70mm-210mm f/4 FDn

I just borrowed a flawless looking zoom as above from a friend. Anyone have experience with one?

IMO it's a bit under-rated. Good but not great and probably worth more than it goes for which can be as low as £15-25 here in the UK.

 

I used it as my main telephoto for a few years in the 90s to early 2000s. It's sharp enough and the CA's it does have were not a problem for me on film. It was retired when I went digital but because it's cheap I never sold it. Then when Sony's A7r came around I ran a test and mid to longer distances with the 70-210, Tamron SP 70-210/3.5 and Contax 80-200. I thought it was slightly better than the Tamron, with less CAs and better contrast. The Contax was clearly better.

 

Incidentally, it's the trombone zoom and focus with a single big grip as are all of the above lenses, which, growing up with manual focus film cameras I like though not everyone does.

Edited September 15, 2021 by barryreid

I bought it today. The images I made with it were very nice at all focal lengths except for one at f/4. There was some vignetting but smaller apertures were all fine. The sky was a little washed out but nothing a #8 or #15 yellow filter can't handle. No worries about CA as I only intend to use black & white film with it. Me happy.

To me it was an excellent lens. Now it is full of fungus inside and I have not used it again

 

Canon F-1n. Canon FDn 70-210. Kodacolor Gold 100 and 200

Agree - it was very under-rated.