Chinon Bellami - best lens in its class?

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Huss

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Got my test roll back from my new-old-stock Chinon Bellami. And quite frankly the lens on this lump has shocked me. So much so I went back onto ebay and bought a spare before people read this, news gets out and the prices sky rocket!
;)

Fuji C200, shot into a dimly lit fire station:




100% crop:

 
I had quite a few Chinons, the CG5 was probably my favourite. I had one of them (Bellami) also that stopped working half way the first film. Maybe I will scan a picture from that roll later on.
There is another one like this in my local charity shop for £35 - I can't make myself go and buying it.
 
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Here is one. It must be around 2008 or 2009.


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Many of those old school RFs or compacts with 35-40mm lenses are very decent. My favorite is still Ricoh 500g rangefinder. A mode (shutter priority) manual override, compact size, 1.7 lens, no dependence on the battery...
 
I had no idea what the Bellami was, apart from remembering it vaguely as a kid. My curiosity was piqued when I found this unused one recently:



While many of these types of cameras have similar specs, the lens on this one far exceeds most that I have used in its class.
The thing that I really like about this type of camera is that they are much quicker, and arguably more accurate, to use than P&S cameras with AF. Set the zone focus (on the Bellami there is a green setting on the lens which in good light pretty much renders everything in focus) and shoot. Super quiet and zero lag as there is no AF mechanism making adjustments.
Fitting in the palm of my hand is a bonus, as well as having a single wind film advance lever.
 
This thread and the ongoing discussion about AF SLRs is firing my GAS... Specially in summer where a "battle camera" to keep and use in non ideal conditions is welcome.

These results are sharp, sharper than the mju I I have!
Lens might be a tessar type? I passed on getting a Konica MT11 with similar specs... but from now on I may pick up more of the thrift stuff.
I agree on the note about AF P&S which do every now and then miss focus.


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Prest_400 said:
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These results are sharp, sharper than the mju I I have!
Click to expand...

Of course sample variations makes it difficult to state something with certainty but my overall impression was that the mju 1 I had was just as sharp if not sharper.

Edit: the chinon has a tessar design lens, the mju is a triplet (3 elements in 3 groups)
 
I had the original Mju (with the 3.5 lens) and the Bellami is sharper. Plus I hated the delay with the Mju! Push the button, eventually it would take a pic.
 
Huss said:
I had no idea what the Bellami was, apart from remembering it vaguely as a kid. My curiosity was piqued when I found this unused one recently:



While many of these types of cameras have similar specs, the lens on this one far exceeds most that I have used in its class.
The thing that I really like about this type of camera is that they are much quicker, and arguably more accurate, to use than P&S cameras with AF. Set the zone focus (on the Bellami there is a green setting on the lens which in good light pretty much renders everything in focus) and shoot. Super quiet and zero lag as there is no AF mechanism making adjustments.
Fitting in the palm of my hand is a bonus, as well as having a single wind film advance lever.
Click to expand...

Looks as good as Minox lens. Hopefully this camera is not Minox "quality".
But to be honest XA lens is just as good with C-41.
 
The Chinon Bellami is a great camera, surprising good image quality. I had one, silly i sold it years ago, to clean my collection...
 
The Minox 35GT and the Olympus XA both have excellent lenses. I give the edge to the Minox.
 
The trouble with most of these p&s's etc is few of them let you know what the exposure is. So there no way you can compare lenses.


Regards, David
 
raid said:
The Minox 35GT and the Olympus XA both have excellent lenses. I give the edge to the Minox.
Click to expand...

problem is the Minox's lifespan is shorter than a disposable kamera.

because of that I have the minox lens in an LTM mount and use it on my Bessa L. Or nikon Z7 :D
 
Like the OP, in the past I've been shocked when I got the first rolls back from these little cameras: Nikon L35AF, Olympus mju, Kodak Retina IIIc, and the Konica Hexar AF. Don't know why I sold any of them, but they're all gone now. :-(

Congratulations, Huss, on your find! :)
 
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