New Member Registered: June, 2017 Posts: 15 | | Review Date: April 24, 2022 | Recommended | Price: $9.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | inexpensive, good optical quality, lightweight | | Cons: | build - my version had a fault | | Sharpness: 7
Aberrations: 7
Bokeh: 9
Handling: 7
Value: 10
Camera Used: P30 and adapter to M4/3
| |
I got a copy from UK eBay for £6.00, about $9 USD.
Optically it was a classic 1980s 200mml lens - built around 4 groups of conventional lenses - so no high density aspheric glass. This makes for low weight and delivers good light transmission but always results in chromatic aberration in very high contrast areas at the edge of the image. There are 3 solutions [1] adding correcting lenses with aspheric elements - which explains the weight, size and cost of modern telephotos [2] correcting the CA with post processing for digital [3] printing smaller for film - on 7x5s it isn't very visible.
Sadly - my copy had oil on the aperture blades. This can happen to any lens but is made worse by storage in hot conditions. If other users have the same experience, please report them. Over time, some lens grease seems to act as food for fungus, others vaporise and deposit as haze on the lens elements, with others seem to just liquify and run into the aperture mechanism; this must be a feature of the chemistry of the grease, the lens design and the storage conditions.
200mm lenses are great for 35mm (the perspective is sufficiently different from 135mm, and 300mm are typically F5.6 and heavy) and the performance is better than my zoom lenses at the 200mm end of their range. It is a good rule of thumb that zooms have a sweet spot that is typically the mid-half of their range.
For M4/3 users - there is a good 200mm lens review at: https://www.ephotozine.com/article/vintage-200mm-lenses-compared-on-micro-4-3rds-19820
Conclusion - buy if you find one at a low price and dont have an SMC Pentax
| |
New Member Registered: November, 2016 Posts: 7 | | Review Date: October 3, 2020 | Recommended | Price: $30.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Less purple fringing than SMC Takumar 200mm F4, price | | Cons: | Build quality not as good as Takumar, MFD | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 7
Bokeh: 7
Handling: 6
Value: 7
| |
This Cosina MC Cosinon-T 200mm F4 lens is a very good lens when considering it price compared to the now overly expensive Takumars and Pentax lenses. My copy is just as sharp (maybe sharper) than my SMC Takumar 200mm F4 lens and has less purple fringing wide open. The only downsides I see from this lens is that it isn't built as well as the Pentax lenses (Pentax really spoiled us) to the point where you can feel it when in use. It is considerably lighter in weight though, which is always a good thing. Minimum focus distance is not as good either with a minimum focus distance of 2.9 meters.
| |
Site Supporter Registered: August, 2009 Location: North Carolina Posts: 3,027 | | Review Date: December 21, 2010 | Recommended | Price: None indicated
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Construction, built-in hood, price | | Cons: | No "A" setting, "reverse" focus direction | |
I'll preface this review with the fact that I haven't used this lens extensively due to the reason for the "free" price: a seller refund due to fungus that went un-reported in the auction description. I opened the lens up as much as I could to get to the elements and used cold cream and hydrogen peroxide to treat the fungus. So, my lens quality and images may be less-than-standard.
However, I thought I'd review this lens as I felt that the first review was overly harsh. The f/4 aperture isn't the fastest, but is fairly standard for this focal length. I'll agree that the contrast could be a little better, but I've found that the image quality can be quite good, especially given the circumstances concerning my particular copy of the lens. This may be more due to it being a prime lens versus a zoom, but I don't have any other 200mm primes to compare it with, and zooms tend to have some IQ issues at the ends of their focal lengths, so it may not be a fair comparison.
Focus throw from min to infinity is approximately 250 degrees and metering in Manual mode on my K20D using the green button for stop-down metering works well. I did have some mis-metered shots when using this lens in combination with extension tubes, but I think that's more an issue with the tubes, as other lenses seem to also have this problem, especially at smaller apertures. Though it's all-metal construction, this lens isn't overly heavy, so it doesn't get too fatiguing, and since it's effectively a 300mm f/4 lens on APS-C cameras, it's decent for wildlife shots where the target isn't too small.
Now for the "bad". I find the min focal length a little long at about 2.5m and the "reversed" focus direction of the lens can lead to missed shots if you're used to Pentax-branded lenses. But for the price (I originally got mine for $11 plus shipping before the refund), it's a decent lens. More like a 7.5 probably, but I gave it an 8 to balance out the other review a little.
Some shots with my copy:
Cosinon-T 1:4 200mm with 65mm of tubes @ f/11, 8", ISO100
These sport shots were all wide open (f/4) and ISO 1250-1600
 | |
Inactive Account Registered: October, 2009 Posts: 2 | | Review Date: November 28, 2010 | Not Recommended | Price: $1.00
| Rating: 6 |
| Pros: | well built, cheap | | Cons: | poor contrast, CA | |
I'm afraid I don't have any other 200mm lenses to compare it to, but I get very few keepers using this lens. Whether I'm just poor at focusing at 200mm I don't know, but my results aren't usually sharp. Also suffers from poor contrast and CA.
On the other hand I have taken a few good sharp pictures with it, and the contrast and CA are trivial to fix in post processing. So it is *possible* to get good results and I wouldn't want to discourage you from trying it yourself if you find it at a good price. But if you want to be sure of good IQ I'd go for a better known brand.
| |
;)
;)
;)
