Opteka 650-1300mm (with 2X- 1300-2600mm) Telephoto Zoom Lens for Nikon D5, D4, D850, D810, D800, D750, D610, D600, D7500, D7200, D7100, D5600, D5500, D5300, D5200, D3400 and D3300 Digital SLR Cameras

MY LIFE AND THE OPTEKA 650-2600mm ON NIKON DX ( APS-C ).... UPDATED 7/4/2016Here's a review for crop-sensor folks. All comments below are my tests (and results) with a D7100 and D5500 - Nikon DX (APS-C). First off - this lens is a manual focus lens. If you use AUTO on your DSLR mostly - this is probably not for you. Unless you want to learn how to manually focus a monster like this. I bought this lens for the reach to price ratio.NEW GOTCHA - UV HAZE FILTER -- REMOVE ITAfter writing the review I decided to go back and re-test the lens. After taking several test shots, I was surprised at the lack of sharpness compared to what I'd previously experienced. The only equipment change was the addition of a UV Haze filter - it significantly reduced the sharpness. I removed it, and re-tested and found the lens to be decently sharp as stated below. I was surprised how negatively it impacted sharpness.OTHER NEW GOTCHA - OPTEKA T MOUNT ADAPTER MECHANICAL SLACKI noticed a slight 'wobble' in the Opteka included t-mount adapter. It turns out the adapter has some mechanical slack in it. I removed it and replaced it with a fotodiox adapter which doesn't have the same slack.CONSTRUCTION:This lens is like an old-time pirate-movie telescope. The shortest range is when the unit itself is shortest. Think of a movie where the protagonist pulls the tube in and out against their eye. The lens feels most solid when it's shortest. That's 650mm. When you pull it out to 1300mm it does slightly bend, and it is *much* tougher to use. You can use it at 1300mm but it requires probably 5x the effort as at 650mm.HAND-HELD (ARE YOU CRAZY?):Unlike some folks say, you *can* hand-hold this lens - at 650mm, but it's heavy, and not much fun. My experience has been that I needed to use ISO 1600 on a clear day to get anything like a decent shot. Most shots will be throw-aways too. If you can find something to brace yourself on, then you can get some decent shots hand-held, but I would *never* recommend this as a hand-held lens. It's obviously going to depend on the ISO and your shutter speed. If you have a body that can do crazy high ISO with low noise, then go-for-it.USE A TRIPOD + REMOTE RELEASE + MIRROR LOCK UP (if you can)On a tripod at 650 it's fine. It's fun (if slightly masochistic) to shoot stuff with this lens. You will want a remote release, or at the very least to use the exposure delay mode. I tend to use an IR remote release - (Nikon ML-L3) wireless. I've also tried it with a remote release (cable) and an intervalometer. Either way it's fine, just be sure your cable isn't swinging about if you are tring to shoot with it extended to 1300mm.FOCUS:Focussing at 650 mm is easy enough. The feel of the focus grip is good too. It's surprisingly good for the cost. Sharpness is decent too- not awesome, but not crap either. Focus is highly dependent on your patience. You need to be steady and slow, and did I mention patient? I use the standard technique of zooming in all the way while in live-view and focussing. I've focussed it when hand-held on the D7100 via the view-finder in bright sunlight too - and it's doable, but it's tough, and I have a magnifying view-finder on my D7100.1300m - is a bit tough. First off - your arm is stretched ouuuuuutttt to reach. It's reachable for sure for most folks - might be tough if your arms are especially short. The bigger thing is that when you extend it, the vibrations increase, and it's not as sturdy. I'd estimate it's 5x as hard to focus at 1300mm as at 650mm - simply because even while using *all the tricks* like zooming in on live view, keeping your hand on the focus and letting the image settle, and just ever so slightly putting a little pressure - you need to let the image stabilize. With large objects it's not too difficult. I did find it pretty darn tough when I decided to shoot mars and jupiter with this thing.OPTICS - DO THEY REALLY SUCK?There's noticeable chromatic aberration. That's pretty much unavoidable without better optics (and loads more dough). It isn't terrible at 650. I can handle it at 1300mm. It goes with the territory.MY BOX SAID 2600mm! -- REVISED 7/4/2016My unit came with a 2.0x teleconverter. The only thing I'd think about using the teleconverter for would be shooting at 1300mm while not having the thing extended. The delta in image quality wasn't *too* bad - but was noticeable. At 2600 mm - forget about it. I spent a few hours one day testing it out at 2600mm - it's just a nightmare. The problem being the wobble from the extension (at 1300mm) is now magnified 2x. So my 5x harder to focus at 1300mm becomes about 10x harder to focus at 2600mm. You'd basically have to try to focus it, then wait several seconds for the vibration to die away. Then try and twist the focus a tiny tiny small amount. I decided to re-test the teleconverter and focussing at 1300mm with it. Overall in terms of optical quality it's not too bad. Focussing at 1300mm with it was *very* tough but I did manage it.IS IT WORTH IT?Totally. When I bought my DSLR's the first thing I did (ok ok - the second thing) was put them in manual mode, and figure out how to manually set the raw physical basics of the camera. If you are like that and feel like trying a really long lens for a really low price then go-for-it. If you are a person who uses your DSLR but doesn't ever switch it out of auto it's not for you.THE NEGATIVEYou will want to beg/borrow/steal (rent?) a really expensive long lens to compare it with.WHAT HAVE YOU SHOT WITH THAT THING?Jupiter - including moons. Watch it in live view on the D5500 - the flip out LCD is *awesome* and so convenient.Moon - zoomed in with live-view looking at craters. The moon and planets *zoom* along though, so you will need to constantly keep adjusting - unless you have a barndoor tracker etc.Manhattan - from 10+ miles away - at night.Trees and static stuff.WHAT ABOUT VIDEO?Weirdly enough (or normally enough) video isn't that terrible through it. It's definitely fun. I use video to film the moon to get lots of frames for stacking in registax etc).MOUNTING T-MOUNT - REVISED 7/4/2016It's a t-mount. The lens comes with a converter from t-mount to your native camera mount. At least mine did. Some folks have recommended buying a different T-mount converter. I actually read horror-story reviews where