

I look at these old lenses and think of the great mechanical ingenuity of our species. It's not computerized, yet it still stands as a testament to fine optics years later. Further, it's a piece of history: to hold (and use) a lens made in the USSR invokes a lot of my curiosity and imagination.

@burnetrhoades Fine, go buy several: ignore my advice.

I wasn't the first person to say this. Read people on this thread: http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/6424/dog-shits-optics-by-flare-factory-58s/p1

And no, I disagree. A helios is not a gimmick lens; it is essentially a Soviet Union duplicate of the Zeiss Biotar. The Russians got the technology from Nazi Germany towards the end of WWII. If you want to dispute history, be my guest. The Russians got to Berlin before the US did.

I am not saying at all that there is no room for a gimmick lens. I think every photographer/videographer should have at least one: be it fisheye, lensbaby, perspective control whatever. It sets them apart. However, the Helios is an excellent portrait lens with rich bokeh.

As far as this Dog lens: I went to their website. They state that they "recycle" vintage optics. What would that mean? They recycle one vintage lens into another vintage lens? Are you serious? I could see maybe if they were able to treat fungus ridden elements, but they didn't claim that. They just took the paint off a lens that is blatantly marked USSR and put a tint on the lens. You can do that with a lens filter.

This company is located in the UK and the Soviet Union dissolved in the 1990s. Even the name of the company: Dog Schidt; is clearly meant to sound German (to connote German optics), but dog has it's etymology in Old English. Something doesn't smell right here.

You can still see some of the Helios engraving on the lenses on this page: http://dogschidtoptiks.co.uk/pdf/flarefactory58.pdf

I wouldn't trust this guy. I have a helios, and it's really a great lens to begin with. The video does show a helios with just the paint stripped off.

If this guy is just giving lenses a coating treatment, then he can coat any lens, not just the helios. Even then, it would be hard to tell if he did anything to the lens at all.

Say he did something to the coating to increase flares: why would you even want that? Flares are really cliche. I could understand a gimmick lens for your bag, but to wreck a helios?

Coatings are usually meant to reduce flaring and chromatic aberration: if he's doing anything, he's probably stripping the coating off with isopropyl alcohol or something.

@shian did you ever end up getting one of your own?

@regaliafilms as mentioned you should be able to adapt any of those to MFT with a relatively inexpensive adapter. Though, I'll probably go the EF mount knowing that metabones is releasing the EF to MFT speedbooster in a few weeks.

Do these work with a GH2, or do you need a convertor? I just stumbled upon this topic today, and wow these lenses seem very interesting.

@theshittywizard I really love the look of the FF58 Fixed Quasi f1.5, Contrast option: Stupidly low, Dirt option: Element separation, Tint option: Gold/red tint blend as seen in this clip:

I'll be ordering something similar from Richard in the next couple of months to compliment the FF58 I currently own: Variable aperture circular f2-f16, Contrast option: Stupidly low, Dirt option: Element separation, Tint option: Gold.

@sunscreen Thanks for the response! I'll be ordering a 2-3 FF58s in the next couple of weeks. I'm waiting to receive payment on a current gig.

Any recommendations on the flare/color/aperture choices?

I've been looking at quite a few videos, but I'm still having the "problem" of feeling like a kid in a candy store. I'll probably do one with circular and one with oval aperture...this much I know.

Has anyone ordered a lens from them recently? Dog Schidt has been getting a lot of positive attention lately (and rightfully so) I'm just wondering how long of a wait it has been between order placed and arrival.

I'd settle for 35mm at the wide end, but I'm headed for a 3 lens set at minimum at this point. The current DS lens is a perfect lens for the middle of a set. Longer should also not be a problem for DS, there are good longer lenses that go with the Helios well. Honestly I'm between this old Russian style glass and the Zeiss C/Y stuff right now. Zeiss would have it in the bag if they had more aperture blades.