With my impulsive buying getting better of me , i recently won on ebay a super- takumar 500mm f4..5 manual beast of a lens. Initially i was cursing myself to the core , why on earth did i even bid on the same? Post winning i browsed through eBay and found the price points of the same lens in other bids was significantly higher ( at least some respite ) . I paid for the same and waited for lens to arrive. All of my search on the lens and on images clicked using that did not help me much. I got more pictures on web of the lens itself instead of pictures clicked using it . Whatever limited pictures i could search raised my hopes , and lens looked nothing but a stellar performer. Most of the reviews spoke about few negatives -
1. Heavy
2. Chromatic aberration.
3. Impractical for active wildlife.
4. MFD being 10 mts
Well , so the lens arrived.. It had no dedicated lens case and was packed in a bubble wrap. I had to pay customs duty which made the lens almost around 26000 INR or USD 400 approximately . The box it came in did not seem (that) heavy .. and when i opened the box ...wow!!! what a BEAST of a lens it turned out to be.
1. Heavy
2. Chromatic aberration.
3. Impractical for active wildlife.
4. MFD being 10 mts
Well , so the lens arrived.. It had no dedicated lens case and was packed in a bubble wrap. I had to pay customs duty which made the lens almost around 26000 INR or USD 400 approximately . The box it came in did not seem (that) heavy .. and when i opened the box ...wow!!! what a BEAST of a lens it turned out to be.
Compared to SAL 500mm F8 lens mirror , which happens to be my most priced possession just for its uniqueness, this really looked BIG. Fortunately i have an Alpha to screw mount adaptor (not the best quality which I realised later ) that worked fine.
Now I was ready to take photographs . I realised one thing the moment i setup the camera that your forearms need to be way too strong to go handheld with this lens. Mounted the same on tripod and clicked away some wi-fi antennas on the roof of adjoining buildings .. pics didn't seem that bad.. but the moment i zoomed into the picture , Chromatic aberration was way too high for my comfort .This can be handled in post production .
Next were the pigeons and Mynas in our locality. Honestly, I am personally pleased with the results .. As far as my limited experience with the lens goes , all the reviews on this one are more or less accurate thgough. It is heavy for any handheld photography, is highly vulnerable to CA and Minimum Focus Distance (MFD) is certainly way too high. Moreover to add to these, the lens did not fit the body as nicely as one would like it to. It screws up in a manner that aperture and focal distance reading scales do not align to eye level they are way too low on the circumference to be read properly. This is more i think to do with a sub standard alpha to screw mount adaptor . I am attaching some of the initial test shots i have taken with this lens. The lens undoubtedly is sharp, beating my expectation and on a day when you can sit in a watch tower or be stationary at one location , you can have a ball of a time. Absence of AF may hamper your active wildlife photography or birds in flight , but the lens surely deserves full marks on price/performance. Where can you get 500mm which is as fast as F4.5 at 400 USD. I am loving it!! Wilderness calling!! yet again !!
Next were the pigeons and Mynas in our locality. Honestly, I am personally pleased with the results .. As far as my limited experience with the lens goes , all the reviews on this one are more or less accurate thgough. It is heavy for any handheld photography, is highly vulnerable to CA and Minimum Focus Distance (MFD) is certainly way too high. Moreover to add to these, the lens did not fit the body as nicely as one would like it to. It screws up in a manner that aperture and focal distance reading scales do not align to eye level they are way too low on the circumference to be read properly. This is more i think to do with a sub standard alpha to screw mount adaptor . I am attaching some of the initial test shots i have taken with this lens. The lens undoubtedly is sharp, beating my expectation and on a day when you can sit in a watch tower or be stationary at one location , you can have a ball of a time. Absence of AF may hamper your active wildlife photography or birds in flight , but the lens surely deserves full marks on price/performance. Where can you get 500mm which is as fast as F4.5 at 400 USD. I am loving it!! Wilderness calling!! yet again !!
Interesting writing. Have and like this lens.
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