This is an "economy" 100 to 400 autofocus Zoom lens with a "pump action" to operate the Zoom, the apature range is f4.5 to f6.7. Whilst designed for film cameras it does work on digital cameras as well. The lens is available with Canon eos and Nikon fittings at least. price new (where still available) is around £290.
Read about alternatives to the Cosina 100 - 400 f4.5 - f6.7 "pump action" Zoom Lens by clicking here for more camera reviews, product comparisons, photography information, digital camera price comparisons, digital SLR cameras, digital compact cameras, film SLR camera, photography books, camera lenses and camera accessories.
Author
speckled wood Commander of the Wild Empire
Registered: August 2006 Location: Peoples Democratic Republic of South Cheshire Posts: 1248
Review Date: Thu 16, November, 2006
Would you recommend it? Yes |
Total Spent: £119.00| Rating: 8
Strengths:
Price, easy smooth zoom action
Weaknesses:
Autofocus is slow, less robust than more expensive lenses
I purchased my lens from London Camera Exchange at Chester, whilst not outstanding picture quality wise it was better than I expected and although the time was 14.30 on an overcast November afternoon I was able to obtain reasonable sharp pictures of various specimens of homo sapiens with the lens mounted on a canon eos 300D whilst using the 500mm focal length. Pointing the camera at other objects such as a clock face on a local church also brought fairly sharp images. As the lens was secondhand and priced at £119 and with a reasonable prospect of getting much of what I paid for it by selling it on ebay should I not be satisfied with it I parted with the money and bought it.
The first "wildlife" use of the camera came the following morning with the lens mounted on a canon eos 400D at Sandbach Flashes, it was here that the old adage that "pays the price" came into play! As a means of taking photographs that enable you to go home and download them to your PC its performance was adequate but few of the cropped images of water birds could be described as "reasonably sharp" and those that were, were those few full frame shots that I was able to obtain.
In terms of what I expect the lens to do, it does suit my purpose in that it is a cheap and cheerful lens that I can carry about in pannier of my pedal cycle without great finacial loss should it get damaged and as I do take a lot of shots of non-wild life subjects in those areas of use it will be perfectly adequate.
Would I recommend it? For me and people who do not expect too much and you find it secondhand at around the price I paid and you cannot afford better the answer is yes ..... for those who have got the pennies and whose primary interest is bird and other wildlife photography I would advise you to look for a better lens.
I had a further opportunity to test the lens this afternoon this time on a grey squirrel, this shot was handheld at 1/125 second at 400 mil,
20/11/2006
Having now had this lense for almost a week I will say that the more I use it the more I like it, I think that its only real limitation is me, certainly if you definitely can't afford anything more expensive and you are prepared to be patient with autofocusing or use manual focus and that you recognise that structuraly it is not as robust as more expensive lenses then buy it.
Overall not a bad perfomance for a lense in this price range
