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Simon Yates Photography
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Happier then expected,
I’ve been reading mixed reviews on the Opteks lens for a while, for the price I thought I take a chance. It performs as expected. The zoom mechanism is a tube near the camera that slides, it’s not smooth and a little clunky to do, but it works. I don’t use the double much, don’t really need it, and it does not fit in the bag with it attached to the lens (I think this is a flaw and the bag should have been larger) and there is no separate bag for the doubler – rather then take the chance of dust getting in the lens from screwing and unscrewing the adapter from the lens then attaching the doubler and screwing back on the adapter to the doubler, I just don’t use it much. You have to take your time on focusing as it is very sensitive. You are able to handhold it at 650mm (just bearly) but at any other zoom level you must have a good tripod to hold it. This lens is HUGE. I would recommend this lens for nature or senic photography, but it’s not fast enough (f8-f16) to use if for any movement and it would be hard to focus on anything moving rapidly.
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|I got what I paid for.,
Well, all I have to say is that I got what I paid for. I spent a long time researching this lens and read a lot of negative reviews about it, but decided what the hell and got it. There are a few things to keep in mind with this lens: There are NO other lenses produced for this focal range (650-2600 [with teleconverter]), so it’s absolutely incredible at pulling in objects from a long distance. However, there IS a reason why manufacturers /don/’t make such lenses – it becomes VERY difficult to reduce aberrations at such specifications.
At 650mm f/8, the lens is…decent. It’s a fair distance to zoom, and f/8 isn’t that dark. The bokeh looks pretty nice. However, at longer focal lengths (1300mm, 2600mm), there is some serious chromatic aberration. Colour fringing is to be expected, and image sharpness/quality is seriously degraded beyond 1300mm. Also, at that point, you’re shooting at apertures of f/16 and above, the smallest being f/32. Which brings me to another point.
It’s VERY hard to hold this lens. I was barely able to handhold it fully retracted, although it did alright when put on a tripod. One thing to note is that it still is wobbly even on a decent tripod, so it might actually be a good idea to get your hands on a remote shutter. Also, at f/8 and above, it becomes increasingly difficult to shoot at fast enough shutter speeds. The rule is supposed to be “Shoot at a shutter speed reciprocal to your focal length” (i.e., 800mm – 1/800th of a second). But, the fastest I could get for 1300mm on a sunny day was around 1/500. It’s not bad, but can make a difference in sharpness. Also, it’s basically impossible to work with at all (tripod or not) when you decide to extend the “zoom tube”. It’s quite bendable and is extremely awkward to handhold or support on a tripod. The weight distribution is just ridiculous. Also, everything is manual with this lens. Not like that would be a big deal, but it’s pretty hard to even manually focus. At its extended state? Forget about it.
The only real good things about this lens are its quite pleasant bokeh, its unbelievable zooming distance, and its pricepoint. Its build is pretty sturdy, but is obviously made to look like a professional Canon L lens.
Here are the basic pros and cons, in summary:
Cons:
– Extremely cumbersome to handle, tripod or not.
– Zoom tube makes handling and composing pictures more a thing of chance than anything.
– Manually focusing is very sensitive and gets even more sensitive once you decide to zoom in.
– It’s not sharp at all. The pictures at 100% crop are an eyesore; only 800×600 crops look decent.
– Its aperture ranges from f/8 to f/32 (with teleconverter). You will get very slow shutter speeds (relative to the focal length) even on bright days.
– Chromatic aberration (colour fringing) is somewhat severe. It’s quite noticeable and can distract from the subject.
Pros:
– It has an excellent zoom and range – farther than any other consumer lens ever manufactured.
– Its bokeh is rather pleasant and, when used properly, can create some truly beautiful pictures.
– When images are resized (down to about 800×600 or so), aberrations are less noticeable and look much more pleasing than fullsize photos. You can basically still get some use out of it.
– Saturation and contrast actually aren’t that bad; if you want, you can change such settings in image editors.
– Videos don’t look bad at all when taken through this lens.
– Finally, it’s only $270. There are no lenses that have focal lengths as long as this, and those that come close are priced in the thousands.
With all that said, I’ll leave you with this final note: If you’re just an amateur or hobbyist who isn’t really looking into selling pictures taken with this lens, go for it. Having such a focal length at your disposal will give you a lot of ideas for photos and enable you to capture things from a different perspective. However…this lens is definitely NOT up to par with Canon L lenses, although their focal lengths (at most around 500mm) are not truly comparable. But they don’t have any aberrations – this lens has overwhelming colour fringing which is really distracting. If you’re a professional looking for a professional look, this lens isn’t going to cut it for you. If you’re just looking to explore what the world of photography can offer, go for it. It’s not that expensive and this lens might come in handy some day. So have some fun, and explore.
But this lens won’t get anything more than 2 stars from me.
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|Not for the professional/but OK for amateur,
I reluctantly bought this lense used on Amazon after reading mixed reviews and seeking advice on several websites. Most of the people who consider themselves really good photographers were vehement in their warnings that a lense of this size at this price ($259)could not possibly produce quality pictures. None of these critics had ever even used one of these lenses. Then I went to a Canon website where one of their obviously respected members posted test shots with the lense which were good enough to cause most of the naysayers to change their minds. That convinced me to give it a try and I’m glad I did. This lense is not for a professional or, perhaps, even a high level amateur but it’s plenty good enough for the average amateur and it can provide good quality photos if care is taken to set it up and focus it carefully. Focus is critical because the depth of field is shallow. Construction quality is good though the focal length adjustment is just fair so I took a star off for that. It’s heavy but it’s not as heavy as might be expected for a lense of this size. It also produces chromatic abberation, especially around white objects, but this can be fixed with pixel editing if you want to take the time to do it. I priced “professional quality” lenses of this size and found the prices ranging from several thousand dollars (US) to around $15,000. Another clue about customer satisfaction is that you don’t see many of these lenses on the used market. When you do, the price break is not that good indicating the popularity. I spent many, many hours researching this lense before investing in it. I strongly recommend that you avoid the naysayers and give creedence only to those who have actually used it. It’s a decent lense and a good value not withstanding an occasional lemon which can be expected from Asian manufacturers. I heartily recommend it for the photographer who doesn’t want to or can’t afford to invest in a “professional quality lense of this size.
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