one person said it broke their DSLR and was black the whole time. I experienced nothing at all like that. I read one review that said they couldn't focus it and needed a different t-mount adapter. I experienced nothing like this. There is plenty of of range to 'either side' of correct focus. During re-testing I noticed a small amount of mechanical 'slack' regardless of how tight the opteka adapter was. I removed it and replaced it with a fotodiox unit and it's much more snug. I don't remember this slack at the time of purchase.GOTCHA'sCheck your D5500 is in MANUAL mode. On a DSLR you could *think* it broke your body if you don't put the DSLR in manual mode. Why? On the D5500 the screen will display 'no lens' ' if you are NOT in manual mode. It's basically just saying - 'Hey I don't see a lens with aperture control and focus control and all this electronic stuff'. Stick the D5500 into manual mode, and it's fine - it's a manual lens.FOCUSSING GOTCHALike the pirate's telescope the focus changes as you extend the tube. For big targets this is fine, but if you are crazy enough to point this thing at Jupiter (I am), then it's best to focus and extend, and focus and extend. The reason being that if you pull all the way out to 1300mm, two things will happen. First off your f/8 just became f/16. So everything is lots dimmer. Secondly - everything will be horribly out of focus. So out of focus you won't even see an object. The solution is easy. Extend a bit and focus, extend a bit and focus.ZOOM GOTCHA - REVISEDAt 1300mm on a DX it's pretty much 2000mm. That's a long lens. That means any small movement / wobble can easily throw your target way out of the frame. Couple that with the slight sagging of the lens at 1300mm makes losing sight of your target easy. Just this morning I re-tested for several hours the lens including with the included 2.0x teleconverter. It's difficult to focus for sure, but I'm still impressed with the value for money.SUMMARY-- It's a fully manual lens. Make sure your DSLR is in manual. If you never use your DSLR in manual this isn't the lens for you unless you want to learn.-- Replace the T-mount adapter (or at least check it). Mine had mechanical slack reguardless of the amount I tightened it.-- Don't use the UV Haze filter if you bought one - or at least test it. Mine significantly reduced sharpness.-- Use a zoomed live-view mode to focus-- At 1300mm the lens bends - the extra bend and 'give' in the lens makes focussing at 1300mm much more difficult than at 650mm (but it is doable).-- Optical degradation due to the 2.0x isn't too severe. Focus is the tough thing. Focussing at 1300mm with the 2.0x teleconverter connected is exceedingly-tough. Many minutes will be needed (patience needed).-- Great value for the money-- I've bumped the review score from 4 stars to 5 stars based on a bunch more testing

I don't often review Amazon products, but I was on the fence about trying a $200 telephoto lens, and if you're reading this you probably are as well.Spending more time at home during the age of COVID I was interested in getting a telescope... but wanted to be able to easily capture images of what I saw. I also recently spent a week in the gulf and had fun zooming in on distant oil platforms and passing ships, but wanted more than what my Nikon 300mm lens could provide, so I started looking and came across this. You can easily spend many thousands of dollars on high quality telephoto lenses, but this is just a casual hobby for me, and with my expectations of what $200 buys set accordingly I pulled the trigger.The lens feels very sturdy, not cheap or plasticky. Knowing that this is fully manual, you will need to adjust the focus ring fairly precisely to capture a good image, but again this has a good quality feel to it that I can make reasonably precise movements. If you are comfortable adjusting your camera's ISO, Shutter, and Aperture settings, and can make fine movements with your hand you'll have no problem capturing good photos in the first minute of use.The mechanism for locking the focal length in place isn't very good... even when tightened down I can still zoom it in and out without much work... and it can definitely slip out of place, though this didn't seem to be a big problem. I would say the lock is more about providing resistance to slippage than actually setting and holding a position. As you move the focus ring left or right when it hits the end of it's range in either direction the whole tube just spins endlessly... it's annoying, but again not a major problem... you can feel when it hits the end, so just stop spinning. Also had an issue with the adapter ring (Nikon) allowing the tube to spin endlessly in relation to the camera... this is a pain while holding the camera by hand, and a show stopper on a tripod as gravity will inevitably let the camera "droop" left or right... however there are three very small straight edge screws around the ring... tightening those resolved the issue and I haven't had a problem since, but would not be shocked if it needed tightened again in the future.Fortunately none of those issues impact the actual image quality, which in my opinion is very good given the focal lengths involved. I'm sure professional photographs can easily pick this apart, but I'm impressed with the quality for the money. While the 2x converter is good if you want to maximize your ability to zoom in on something like the moon, on a day to day basis it's more practical to leave it off... there's just very little I want capture far enough away to leave it on all the time, and having a shorter focal length makes quickly acquiring and focusing on objects much easier.I've attached an image of the moon I took by hand in the first few minutes of trying it out... not perfect of course, but it raises my hope that even better will be possible when using a tripod. I did try capturing the full moon on a tripod last night, but local weather prevented quality shots, so I can't state that definitively yet.In the end, I'm not a professional... I'm not in the market for a multi-thousand dollar lens... I'm very satisfied with the materials used and the ability to make precision focal adjustments. There are some annoying elements to the design, but none that stopped me from what I wanted to accomplish with this. I spent $800 on a 80-200mm Nikon lens years ago, and it doesn't make me feel like an Apollo astronaut like this does... so did I get $200 of use and enjoyment out of this purchase, absolutely!