| Latest Review Posted | Cosina Cosinon MC 55mm F1.2
The Cosina 55mm 1:1.2 MC is one of several identical lenses (see details above) that Cosina designed and marketed for K-mount circa 1996. I bought mine new in box ... and mostly it's stayed there! Until I recently decided to see how it might perform on my full-frame camera. I can't recall what I paid, but it goes for €500 currently. This is more expensive than the SMC Pentax 50mm F1.2 at €350 or even the A variant at €450. Speaking of which, this is manual aperture and manual focus lens only.
I conducted extensive comparisons to see which lens I preferred, using a Zeiss Planar 50/1.7 as a control. You can read the full article on my blog. But here follows the lowdown.
The lens is noticeably bigger and heavier than a typical fast 50, as expected. That's even without adding a lens hood (which needs to be purchased separately). Though it is slightly smaller than the Pentax. Unlike the full metal build of the other brands, the Cosina has a rubber focus ring. This detracts from the appearance of quality, but might actually be useful if you shoot in cold environments. The feeling in use is quite nice. The apertures have single stop clicks, which is also typical of brands like Zeiss, while in Pentaxland half-clicks are the order of the day. The front element is quite large and has a yellowish tint from the multi-coating... so you can pretend that it's radioactive.
In testing, the Cosina performed admirably. This lens had less purple fringing and glow than the Pentax at F1.... |
