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Legendary Helios Lens Making Company and Plant Reopened?

Chris Gampat
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11/19/2012
1 Min read
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Last Updated on 11/19/2012 by Chris Gampat

Update: We found the website, but it is right now only in Russian; commrade.

We’re not sure how this one slipped under our noses, but our Multimedia Producer Thursten Kent was snooping around Pentax Forums to find that Helios has allegedly reopened shop and is once again producing lenses. For those of you that are unaware, the company produced a couple of Zeiss and Leica knockoff lenses a very long time ago and went nearly defunct and unknown for a while until mirrorless interchangeable lens digital cameras came onto the scene. With their ability to adapt nearly any lens onto the mount, enthusiasts found themselves scouring eBay and Craigslist for some cool finds and rare treasures.

When the Panasonic GH1 came on board, so too did many cinematographers. The problem was finding good, small cinema lenses for the system. Luckily for many videographers, Helios had made them a long time ago and the results are really quite beautiful. I’ve played with the lenses as former co-workers of mine and friends all own them. They’re quirky, but they get the job done.

Today, the lenses can easily be found on eBay and purchased for anywhere from dirt cheap to nearly $1,000.

We’ve tried to find an official Helios website online, but couldn’t as of publishing this story.

cinematographers helio leica lenses pentax zeiss
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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