The distance scale is clearly marked in feet and metres and a useful and meaningful depth of field scale is also provided. The same fine quality experience is also felt with the aperture ring, which is just perfect in its balance between smoothness and enough firmness to prevent it being sloppy in action. This Chinon may have been an inexpensive option compared to the marque lenses, but it is every bit as gorgeous as say a Pentax M series optic. Whatever we have gained with modern lenses, it becomes immediately obvious that one thing we have lost is the delightful, silky smooth feel of a finely made manual focus lens. The filter thread is 49mm, so any filters used should be relatively low cost. No lens hood was supplied as standard, so here an Olympus 28mm hood from the same era was used.

In common with similar designs of the era, this is a very compact lens, weighing in at a modest 202g without caps. Here we have a fairly late and pristine multi coated K mount lens, coupled with a Pentax K-1 36MP full frame body. The Chinon name in the UK was fairly synonymous with Dixons Photographic, featuring cameras and lenses sourced from many Japanese factories.

Apart from the marque offerings there were a vast number of third party 28mm lenses, usually f/2.8, some good, some less so. Before the advent of the AF lens the typical amateur lens line-up would be 35mm-50mm-135mm, which eventually evolved to 28mm-50mm-135mm as our idea of what constituted a wide angle developed.

Chinon lens serial number