Chinon lenses

Hi all,
I'm looking at manual lenses on ebay

Has anybody had experience using Chinon lenses?

Thought I'd check before thinking of buying one.

Regards
Chris

Chinon - originally Dixons own brand or that was the only place you could buy them.

From my occasional encounters with them they are average - nothing spectacular.


What lenses are you looking at? Don't need a link to ebay, just the size and aperture.

Yes, average budget lenses, nothing spectacular.

28-50 F3.5
Chris

Thanks for comments

Just testing water really. I did buy a Super Cosina 80-200F4.5.
It's ok but not as sharp as pentax lenses that I have.

They're cheap heavy 'glass' though.

Chris

Just got an AUTO CHINON M42 28mm F2.8. It looks very well made. Need to give it a good try out but initial impression is its a very good lens.
bb2

When I first got interested in photography I looked around a lot at different brands and originally bought Chinon as they used the Pentax K fit lenses but the cameras were less costly. Most people including many of Dixons own staff thought they were a Dixons own brand name. However they were great innovators on many things and manufactured most of Kodak's compact cameras. In fact Kodak owned part of Chinon. The last I knew of was that they owned 50.1%. They were highly thought of in Switzerland and Europe in general. The very first auto focus lenses used on Canon cameras were made for them by Chinon and were used on Chinon camers as well. In compact and bridge cameras they invented multi area focusing which was copied by Canon Nikon and Minolta who they took to court and won 2 of the cases. I found their lenses very good at the time their K KA and the auto focus which had the motor in the lens A LA Canon. So as the old saying goes DON'T KNOCK 'EM 'TIL YOU'VE TRIED 'EM. Now I'm pure Pentax but still have a soft spot for the Chinon brand. CHEERS Vic.

Happy to say I have tried them and I certainly would not use them in preference to Pentax lenses. However, like many manufacturers, they would have been capable of making things to whatever specification was required for the perceived market or for the manufacturer who was going to label them.

Cosina are living proof of this sort of multi-level ability.

Chinon didn't make any lenses, they were made by Tomioka a top manufacturer who also made lenses for Ricoh, Yashica, Mamiya, Polaroid etc. Some of the zooms might have been made else where. The primes are probably OK but not as good quality as the Ricoh, Yashica ones.

Tomioka as part of Kyocera went on to make the lenses for the Zeiss Contax/Yashica range. They no longer make camera lenses but are a very large manufacturer of industrial lenses under the name Kyocera Optec.

shim

Thanks for the info Shim.

Tomioka own brand lenses for 35mm are very rare and very good.
One on ebay at present.

Tomioka 135/2.8 Auto Tominon M42 Mount

Link

Not a bad price for what it is.

Don't expect to find a 55mm f/1.2 for that price. Link

There's supposed to be a Chinon version of that. Also a Cosina
version which gets raved about.

shim