| Author: | | Forum Member Registered: June, 2007 Location: Belgium Posts: 96 | | Review Date: April 20, 2020 | Recommended | Price: $20.00
| Rating: 7 |
| Pros: | Cheap, sharp enough, light | | Cons: | Prone to oily aperture, flare without lens hood | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 7
Bokeh: 7
Handling: 7
Value: 7
Camera Used: NEX-6 with Lens Turbo II
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Nice little 28mm, but doesn't compare in rendering or sharpness to the Pentax K or M f3.5.
Unfortunately neither of the latter fits my Lens Turbo II, so this is my only option in a prime to go wide without a full frame camera...
Also, it is quite a bit cheaper than the Pentax 28mm lenses nowadays!
Had to work a bit on mine to remove oil from the aperture blades and to adjust the focus mechanism slightly to get full focus range on the LT2.
This lens is super simple on the inside, really easy to service if you have the right tools.
Very happy with the result after a first trip to the nearby nature reserve!
I did slap myself in the face for forgetting to put on a lens hood. This combo needs it or you get really bad flare, as the 3rd image shows.
All images shot at f8. It's nice and sharp at that aperture.
 | | | | | | | New Member Registered: April, 2016 Posts: 23 | | Review Date: September 13, 2016 | Recommended | Price: $35.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | cheap, great build quality | | Cons: | none | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 8
Handling: 9
Value: 10
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I wanted to add a short review for this lens to highlight that there are different and better versions out there. My version is an M42 mount with a 55mm filter mount (pictured below). This is a solid well made lens that offers a lot of bang for the buck as it can be found on auction sites for very affordable prices. I've had this lens for several years and I've never been disappointed. The images it produces are quite sharp and I like the neutral colors it produces. The only reason I don't use it more is because I have an SMC Takumar 28mm f/3,5 that I prefer. If you're interested, I made a video comparison of 3 28mm M42 lenses that you can watch here. You can see that the Chinon holds up well against the Pentacon and Takumar. Below are some additional photos. All were taken the the aperture wide open at f/2.8. As usual the images become sharper as you stop it down.
 | | | | | Junior Member Registered: December, 2012 Location: Dobrich Posts: 27 | | Review Date: July 30, 2015 | Recommended | Price: $15.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Cheap, usable at 2.8, nice bokeh | | Cons: | none for the price, except a bit of a long focus throw | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 10
Handling: 7
Value: 10
Camera Used: P30, K10D
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Cheap and easy to find. Tons of copies everywhere. I got mine for around 15 bucks and it will spend most of it's life mounted on my P30t. There really isn't much difference in the build quality between the 28 and the highly recommended Chinon 50 1.7(I have both of them). A bit plasticy, but it's to be expected at this price. The colours are pretty good and are really natural looking. It's a pretty decent lens even at f 2.8, and gets even better when you stop it down. The only thing I don't like about this lens is the really long focus throw, perhaps someone shooting video would appreciate it, but that's just not me. Oh and the best thing - no need to worry about destroying it, just get another one, I've actually seen them go for as low as 5 bucks.
Are there lenses with better optical and build quality - yes. Are there better lenses for this price - I doubt it.
And here's a sample at 2.8 on my K10D(I was too lazy to get the K5 2 out, the K10 was on my desk):
And a pretty tight crop form the same image:
 | | | | | Senior Member Registered: December, 2013 Posts: 223 | | Review Date: November 20, 2014 | Recommended | Price: $1.00
| Rating: 6 |
| Pros: | cheap and easy to acquire, lightweight throwaway kinda lens | | Cons: | crap build quality, lazy aperture, only full stops, vignetting | | Sharpness: 5
Aberrations: 6
Bokeh: 3
Handling: 5
Value: 10
Camera Used: 4/3rds to full frame and film
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this lense is mostly used as a lenses cap and video shooting on my canon dslr as the aperture is not snappy enough in auto mode, so I've declicked the aperture.
the lens has ok sharpness but low contrast, use a polariser and/or hood to get the most out of it
the average resolving power of this lense is about half your sensor resolution @ f4 (example 12 megapixel becomes 6 megapixel)
on a full frame camera overall light transmission wide open is almost half a stop slower due to the heavy vignetting.
