Modern English Usage

Hanging a newly laundered shirt from the top of the bookcase is a handy way of getting it nicely aired in a room often warmed by sunlight.

I bought Fowler's Modern English Usage in a charity shop. There was a 1970s bus ticket inside its pages doing service as a bookmark. I like things from that period.

I used a Canon EOS 30D with a Chinon 55mm f/1.4 lens mounted via a cheap adapter. That lens is also from the 1970s. It has an interesting history.

Johannes Berger of Zeiss invented a 55mm f/1.4 Planar lens in 1957. But the design wasn't used for Zeiss lenses, because Erhard Glatzel invented a 50mm f/1.4 Planar lens, which was better. Berger's Planar, an asymmetrical double-Gauss scheme, similar to Nikon’s Nikkor-S Auto 50mm f/1.4 lens of 1961, was licensed to other manufacturers. Amongst these was Tomioka, a Japanese glass manufacturer.

Chinon, who made cameras but not lenses, went to Tomioka for a standard fast lens. They got the 55mm f/1.4 (there was also a 55mm f/1.2 supplied in smaller numbers).

In appearance, the 55mm f/1.4 closely resembles the more usual offering of a 55mm f/1.7 lens which came with Chinons of that period. Notably, the barrel is all-metal with a strip of thin leather glued on for a focussing grip. The standard of construction is good without equalling Leitz or Nikon quality. Because of the similarity in appearance, some suspect that the f/1.7 version was also a Tomioka product, but that is not proven, whereas the Tomioka involvement in the 1.4 55mm lens is pretty clear. Some of them even have the Tomioka name engraved at the front. Others are identical except for the absence of that information. The versions with the Tomioka name are appreciably more expensive to buy secondhand.