The Limbo Connection's photos with the keyword: Planar

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.

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 undisputed. 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. In this photograph of an advertisement for a Chinon CX from a magazine published in 1976 (the CX was made from 1974 and succeeded by the CX II about two years later) you can see the difference in price between the usual f/1.7 lens and the premium f/1.4. Keep in mind that another £10 was 12.5% extra, and quite a lot of money relative to the overall price - though it would have been a better investment than £10.95 for the ever-ready case, in my opinion. Fast standard lenses tend to be expensive. Even the Tomioka 55mm f/1.4 doesn’t come ‘cheap as chips’ like a lot of vintage M42 stuff. Is it worth the extra investment? The image in the viewfinder ought to be brighter wide open, and even half a stop more light can make a difference in a dark room. But that is theory and I have yet to experience the anticipated superiority of the Tomioka-made 55mm f/1.4 Chinon lens.