Chinon and Tomioka?

Pancolart · Expire: 2013-11-18

Thank you for good additional info. I agree with what you're saying. I believe when CHINON introduced those MULTI COATING 1.4/55mm (like in my signature) they were already the makers of complete lens.

What do you think of popular 1.7/55mm M42?

Oldhand · Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 11:27 am Post subject:

Thank you Fujinonuser for that background info.
Gratuitous image time - poorly focused - sorry.

Fujinonuser · Joined: 06 Jan 2011 Posts: 128 Location: Germany

@ Pancolart
As I have written, I doubt that Chinon ever made its own optical glass. The layers of their "multi coated" line of lenses look similar to the BBAR coating of Tamron glass, Tamron being the second big glass foundry besides Hoya with their HMC multi-coating of upto seven layers. Again, licenses for certain lens designs could have been bought by Chinon, glass manufactured according to various formulas and with different expertise by different optical plants and finally the lenses assembled in different plants by who knows who.
As to the 1.7 / 55mm lens -- this was the very first lens that I owned as a young man, then called an Autoreflecta, and delivered with the very first Chinon cameras. It was very soft at wider apertures. One had the impression that the wider apertures were only meant to facilitate focussing. But at f=8 and especially f=11 it was tack sharp with all the qualities of color-corrected Tomioka glass. It had only one golden layer that was highly effective. The Kodachromes taken with this lens have retained their splendour.
The 1:1.7 55mm Chinon lens shown in Oldhand's picture was presumably manufactured by Cimko (Topcon). It is possible that later 1.7 designs were sharper at wider apertures. Perhaps they were modified Topcor designs. The lens that I have tested was sharp and contrasty with its two-color dynamic coating. Nevertheless, the 1.4 design is superior because of its wider rear lens element.

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

fermy · Joined: 17 Feb 2012 Posts: 1974

Well, it is true that they weren't intended to be shot wide open and the better ones peak at f5.6, while the weaker ones peak at f8-f11. However, IMHO the main reason why people didn't shoot wide open back then is that a legacy SLR is too difficult to focus precisely enough at f1.4. Now we have 14x magnification with focus peaking and the deck is stacked differently. I find most legacy lenses good enough for wide opening portraiture. In most cases, when light is an issue, I would rather open up than raise an ISO past 800 or so.

Here's a true story. I was buying (among other lenses) Fujinon 55mm f1.8 from this old photographer and this was a test shot. When he saw that I am taking his portrait wide open, he got rather frustrated and proceeded to explain that I am an idiot and would have only the tip of his nose in focus. When asked, how would he take the portrait in his dimly lit shop, he said that he wouldn't take it at all, unless there is a lot more light. I don't think this is a bad environmental portrait though.

For me the moral of the story is that new technology opens new opportunities. Probably the old photographer would have been 100% right 20 years ago, but there is no reason today to take yesterdays standard practices as a gospel.

DSC04601.jpg by fermy0001, on Flickr

Oldhand · Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2013 9:13 pm Post subject:

Old photographer? .... old photographer!......... he looks younger than me !!!
Very Happy

OH

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

I completely disagree, most SLRs were perfectly capable of focusing a 1.4 lens accurately. Even the Canon Pellix with it's Pellicle mirror could focus the 1.2/58 it often came with accurately. All the 6 Konica SLRs can focus both the 1.4/50 and 1.4/57 Hexanon perfectly, my Miranda Sensorex can focus the Miranda 1.4/50 perfectly, the CanonAE-1 I had could focus the FD 1.4/50 accurately.

I can't think of a lens for 35mm that was optimised for f8-f11, that would be a bad approach as the diffraction limit for 35mm is somewhere between f11 and f16.

Another factor that makes shooting wide open with a lens that isn't designed to do so (which is 99% of lenses) bad practice is that you are using the lens at it's weakest, which is hardly sensible. It is best to play to the lens' strengths rather than it's weaknesses. As we know, even cheap third party lenses tend to perform adequately when shot at f5.6 or f8, whereas most of them are crappy wide open or closed 1 or 2 stops. We see people posting all the time that they want a 'better' lens, where what they really need is to stick with what they have and improve their technique and learn how to get the most out of their current equipment.

The laws of physics haven't changed in the last 20 years so that old photographer was quite correct. Correct technique is to stop down to an aperture that renders all of the subject in focus yet still throws the background out of focus. In practice, it has to be really dark not to be able to close a fast f1.7 or 1.8 lens one stop and the background has to be really close to the subject for it to also be in focus.

