Chinon 55mm f/1.4 Lens

You often find this with gates: the hardware is not mounted straight; screws are missing, or replaced by non-matching unsympathetic screws; even, as in this case, the hardware is wider than the post on which it is mounted. Here the carpenter shaved off the left-hand side of the post to match the bevels on three other sides. Yet someone has driven screws into the shaved edge rather than get a smaller latch which would make a better fit. Canon EOS 30D + Chinon 55mm f/1.4 lens.

Seen abandoned on a grave in the churchyard of Edington Priory Church. The biro looks like the type available in betting shops. The wooden cross seems to be an orphan from the regular November event. We live in a throwaway, don't tidy up society, where totems and memorabilia have replaced quiet reflection. Canon EOS 30D + Chinon 55mm f/1.4 lens.

Given sufficient time, oxygen, and water, any iron mass will eventually convert entirely to rust and disintegrate. Canon EOS 30D + Chinon 55mm f/1.4 lens.

Canon EOS 30D + Chinon 55mm f/1.4 lens + small extension tube.

Canon EOS 30D and Chinon 55mm f/1.4 lens.

Canon EOS 30D + Chinon 55mm f/1.4 lens.

Canon EOS 30D + Chinon 55mm f/1.4 lens.

Canon EOS 30D + Chinon 55mm f/1.4 lens.

There's something unusually tactile about using these original Nikon F bayonet lenses from the pre-AI era. It is satisfying just to twiddle the focus ring until things look right instead of battling the AF and eventually turning it off. Of course, I don't photograph games or sport. if I did, I'd surely embrace all the advantages of the modern lens technology. Photographed with an old M42 screw-thread lens - the Chinon 55mm f/1.4 - on a Canon EOS 30D.

This photograph shows a Canon EOS 40D camera fitted via an adapter with a Tomioka-manufactured, Chinon badged, 55mm f/1.4 lens made around 1975 to a Planar design by Johannes Berger. The photograph was taken with a Nikon D700 fitted with a Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 AF-D lens. That camera-lens combination is very capable and unquestionably superior to the kit in the picture, yet the old Chinon lens is nevertheless a pleasure to use, if a bit challenging to focus sometimes. Because the Canon EOS 40D is a crop-sensor camera, the field-of-view is 55mm x 1.6, that is equivalent to 88mm, and thus more of a short telephoto. These old lenses, with little or no coating, and no computer technology involved in their design, seem to imbue your photographs with particular colour characteristics which are a bit different to modern day lenses. On researching this particular lens, I was glad to discover it is generally well-regarded. One reviewer was especially enthusiastic: The following are highlights from a review of this lens at erphotoreview.com/wordpress/?p=1264 'The lens has very strong center performance wide open for an f/1.4 lens, especially considering its age. Contrast drops off quickly towards the corners, but the lens still has decent resolution. Even at f/2 the resolution is exceptional in the center, and the corners are very good resolution by f/2.8...Flare resistance is terrible...Distortion is a fairly minor barrel distortion. Fairly easy to correct, and likely not an issue for most situations. This lens really surprised me. I was expecting junk and it ended up being the biggest surprise of the lenses I tested. In terms of sharpness, the only place this lens is lacking is wide open at the corners, otherwise it is comparable to the best of the best.' To the reviewer's remarks I would add that 'sharpness' is a general term to describe the clarity of detail in a photograph. Fundamentally, only two factors contribute to the perceived sharpness of an image: resolution and acutance, the latter being the contrast. Resolution relates to closely-spaced details in a picture, whereas acutance is a question of whether edges are well-defined or blurred. When we apply 'sharpening' to a photograph in post-production, it is only the acutance which is altered; the resolution is determined at the instant the photograph is taken.

Canon EOS 30D + Chinon 50mm f/1.4 lens + extension tube.

Canon EOS 40D + Chinon 55mm f/1.4 lens + short extension tube.

A recent change of ownership for a pretty house with an attractive brick wall in the back streets of Trowbridge, Wiltshire. Canon EOS 30D and Chinon 55mm f/1.4 lens.

She hears it hiss
 She sees it glow 
Like a burning kiss 
It won't let her go
 She's been captured by hot neon
 And it's got her so bad
 She's a prisoner of hot neon
 And it's driving her mad

This sturdy East German pre set lens was in production from 1963 until 1990. However, it was redesignated as a Pentacon following the merger of Meyer-Optik with Pentacon in 1971, when it was given auto diaphragm capability. At some point in the production run the number of iris blades was reduced from 15 to six, presumably as an economy measure. This occurred during the 'Pentacon' years. The original Orestegor with its 15 blades is known as the 'bokeh monster' because the blades form an almost perfect circle. Obviously that sort of geometry is impossible with only six blades in the diaphragm. Photographed with a Canon EOS 40D and a Chinon 55mm f/1.4 lens.

Canon EOS 40D + Chinon 55mm f/1.4 on extension tube.

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Canon EOS 30D/M42-EOS adapter/Chinon 55mm f/1.4/Minolta Close-Up Lens No.1