If you can get this lense for dirt cheap, its worth considering as a lense cap and beater for street video shooting on 1.6x crop cameras, if you have 4/3rd's (2x crop) or full frame skip this to save space in your camera bag
| | | | | | | Junior Member Registered: August, 2014 Posts: 35 | | Review Date: August 30, 2014 | Not Recommended | Price: None indicated
| Rating: 4 |
| Pros: | smooth focussing, | | Cons: | Soft even stopped down, no coating, | | Sharpness: 3
Aberrations: 3
Bokeh: 6
Handling: 8
Value: 2
Camera Used: Pentax K5
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I got this as a bundle with a Pentax ME-super. I used to own the Sigma mini wide II which is a good lens I would recommend. I sold the mini wide just before I got this lens hoping this one might replace the mini-wide (I bought the Pentax ME for it's Pentax 50mm lens and accessories). I was about to be disappointed.
Even at F8 I wasn't able to get decent sharpness with this lens, used a lens hood and graduated filter. I even used a polarizing filter to get back some contrast but that didn't help enough with this lens. In fact, nothing is really sharp with this lens  (close, far away, it doesn't matter ; yes I checked focus ) and color rendering is also quite terrible.
I ended up throwing this lens away because I didn't want to use it anymore(you'll get much better wide angle shots just using your kit lens) and I felt guilty if I would try to sell it. I ended up buying a Pentax-M 28mm F3,5 which is a much, much, better lens than this one.
| | | | | Junior Member Registered: September, 2012 Location: Ulm Posts: 45 | | Review Date: November 2, 2012 | Recommended | Price: $30.00
| Rating: 6 |
| Pros: | Already usable wide open, decent sharpness | | Cons: | Still no better than DA L 18-55 kit | | Sharpness: 5
Aberrations: 7
Bokeh: 7
Handling: 8
Value: 7
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If you get a good sample of this lens, it's probably great. I'm afraid my sample isn't though, but more on that in a minute. This one is AGFA branded. (An Auto Revuenon MC badged version was also sold, just like the 50/1.4 and 135/2.8, but note that only the 50/1.4 was exclusively made by Chinon and the others may just as well be Cosina-built and look correspondingly different.)
As for the right half of the image...
It's absolutely usable wide open, where the Vivitar K03 counterpart (Komine-made non-"Close Focus") and a Porst MC auto F are very hazy still, and by f/8 gets about as sharp across the frame as the DA L 18-55 (maybe a hair sharper in the center and a bit less towards the edges, but there's not much in it; the kit lens is pretty good in this range). Not even the Pentax-M 28/3.5 managed that, it fell off in sharpness towards the edges (apparently due to field curvature). Granted, the M 28/3.5 has less greenish tint to it (as does the kit lens, though the difference isn't huge at this point), no surprise with less glass in it and better coatings.
CA levels again are about on kit lens level, visible upon close inspection but low enough to not usually be disturbing. They're not automagically corrected by the camera, obviously.
Bokeh looks fine to me, and just about the same in the front and in the back (another indicator for well-corrected spherical aberration). The 6-blade aperture is visibly rounded down to f/5.6 or so.
But the left half.
Oh my. Towards the left-hand side it becomes a blurry mess with plenty of spherical aberration when wide open, and the left edge always remains more or less soft. I'm not sure what's up with that. Decentering? Bad lens element?
Other than that, this Chinon feels very nicely made, like many of those old MF lenses do. Aperture selection only provides full-stop clicks, for better or worse.
