Snow! Finally! I told you it will come!

And even if the sky is blunt all the time, there always would be one small beam of light that will reflect from the surface of your house walls or windows, breaking up to millions of little fragments of truly beautiful gleamy sunbeams.

Reminding you that it's not always about the cold, but something more momentous. You can interpret this importance how you want, but the light is still there, waiting for you to face it.

Duckies!

The question is:
To get the best feeling/desire/emotion/thing in your life (no matter which one, the one that will make you happy for all your entire life) and then lose it forever?
Or to be blunt and deny it, to make it your dream that you will never reach so no one could take it away from you, including yourself?

When it comes to other lenses I have tried I can't miss this one. The Industar-50-2 f/3.5 50mm. And it is a very quirky one.

So the first thing you might find is that it's actually very small in size, I'd even say that it's one of the smallest Soviet lenses you can find that is available for M42 bayonet. There are a lot of compromises in design too, like the aperture control ring is located right near the glass portion of the lens, so you usually end up smudging your glass, which is annoying.

The focus ring feels a bit too short, meaning it's hard to focus on things. I also felt that on Jupiter 37A, however Jupiter at least has something you can easily grab on to change the focus. Here the controls feel a bit clunky, a little too soft and easy to mess up.

And also, f/3.5 for the lens of this size feel a bit too dark. The lens portion is quite small, as you can see.

Honestly I did not like it at all, but it's just another lens in my collection. So if you want your super stealth camera setup to have one of the smallest manual lenses - you may consider this one. And don't forget about the bayonet type, as you'd need an adapter ring to M42 thread.

I think I know almost everything about my hometown. I know all the buildings, all the shops, all the houses and all micro districts. But when it comes to nature I know there are some little magical places like this one. The funny thing - once you find some, you want to keep this place in your mind, you want to remember that this place was super good. But at the same time you are also afraid that when you come there second time - this place might already lose all it's magic.

So take photos of these places I guess. To remember that these places had value. Mine looks like a Shrek's house, but I don't care, it's a good one. And honestly I don't remember where it is located exactly. Which make it a very valuable memory.

So... Same place, different time. It's actually quite interesting how scenery changes depending on the season. Do you feel this contrast in the place where you live?

Why is it only 90% complete? Have you ever seen my profile? It's like 170% complete, but I guess there's something I am missing. Not sure what exactly though...
Maybe you could help me figure it out?

You know it's coming. The winter is not here yet, but once the first snowlakes will fall on top of your head you'd know it's time to take it seriously.

I like how winter goes in my region. Central heating solves all the problems with the sudden temperature change, so there will be no issues at home at all.

But the nature! Ooooh yeah. I know it's just snow, but I like how forests change colors from green to white. Grass is absolutely invisible, and only the smallest bushes remind you that you are actually standing on something solid, and not on a fluffy cloud somewhere in the sky.

I love that sudden temperature drop. When the first thing you feel when you go outside is that this negative temperature and dampness make you not being able to breathe properly. Yeah, that feeling usually goes away in some minutes, but still, that feels like your body trying to adapt to something brutal.

Another sudden change you notice is that you can easily get sick with no hat or scarf on you. Getting rid of these sicknesses might be a bit problematic because of your plans or daily chores, so you have to be a bit more cautious about your nearest future planning.

And the sky! If it's blunt like it always is in SPB - at least there is a thick layer of snow on the ground to reflect that blunt sky light. And if the weather is sunny you always feel like you are a part of Alexander Pushkin's poems.

There are some disadvantages too! For example: You have to wear good clothes with a good temperature protection and winter boots. So your usual outfit just become like 3x heavier, which you notice immediately. Your breath shortens as there are still some untraversable places that you need to get through, so you get tired faster. And the sudden feeling of falling on the ground because of that pesky little frozen puddle! Ahhh, these are so annoying. But still, I love winter here. It's calm most of the time, and when it's not - it's a great show to watch millions of little snowflakes fall on the ground to form a layer of snow that becomes thicker with every hour.

Can't wait to see winter again this year.

Part two of that collection of photos from early autumn of 2024!

Less tight streets and more fresh air!

Since then I bought some additional lenses. I was impressed with how good Helios 44-2 was so I decided to invest in Jupiter 37A. Imagining this lens was worth a full blown annual salary of a regular soviet worker is insane to me! And what now? Like $50 in the best condition?

Ofc none of these are compatible with a modern (ish) camera, as these have different bayonet connections. So adapter rings are needed!

I quite like how M42 adapter ring works, it's a metal plate with a regular Canon EF bayonet connector on one side and just a huge threaded hole on the other. I mean it can't be easier that this, right? I remember speaking with a woman who sold me that Helios 44-2, she said she tried to connect her Helios to modern Canon EF-S bayonet without that adapter ring but failed. I tried convincing her that it's usually done with using special adapters, but she said she just does not care. I still feel kind of bad for her, her Helios was in perfect condition and was set much lower the average market price. I mean that was a good buy for me surely, but the moral of the story is that maybe we all just need to listen just a tad more carefully while talking to each other?

These photos are still made with only Helios though.

Saint Petersburg, Russia, early autumn of 2024. Shot on Canon 100D and Helios 44-2 manual lens. No major edits besides color correction, all done in Lightroom.

Not sure why I was holding on these photos for that long, but I guess it's better to share these now than just dump these in the archive and let them sit there until my hard drive will break.

Yeah I missed the focus on some of these, so don't judge me! I remember these being one of the first ever photos I ever took with this camera.