Fujinonuser · Joined: 06 Jan 2011 Posts: 128 Location: Germany

@fermy
What a fantastic portrait with this wonderful lens, the Fujinon 1.8 / 55mm. It was issued in July 1970, whereas the Chinon Autoreflecta 1.7 / 55mm is an oldtimer from 1966.
@iangreenhalgh1
I slightly disagree. You are right, of course, that the laws of physics have not changed during the past 40 years, but there are lots of different lens designs and optical formulas around. This makes our hobby interesting, isn't it?
I remember that I stopped down the (Chinon) Autoreflecta to 8 or 11 to get best results with a Kodachrome25 (ISO 25). At f=16 diffraction set in noticeably. At apertures wider than 5.6, you would get a "water color." Such an effect would be welcome both for portrait work and within the realm of Japanese aesthetics. It is a good lens, if you know how to handle it, but it is never a fast lens. It has the clear and luminous colors of the Tomioka glass at slower apertures.
The Fujinon 1.8 / 55mm is sharp already at 1.8 and so is the Tomioka 1.4 / 55mm with an even narrower depth of field. The widest aperture of 1.4 was meant to be used in available light, not only for focussing. It was a full working aperture. Most modern digital cameras without a split-field focussing screen have difficulties focussing at 1.4.
Nevertheless, when you compare the Fujinon 3.5 / 55mm macro lens to the 1.8 / 55mm standard lens, you will agreee with the photographer quoted that, at same apertures, the field of sharpness appears to be more even, "deeper," in the macro lens than in the standard lens that has its extreme peak of sharpness in the middle of the lens.

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

I don't understand the high praise for Tomioka glass, the several I've had were mediocre at best, the 1.4/55 I had was awful, but I suppose it was a poor copy. I take it as an indicator of poor QC.

I haven't had any M42 Fujinons, but I had all the X-Fujinon 'normals'. The 1.9/50 was okay, less good than most 50s from major makers, build quality was possibly the worst I've seen from a lens of that era, mostly plastic. The 1.6/50 was a poor lens, very soft wide open, terrible CA that didn't fo away until f5.6, weak contrast, green colour cast. The 1.6/55 was much better, bigger, more robustly built, I was quite impressed with it, but obviously, Fuji replaced it with the lower quality 1.6/50. The 2.2/55 was mediocre, again it had poor, plastic build quality.

With all of these 50-ish 'normal' lenses, they perform best at f4, f5.6, f8, so why not use them where they are strongest? Honestly, I can think of very very few occasions where shooting wide open was necessary, and today, with in-body stabilisation and clean ISO performance at ISO 800 with most cameras, then it has to be really dark to require shooting with the lens wide open.

Farside · Expire: 2013-12-27

Back in the day, most 1.4s and 1.2s were bought for bragging rights anyway, and very few were actually used where the extra light transmission would have been crucial - like concerts or available-light work in darkish streets.
From that, I surmise nothing much has changed Smile

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

fermy · Joined: 17 Feb 2012 Posts: 1974

@ Oldhand. Any man who is older than me and any woman over 30 is "old" for me. Twisted Evil

Sorry... I guess, I am "that old guy" too for some of the kids Laughing

@ Ian. Yes, our lenses perform best @f4-f8, but indoors it's mostly very dark photographically. For example, the exif for the above shot shows ISO 1000 @ 1/80 @ f1.8 @ -1/3 EV. For me that's fairly typical light level indoors. Obviously, you are not going to get anything close to "optimal" exposure of 1/400, @ ISO 200 @ f5.6 here. You have to compromise somewhere, or rather everywhere and the discussion shifts to the question what compromises are reasonable.

Now let's go back to the claim of the "old photographer" in the picture that DOF is too shallow @ f1.8. I think the picture makes it self-evident that if the shot is focused right on the money, the DOF @ f1.8 is just fine. So his stance is way too dogmatic. However, I have no doubt that he was taught that way and that there were reasons why he was taught that way. My guess is that the reason for all this "DOF is too shallow" wisdom is that the margin for (focusing) error is too small.

Personally I find it much easier to focus very precisely a mirrorless cam compared to an old school SLR. Then again, I don't shoot film anymore, so if you maintain differently, I wouldn't disagree. However, I don't see any other explanation for this old school wisdom of not shooting at large apertures. I think the shot makes it self-evident that wide open performance of those lenses is more than good enough at least for candids and environmental portraiture. I also posted a number of shots with other lenses @f1.4 and even @ f1.2, that show that a usable wide open performance is a norm, rather than exception. Of course, that does not contradict the fact that one gives up some IQ when shooting wide open as opposed to f5.6.

@ Fujinonuser - Thanks.

