I thought about buying these, but have decided I'm going to keep saving my pennies for a lens with IS/OS instead. As much as I hate to pass on them, I figured someone here could use a cheap, but good quality wildlife lens. If you can't afford to spend much on a wildlife lens, then this is about as good as you're going to do for $200.
These are SMC (super multi-coated) Takumar (Pentax) lenses. All manual, M42 screw mount. Good thing about the screw mount is that adapters for a variety of camera bodies (including Nikon and Canon AF bodies) are plentiful and cheap. So for about $25 you can fit one of these puppies on your DSLR.
You'll have to focus manually (big deal, we only did that for 100 years!) and metering will be manual or aperture priority auto (wide open), but they will work.
For $200, you aren't going to find a 300/4 or 400/5.6 lens with this quality glass.
The adapters look like this (this one is only $12 !)
I'm sure I'll kick myself for not buying that 400/5.6 later, but I'm trying to save my pennies for the lens I really want...
It ain't easy, since I think I could be really happy having either of these lenses to play with! Grrr.
One word of caution - these lenses don't close focus very much. I think about 27 feet is the closest they will focus. So if you're thinking small birds at a feeder, these proabably aren't the lens for you. However, that group of deer at 100 yards - yup. Perfect for that.
John
These are SMC (super multi-coated) Takumar (Pentax) lenses. All manual, M42 screw mount. Good thing about the screw mount is that adapters for a variety of camera bodies (including Nikon and Canon AF bodies) are plentiful and cheap. So for about $25 you can fit one of these puppies on your DSLR.
You'll have to focus manually (big deal, we only did that for 100 years!) and metering will be manual or aperture priority auto (wide open), but they will work.
For $200, you aren't going to find a 300/4 or 400/5.6 lens with this quality glass.
The adapters look like this (this one is only $12 !)
I'm sure I'll kick myself for not buying that 400/5.6 later, but I'm trying to save my pennies for the lens I really want...
It ain't easy, since I think I could be really happy having either of these lenses to play with! Grrr.
One word of caution - these lenses don't close focus very much. I think about 27 feet is the closest they will focus. So if you're thinking small birds at a feeder, these proabably aren't the lens for you. However, that group of deer at 100 yards - yup. Perfect for that.
John