Assuming you get a sample that's actually performing well, I'd recommend checking this lens out. A good one should be about as decent as inexpensive old K-mount 28s get. Shame that I apparently ended up with a lemon. This lens is such a tease!
| | | | | New Member Registered: November, 2008 Location: Albuquerque Posts: 12 | | Review Date: October 23, 2010 | Not Recommended | Price: $20.00
| Rating: 3 |
| Pros: | nothing really | | Cons: | ghosting a little even when stopped, not sharp | |
I just find this lens unstable. Yeah sure stop it down but the characteristic is still frail and blurry. I can not find any reason to use this lens. Find a Pentax 28mm and use that.
| | | | | Veteran Member Registered: January, 2009 Location: Andenes Posts: 361 | | Review Date: October 21, 2010 | Recommended | Price: None indicated
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Sharp stopped down to f/8 | | Cons: | Ghosting and not sharp at all if not stopped down | |
Got this lens for free by from my wife`s uncle who had Pentax for 10-20 years ago before the digital revolution 
Didn`t quite get the right area to let this lens work with, but now I`ve tried to both for landscapes and portraits and I`m actually very impressed with this lens aslong as it`s stopped down to around f/8-11
Couldn`t upload pics here but feel free to visit my flickr where I have the same name as here  | | | | | Veteran Member Registered: July, 2007 Location: Brampton, Ontario Posts: 3,996 | | Review Date: February 3, 2010 | Recommended | Price: $30.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | nice solid feel, aperture ring afirmative at each stop, close focusing, nice color and sharp | | Cons: | none so far, have not fully tested CA and PF yet | |
I got this with the Chinon CM-4 camera and the Chinon 50mm f1.9 lens. The lens has a solid feel and both the focus and aperture rings are smooth and afirmative at each f stop. So far, I do not have any problem at wide open aperture. A close up shot of the lens that comes with this package show that it is sharp. Seems to be a good deal if you are looking for a wide angle MF lens.
 | | | | | Senior Member Registered: July, 2009 Location: Boise, Idaho Posts: 197 | | Review Date: August 21, 2009 | Recommended | Price: None indicated
| Rating: 7 |
| Pros: | Pretty decent overall lens. Solid feel. | | Cons: | Little soft. | |
I have this lens in non-auto flavor and it actually goes by a different name. Mine is labeled as a Super Chinar, but design and looks are exactly the same as are the specs. I too basically got mine for nothing with another camera purchase and therefore I can't really be too hard on judging its characteristics. The build quality of it rivals my Pentax SMC M 50mm 1:1.7. It just feels solid and well built. I havent noticed any flare issues but I havent really used this lens much outdoors. At 2.8 max aperture it does ok in low light, however does tend to be a bit soft all the way open. Stopping down really helps the IQ. Coupled with my new(to me) Sigma flash and stopped down to about f11 I got some pretty darn nice shots from it. It seems to be just wide enough to shoot scenery and almost there for indoor room shots (as long as they are a bit larger). Overall I would say pretty decent lens if you can pick one up for next to nothing. I wouldnt invest hundreds of $$$ in one, but for $20-30 its not a bad deal.
| | | | | New Member Registered: November, 2008 Location: Glossop Posts: 6 | | Review Date: March 8, 2009 | Recommended | Price: $10.00
| Rating: 7 |
| Pros: | Sharp when stopped down a bit | | Cons: | Unusuable at f2.8 | |
I got this with a Program A camera, which I purchased almost entirely to get the Pentax SMC A f1.7 50mm it was wearing, so this was next to free.
I tried it out that evening, in the dim light of my living room wide open, and it was awful. At f2.8 it shows giant 'ghosts' below and around any bright object, as shown in the following image, a 100% crop taken today in the park.
I have found that stopping down to f4 gets rid of this, but I'm not sure if it isn't still a bit soft. The following images were taken at f5.6, and I've shown 100% crops, and I think they are as sharp as anyone could hope for from a lens of this age. These are all taken as raw on a K10D at ISO 200, and run through Adobe Camera Raw with linear curves, 25 sharpness (standard) and zero smoothing or noise reduction, -24 on the red/cyan colour fringing, and the exposure and contrast set fairly conservatively.
The CA is a bit noticeable if you go looking for it, but it's much less than I get from the kit lens, and as it's so easy to fix, I'm not too upset by it. The build quality is excellent, all metal and very good with the aperture ring clicking home into each stop positively and the focus ring very smooth. It is about 58mm long and grows by 4mm when close focusing, where the shortest distance it will go to is 28cm.
I was not expecting anything much from it, so I'm delighted really. I'll certainly keep it as a small unobtrusive lens for landscapes and wandering about on holiday a bit.
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