Mos6502 · Joined: 20 Jun 2011 Posts: 960 Location: Austin

I think it depends on the situations - many times shooting wide open is preferable to using a slow shutter speed and suffering the often worse effect on sharpness of camera shake. But on the other hand, using the tripod to remedy both problems is preferable. Unless of course you don't or can't have a tripod. The universe has an odd way of keeping anything from ever being 100% perfect 100% of the time. Confused

Lloydy · Expire: 2022-01-01

I agree with Ian and Fermy, even if they do seem to oppose each others thinking.

I'm with Ian in thinking that shooting an image at maximum aperture and achieving the narrowest DoF possible isn't the holy grail of photography, and I also think it's become a fashion that seems to have become all consuming for many photographers.
But, as Fermy says,

Oldhand · Posted: Mon Oct 14, 2013 12:00 am Post subject:

DR.JUAN · Joined: 08 Feb 2013 Posts: 661

First. Leica school teached that you muzt use the more open aperture you can. Why? Cos' the move cam is one of the reasons of blur pics.
Second. The rendering at f/4 to f/11 is so similar inthe common lenses, that the difference between them shuold be the wide open rendering.
third. The increase of the pic should be higer on the past. So the best rendering was critical.

Excalibur · Expire: 2014-04-21

TrueLoveOne · Expire: 2013-12-24

Chinon Tomioka 21mm f/3.5

I can say that this is a great lens. It belongs to a friend who "accidentaly" bought it in a set of cameras. It's at my place now for testing (playing, lol) purposes at the moment, and i really like it.

I will post a new topic about this lens with testshots made on full-frame 5D soon!

Chinon Tomioka 3.5/21 by TrueLoveOne, on Flickr

Pancolart · Expire: 2013-11-18

Cimko lenses i know quite well. 28mm, 35mm, 135mm and 200mm primes. 28mm described here: http://forum.mflenses.com/viewtopic.php?t=60228 others following the same characteristics. Well none of 1.7/50(55)mm does not resemble work of Cima Kogaku.

If i focus on 3rd party M42 1.7/55mm (and exclude 50mm) i see one basic model evolving:
There is early model A: http://m42lens.com/test2/m42-lens-database/211-weltblick_auto_super_55mm_f_1_7_16
Second phase model B: http://allphotolenses.com/lenses/item/c_859.html
Third phase MC model C: http://allphotolenses.com/lenses/item/c_740.html

Funny there is no M42 COSINA 1.7/55mm neither M42 Tomioka 1.7/55mm labelled lens.

COSINA F1.7 (PORST-REFLEX) exists only in 50mm: http://classic-optic.uaprom.net/p6883239-porst-color-reflex.html
Rikenon F1.7 also exists only in 50mm.

Tomioka was IMHO full maker of early model A. Second phase there was Tomioka/CHINON cooperation. Third phase CHINON took over, Tomioka says goodbye. A case when student become better than the teacher.

If anyone still considers COSINA he must compare late MC 1.7/55mm model CHINON / REVUENON M42 with COSINA products of the same period. If you ever tested smooth CHINON MC focusing and compared it with COSINA dried-up focusing you'll know what i mean:

Another puzzle question. COSINA: Tomioka? The answer might be hidden in M42 Rikenon 1.4/55mm. Is Rikenon body made by the same company as COSINON M42 1.4/55mm? Franky i think not. Cosina bought design from Tomioka from the start whereas Rikenon was actually produced by Tomioka.

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

Chinon didn't make lenses, they were a camera maker who bought in their lenses from others, so all the speculation about Chinon is invalid, if a lens says Chinon on it, all that tells you is who sold it, not who made it.

barryreid · Expire: 2015-11-04

@TrueLoveOne - That 21/3.5 looks lovely and, from the look of it, could be very much like of the Yashica ML 21/3.5 which is a sharp lens with one flaw which is a bit of flare that robs it of a bit of micro-contrast which means it needs a touch of Post to really pop.

dimitrygo · Joined: 01 Apr 2009 Posts: 561

The closest resemblance to this late MC 1.7/55mm Chinon is this 2.8/28mm Ozeck lens:

The question is whether Ozeck made this lens by itself.

themoleman342 · Expire: 2013-01-24

The Chinon lens that I'm most interested in determining a manufacturer for is the MC 1.7/50 Macro. It only was made in M42. It was also labeled as an Auto-Alpa like here: Click here to see on Ebay The Chinon series that this lens was a part of were mostly made by Tamron but they never made a 50mm, I don't think. I wonder where the optical blocks came from.

Pancolart · Expire: 2013-11-18

@dimitry: Interesting visual resemblance there with Ozone Optical but i have both lenses and they have little in-common.

@moleman: Tomioka or Chinon Wink

http://m42lens.com/test2/m42-lens-database/142-alpa_auto_alpa_55mm_f_1_4_16

themoleman342 · Expire: 2013-01-24