Crop Sensor Camera + Standard 50mm Lens

Photographed using a Chinon 55mm f/1.4 lens on a Fuji camera via an adapter. This lens was an alternative to the more usual 55mm f/1.8 when Dixons were selling Chinon cameras during the early 1970s. They aren't that plentiful on the second-hand market so I guess not many customers paid the extra. After all, this was the budget-conscious end of the market. There is nothing wrong with the f/1.8 version, but the f/1.4 was definitely worth the extra.

Photographed using a Canon EOS 30D digital camera (circa 2006) with a Chinon 55mm f/1.4 lens (circa 1976). This photograph shot at 800 ISO.

The photographer was photographed with a Tomioka-built Chinon 55mm f/1.4 lens mounted via an M42 - EOS adapter on a Canon EOS 30D digital SLR camera dating from 2006. The lens is probably from the mid 1970s.

Photographed using a Chinon 55mm f/1.4 lens fitted via an EOS-M42 adapter to a Canon EOS 30D camera.

The de Clarke monument in Locksbrook Cemetery, Lower Weston, Bath. It is a bronze sarcophagus with an angel over a base of Pennant stone sculpted by Edward Onslow Ford and completed in 1900. The monument was erected to Mary (d. 1895), wife of Lieut.-Gen The Hon Sir Andrew Clarke. Sir Andrew died in 1902. It is probably the finest tomb in Locksbrook, and is a Grade II listed building. I used a Chinon 55mm f/1.4 lens for this photograph. Camera: Fujifilm X-E1.

Photographed with a Chinon 55mm f/1.4 lens mounted on a Canon EOS 30D via an EOS-M42 adapter. The macro effect was achieved with the addition of a Minolta Close Up No. 1 supplementary lens screwed into the 55mm filter mount.

Nikon D2Xs + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 AF-D lens. Aperture-priority; 100 ISO. 1/400th at f/4.5. The D2Xs, once the flagship of the Nikon fleet, has not become a poor camera simply because later models eclipse its ability. If it used to be good enough for professional photographers, it is a happy experience for amateurs working on their coat tails. Up to 400 ISO it is good; at 100 ISO it is possibly peerless. I love to use it in good light at 100 ISO. It performs best when teamed with a fast prime lens.

'Soul of the Man' is the B side of 'Rescue Me' by Fontella Bass (1965). Photographed with a Chinon 55mm f/1.4 lens liberated from an old Chinon CX camera of circa 1976 and installed via an adapter on a cheap secondhand Canon EOS 30D digital SLR.

Nikon D2Xs, Nikkor 50mm f/2 AI.

The plastic A/M slider has broken off my venerable Chinon 55mm f/1.4 lens dating from circa 1976 (a £10 upgrade when bought with a Chinon CX). To mark this milestone in its decline I have edited an earlier photograph made with this lens presumably wide open. I ought to take contemporaneous notes but it seems a nerdy thing to be doing for a cool guy like me. Non-contemporaneous notes (the cool type of notes); The photograph was taken through a gap in a hedge (green bits). Beyond the hedge was (and still is) a busy four-lane road (blurred bits). Beyond that again is an old wool mill, imposing and built of stone (white bits). There is an inexplicable red bit. My best guess is that it was a red lorry. The leaves in their final days leave me feeling melancholy. If I were not a photographer, I should scarcely have registered their existence.

A wall at Courtfield House. Probably mid 18th century. Canon EOS 30D and Chinon 55mm f/1.4 lens.

When I was eight, which is a very long time ago, Mrs Graves was our teacher in the village school. Mrs Graves was a Do Things person, as well as being pretty with dark hair and a nice smile. Mrs Graves set up an after school club about which I remember little except that it involved prolonging my exposure to Mrs Graves. On one of these club events we walked over a few fields doing the things Mrs Graves said we should do and eventually arrived at the place in this picture. Here we paused, sat down, compared notes, and I think had something to eat. Until now, I had never returned to this place. I had nurtured it in that special section of memory reserved for Super Things. Many places you revisit are something of a disappointment, but not this. It was a happy pilgrimage, a homage to the incomparable Mrs Graves, and her vitality and devotion to her work. Nikon D2Xs + Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AI lens.

An extension tube between the camera and the lens enabled close focussing here. The Japanese Tomioka company made the Chinon 55m f/1.4 lens to a Planar design by Johannes Berger of Zeiss, which Zeiss never themselves used, having something similar which they considered superior. I bought the lens - still attached to a Chinon CX - from an eBay seller. It is engraved ‘Auto Chinon’ but in all other respects is identical to 55mm f/1.4 lenses badged ‘Tomioka’ which Chinon were supplying before 1974 when there was a change of ownership at Tomioka. The company was taken over by Carl Zeiss in 1974 and the name Tomioka was removed from the front of lenses being supplied to camera manufacturers. Tomioka was at one time the largest lens producer in Japan. It was more economical for Chinon, Mamiya Sekors, Ricoh, and others to buy from Tomioka than to manufacture their own lenses. In this they were not alone. Vivitar and Soligor, for example, never made lenses. They specified what they wanted, and various Japanese optical companies bid for the contracts. When sold new in the UK by Dixons the f/1.4 lens was available as an option to the normal f/1.7 for an extra £10 over the £69.95 usual price (I quote from a 1976 advertisement in ‘Amateur Photographer’). That was quite a premium and as a result the f/1.4 version is relatively scarce.

Canon EOS 40D + Chinon 55mm f/1.4 + Minolta close-up lens no.1.

Shortly after taking this photograph, this bun, and two of its companions, were consumed by a glutton operating a Canon EOS 40D camera with a Chinon 55mm f/1.4 lens on an extension tube. f/4; 1/90th; 1600 ISO. 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.

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

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

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