Standard Prime Lens on a Crop Sensor - The 75-85mm Experience

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.

A damp Wednesday morning in Trowbridge. An attempt to do it the old way: 50mm prime lens (a Carl Zeiss Jena f/2.8 Tessar); manual focus, of course, and all-manual exposure setting. The camera was a Canon EOS 30D - I am not yet contemplating the final hurdle of film. The field of view with this camera and lens combination is similar to using a lens of 80mm focal length on a 35mm film camera. Only occasionally frustrating for wide shots, it is generally a satisfying general purpose lens. I bought one of Taylor's celebrated Wiltshire lardy cakes and the trader agreed to have his portrait taken. Quid pro quo.

Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar 50mm f/2.8 lens on a Canon EOS 40D digital camera. The chief reason I bought into the Canon EOS system was to use this lens. Fortunately the low cost of secondhand discontinued digital SLR cameras enables such indulgences. The design of the Carl Zeiss Jena 50mm F2.8 Tessar stretches back at least to the 1930's where countless examples exist in different forms, formats, and mounts. This is a fundamentally simple lens of just four elements in three groups with five aperture blades. It is not the best 50mm lens that I own. However, it is certainly the cheapest. So it is something of a mystery why I find it so satisfying to use. It is slow for a 50mm lens at f/2.8. The focus throw is very wide, allowing precision at the expense of fast handling. It seems sharp, but nearly all 50mm lenses are sharp. It performs well wide open; so do many others. Colour rendition is good. Distortion is not a problem. Contrast is strong. You could say the same about practically all 50mm lenses. But I like this particular lens very much.

Low light. Moving subject. Manual focus. ISO 1600; f/1.4; 1/40th sec. Tomioka-made Chinon 55mm f/1.4 on a Canon EOS 30D. Strangely wonderful.

When by chance I met this Italian visitor outside the 'Red Lion' in Avebury, she was on holiday from her home in Ireland. She was enjoying a glass of real ale and preparing a cigarette. Telling me about her day out, she opined that the Avebury landscape had its limitations. She said, 'You walked a bit, and saw a pile of stones. You walked a bit more and there would be another pile of stones'. Never before had I heard Avebury Circle described as 'a pile of stones' but she had a point, and she certainly expressed it amusingly. In days of yore the locals broke up the stones to make building materials, and so they didn't overdo the reverence and awe. They probably just said, 'here be a handy pile of old stones'. Photographed using a Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 AF-D lens on a Nikon D2Xs. Cropped and converted to black and white.

The picture was taken with a Nikon D40 (introduced 2006, CCD sensor). The lens was an elderly Nikkor-H 50mm f/2 from circa 1971. An all-manual experience, like going back in time (except not film).

Photographed in available light with a Carl Zeiss Jena 50mm f/2.8 lens on a Canon EOS 30D.

Nikon D2Xs and Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 AF-D lens. ISO at 800 and overlooked, thus mad exposure of 1/8000th at f/2. Shutter actuations: 82,469.