A look at an old lens, the Tokina 400mm f5.6 RMC
I have long been a fan of Olympus gear, back to my film days with the original OM series. Today I use an Olympus OMD-EM1 Mk1 and my "glass" consists of three zooms that cover the range from 9mm to 300mm for my MFT camera. The Olympus 9-18mm Four Thirds zoom, The Olympus 12-150mm for Micro Four Thirds (a lens that is almost always on the camera), and the 70-300mm Olympus zoom for Four Thirds.
I also enjoy birding, in an utterly rank amateur fashion, and while 300mm (600mm equivalent in 35mm-land) goes quite far in capturing the little feathered friends, I was always looking for more reach.
A couple of years ago, a modern 300mm+ MFT lens was not yet available and even if it was, I could never afford it (Olympus has now announced a 150-400mm zoom ,and Panasonic has a 100-400 one out now. But they are still too expensive for me. I imagine the Olympus lens will be priced well north of $4,000 when it arrives.) So, still looking for a long prime telephoto lens I came upon the Tokina 400mm F5.6 RMC manual telephoto lens. In its day it was not top of the line (the SD version was reputedly much better), but it seems to have been thought decent. So I located one on eBay. It was only $60, and I took a chance on the item which was described as having some fungus internally. Well, it did not work out too well. The fungus turned out to be on the inside of a rear element and it just made the lens super soft.
All of the above were shot on a tripod, with image stabilization turned off.
Almost exactly two years passed and then I found another example. With shipping, this one cost me $90. The difference was quite large. A much cleaner lens, no fungus, and just a hint of dust. Plus I got a case for it, and a UV filter from Tiffen). Here are some sample shots from it.
The first four are again taken on a tripod. But the last two, of the blooming irises, were taken hand-held with IS on, at 1/20th second and f8, which seems to be the sharpest aperture for this lens. I would have to say, not bad for a hand held shot on a 400mm (eq 800mm) lens! Kudos to the Oly IS.
And here is a shot of a house finch, on a sunnier day which allowed 1/100th at f8, 200 ISO, tripod mounted, with IS off.
So my initial impressions are quite good. It has a very smooth, but firm feel to the focus, and I get 33% more reach. We'll have to see how things turn out in the field.
On the downside, its closest focal distance is 4 meters. Quite far away, even for birding.
