Back in the good old days during the cold war and thereafter, Zenit was one of the leading Soviet brands of SLR equipment. The manufacturer, KMZ, got under the radar when the Soviet Union collapsed, but their lenses had a renaissance when mirrorless cameras became popular a while back. Recently, the old factory has been reopened and production was continued, and now one of the first “new old” Zenit products is available. It’s the Helios 40-2 85mm F1.5 lens, which was previously a sought-after product on eBay. While the lens was exclusively made in M42 screw mount back in the old days, it now comes in Nikon F-mount, meaning that it can be used on all Nikon film SLRs and DSLRs.
Versions with Canon and Pentax mount have been available for a little while and sell for US-$ 549 at Amazon.com, so we expect the Nikon mount version to retail at the same price. The lens is all manual, but it’s a bang-for-your-buck alternative to the more expensive Nikon lenses.
Via Nikon Rumors