Tomioka Thin Depth of Field

Lens: Chinon 55mm f/1.4.
Camera: Canon EOS 30D.

The lens is an asymmetrical double-Gauss design. (It is similar to the Nikkor-S Auto 50mm f/1.4 from 1961). It was the creation of Johannes Berger of Zeiss in 1957 and was later 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 decided on this 55mm f/1.4 which initially was engraved with the Tomioka name. Later in the production run the Tomioka name was removed for reasons to do with a change of ownership. But the lens lacking the name is indisputably of Tomioka manufacture, being identical in all other respects and of a distinctive and unusual appearance. There is a bit of a cult around this lens; versions with the Tomioka name are appreciably more expensive to buy secondhand.

The double Gauss was maybe the most intensively studied lens formula of the twentieth century producing dozens of major variants, scores of minor variants, hundreds of marketed lenses and tens of millions of unit sales.