The Ceiling of the Church of the Annunciation in Mdina - Tony Tarlton
17th April 2026
In: News, Members' Articles
This photograph was taken when Sally and I spent a long weekend on the island of Malta in mid-February earlier this year. We both took cameras but I was offered the loan of an interesting very old 42mm Leitz-made f4.5 lens which Malcolm Taylor lent to me. I attached it to my SL2 camera. The loan was given with the request to “Take me some pictures”. There will be a fuller article and larger image in the next Fellowship magazine and, as Malcolm Taylor who owns this lens, is a member of the Leica Society, there could well be an article on their web-site sometime in the future.
Tony Tarlton
The Ceiling of the Church of the Annunciation in Mdina
Tony Tarlton
The Ceiling of the Church of the Annunciation in Mdina
Comments
By Alan Humphries: Hello Tony, that is indeed a very special picture, especially from my lens of that vintage et cetera. I look forward to reading your article when it appears in the newsletter. Best wishes.. By David Askham: Tony, very interesting. But do you have any pictures of the lens and details of its original purpose? Its history? Was it a one-off or prototype? By Keith Walker: Amazing colour from a lens of that vintage. As David says, be good to have more information of lens. Does Malcolm know its origin? Was it in Leitz lens catalogue - could be an interesting piece of research. By Ken Davis: With the spread of mirrorless cameras everyone can find an adapter to use all sorts of 'esoteric' lenses on cameras. However this one is quite something. It shows that a well designed and built lens of any age can perform at a level where the quality with high resolution sensors shows what the lens is capable of. The print must be stunning. By David Askham: Leitz made lenses long before 35mm cameras were invented. They were used on large format plate and cut-film cameras. My guess is that the lens you borrowed belonged to that era. Hence the unusual focal length. By Tony Tarlton: Thank, All, for your interest. I am not a technically-knowledgable photographer, so limit my text to my side of the story. Malcolm is going to write an article about his lens and what he knows or has researched about it, so I will not muddy the water but leave that to his article to give more information. I was not able to adjust the aperture and focusing was challenging but the 'magnification. feature in the menu's 'focus-assist', helped. I will bring an A3 print to Stanton House.