5 Frames With A Chinon 35EE – By Nigel Cliff

I won’t bore you with a life history, suffice to say I have been photographing for 42 years through manual focus, onto autofocus, onto digital with AF everything; and then for the past 18 months firstly manual lenses, and then back to film.

As my eyesight isn’t brilliant I decided to steer clear of MF SLR’s and concentrate on compacts. I now have a growing collection, of which the Chinon 35EE is just one. I have a bit of history with Chinon, my first SLR was one back in 1976, and so when the 35EE presented itself for a mere £13 I went for it.

The shots here are from a roll of Agfa APX 400 – an emulsion that I am beginning to love. This might have been a mistake in these glorious sunny days, but high shutter speeds and small apertures compensated for that mistake and the results turned out well.

The Rangefinder is excellent showing obvious focus, even in bright conditions. Although, the focussing ring is a touch stiff. Maybe it’s just age (a bit like me) but the body is sturdy. I don’t feel that I’m putting a strain on anything or that anything is likely to break.

The results were a real pleasure to see, and reinforced my love of Chinon glass – I’ve always thought it was highly underrated. I have a 50mm, 35mm and 135mm that I use adapted on my micro four thirds bodies. I find that unlike 30 years ago, I can take a half decent black and white shot. The number of films I wasted back in those days doesn’t bear thinking about… so onwards and upwards, and maybe more Chinon (and other) compacts on the horizon…

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