I have been watching Ebay for a couple of years for a good quality 55mm lens for my Mamiya C330 6×6 medium format TLR film camera, and at last I have bought one.

Why buy one of these??

One of my loves is film infrared photography.

Unfortunately Kodak stopped making their HIE 35mm film which is really the only film that gives good IR results with a see through red filter.

So now I am forced to use an opaque Hoya R72 infrared filter which on a SLR such as my Olympus OM or my Bronica SQAi 6×6 camera, I have to continuously remove the filter so I can compose and focus.

The Mamiya C330 is different as it has a separate viewing lens, thus you can leave the IR filter on the taking lens all the time and the only issue then is to guess how much to adjust the focus for IR, and guess the exposure.

The 55mm lens at last gives me a wide angle lens – approximately the view of a 35mm lens on a 35mm full frame camera.

Not only that, but I might also use it for street photography as a curiosity!

Can’t wait to get it and try it out 🙂

Some of my film infrared photos can be seen here, such as this HIE one taken with an Olympus OM2n and OM 21mm f/3.5 lens: