Buying Bargain Lenses! Which? Where? When?

Buying Bargain Lenses! Which? Where? When?

Foreword: This post is aimed at people who are just getting into vintage lenses, but maybe even a seasoned vintage lens user will find some useful info here. When it comes to buying lenses, things can get pretty confusing, especially at the start. There are so many brands, models, types, focal lengths, etc and there…

Chinon 200mm F3.5 Test  & What Makes a Beautiful Image?!

Chinon 200mm F3.5 Test & What Makes a Beautiful Image?!

Just over 2 years ago I’ve done one of my first ever vintage lens video comparisons. I simply picked out 4 very cheap 200mm primes, curios to see how these unknown lenses would stack up against each other and to see if they were usable at all.  One lens stood out to me as the…

Olympus Zuiko 50mm F1.4 VS Chinon Multi-Coated 55mm F1.7

Olympus Zuiko 50mm F1.4 VS Chinon Multi-Coated 55mm F1.7

As you can tell from my previous post I was certainly impressed with the unknown & forgotten Auto Chonon Multi-Coated 55mm F1.7, but to put things into better perspective I decided to do a simple comparison test against the my everyday 50mm lens of choice, the Olympus Zuiko F1.4. The Olympus is a bit wider…

CHINON MULTI-COATED 55MM F/1.7 REVIEW + TEST

CHINON MULTI-COATED 55MM F/1.7 REVIEW + TEST

Auto Chinon 55mm F1.7 is an interesting lens.  There appear to be so many versions of this lens. The one I’ve tested is a Multi-Coasted version with greenish coasting tint which actually looks very nice and for that reason I’ve now had it as a backdrop along with Zeiss 135mm F3.5 on my tweeter account…

200mm Lens Test & Overview. Part 1 (Hanimar, Chinon, Optimax, Prinzgalaxy)

200mm Lens Test & Overview. Part 1 (Hanimar, Chinon, Optimax, Prinzgalaxy)

It is time for my second test so far. This I quickly tested 4 very cheap 200mm primes, all 4 in very easily adaptable M42 mount.  200mm is a nice long focal length for video, anything longer and camera starts go become very shaky, so for the long shots 200mm is one of the best…

135mm Lens Test & Overview PART 1 (Helios, Chinon, Promura, Dollonds)

135mm Lens Test & Overview PART 1 (Helios, Chinon, Promura, Dollonds)

I finally got around to doing a quick test of the few lenses I recently acquired. This is a test of 4 135mm lenses, all in m42 mount, very easily adaptable to any modern DSLR. 135mm lenses are virtually non existent in modern lens world, but back in a day, they used to be popular,…