very sorry for the late reply and I never meant to dig up an old thread or to be hostile, I just find it incredibly irritating how negative some people can be. This lens impressed me I have attached two links one is this Opteka 650-1300mm lens at about 1100mm the other is 100-400mm at 400mm Canon with 2x extender. There is noticeable CA but it is definitely workable for what it is.
Much better than other examples I've seen. Have you found any other uses besides lunar images?
Any problems with barrel flex and optical alignment?
Thank you Ziggy53, I am still learning myself. I really only bought this lens to experiment with lunar photography. I had given some thought to buying a telescope with an SLR mount but this worked out, given the intended conversion to monochrome it is easy to deal with the Chromatic aberration issue, I have done a bit of testing with it around the city and it is a chore fully extended. Really pushing the envelope with this lens is kind of like looking a gift horse in the mouth I have a 100-400 also not the worlds best telephoto lens but definitely better suited for sports wildlife ect. I don't know about the barrel flexing but the extension tube portion the slides out to increase magnification isn't real stable at 1300, one of the reasons I shoot at 1000-1100mm with it, that and at 1300 the moon more than fills the entire sensor on my 7D. I would buy it again,
an interesting thought, many of the newer high resolution cameras 18,21,36 megapixels, these days expose minor weaknesses in lens sharpness that weren't issues years ago, conversely however when shooting video with an slr even at 1080 x 1690 ( 1.8 megapixels ) lens sharpness begins to be less noticeable or important. I haven't tried this lens out for video yet but it would be interesting. definitely need lots of light and there will likely be no dreamy shallow dof
Opteka 650mm-2600mm lens
It's a mostly white lens. Just add a red ring around the front and a Canon front cap, then you can sell it for... $1,000,000 dollars
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Much better than other examples I've seen. Have you found any other uses besides lunar images?
Any problems with barrel flex and optical alignment?
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Thank you Ziggy53, I am still learning myself. I really only bought this lens to experiment with lunar photography. I had given some thought to buying a telescope with an SLR mount but this worked out, given the intended conversion to monochrome it is easy to deal with the Chromatic aberration issue, I have done a bit of testing with it around the city and it is a chore fully extended. Really pushing the envelope with this lens is kind of like looking a gift horse in the mouth I have a 100-400 also not the worlds best telephoto lens but definitely better suited for sports wildlife ect. I don't know about the barrel flexing but the extension tube portion the slides out to increase magnification isn't real stable at 1300, one of the reasons I shoot at 1000-1100mm with it, that and at 1300 the moon more than fills the entire sensor on my 7D. I would buy it again,
an interesting thought, many of the newer high resolution cameras 18,21,36 megapixels, these days expose minor weaknesses in lens sharpness that weren't issues years ago, conversely however when shooting video with an slr even at 1080 x 1690 ( 1.8 megapixels ) lens sharpness begins to be less noticeable or important. I haven't tried this lens out for video yet but it would be interesting. definitely need lots of light and there will likely be no dreamy shallow dof
Nope that is a 10D.
http://patrickdharrington.smugmug.com/Other/Gallery-One/16051897_BsvNz8#!i=1204749716&k=hfLwB7z&lb=1&s=X2
It's a mostly white lens. Just add a red ring around the front and a Canon front cap, then you can sell it for... $1,000,000 dollars