Long (400mm or more)budget option

Hi all, I know in general you get what you pay for. I am relatively new to DSLR photography but have managed to drop a nice bit of money in the last year and cant spend much now at this time, so my question is this-

can anyone recommend a cheap 400mm or longer lens? It can be fully manual and probably older, even a different brand with a converter. I basically hope to pick something up off ebay for the occasional time I would like to have the long reach. Zoom or prime, just a cost effective long reach.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions

An alternative would be lensrentals.com. Depends on your needs.

What exactly is your budget?

You can pick up the old 500mm mirror lenses, but they've got fixed aperture and don't have great IQ.
Alternatively you see Sigma 400mm 5.6 AF primes going for quite cheap on ebay, but a lot of them have issues with newer bodies and only work wide open where they aren't great IQ-wise.
Then the more expensive and better options, the sigma 120-400 and 150-500 are under $1000, and very good lenses. You won't get better for the price.

Thanks for replies. Renting a lens isnt an option as I am in Ireland and its not very practical here. As for budget I was hoping to pick something up for maybe 100 euro plus an adapter if req for about 20 euro, this would equate to about 150 US dollars. I know its peanuts in photography terms, so i guess I was thinking someone would come back with a lens make and model that could be adjusted to work on a canon with reasonable results. I think my expectations are unreasonable. Thanks again for your input

Sirrith wrote in post #12590057
What exactly is your budget?

You can pick up the old 500mm mirror lenses, but they've got fixed aperture and don't have great IQ.
Alternatively you see Sigma 400mm 5.6 AF primes going for quite cheap on ebay, but a lot of them have issues with newer bodies and only work wide open where they aren't great IQ-wise.
Then the more expensive and better options, the sigma 120-400 and 150-500 are under $1000, and very good lenses. You won't get better for the price.

I came here to post this. Those Sigmas are designed for old EOS film bodies.

j-dogg wrote in post #12590075
I came here to post this. Those Sigmas are designed for old EOS film bodies.

And your point is?

The least expensive useful lens in the 400mm range is the Tokina 80-400mm, priced around US $500-$600, which generated these images.

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Sigma 150-500mm,

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how about a 650-1300mm for fun only lens for less than 250

Get one of the zooms that goes to 250mm or 300mm, and live with the reduced range. That's the unfortunate reality of long glass. Sure you MIGHT score a nice mirror lens on ebay, but things on ebay rarely go for much under value as everyone and their dog is looking for a bargain.

Probably the crudest option would be an old 200mm F/4 manual prime (or x-200mm zoom) and a bargain 2x TC to match. Then factor in about US$10 or so for a simple adapter. I haven't really looked at those sort of options myself though, 200mm old lenses might be hard to come by. If you find something in, say, Pentax-K mount, you'll probably find that an old 2xTC in that mount will be MUCH cheaper than an EF-mount 2xTC. Oh, and it wont be very sharp, but probably sharper than those crappy super-duper zooms on ebay.

You can search for this stuff for ages. It gets to the point though that it might be better spending your time doing some jobs around the homes of your neighbours for a bit of cash and ending up with a better lens (and possibly quicker).

jaomul wrote in post #12590067
Thanks for replies. Renting a lens isnt an option as I am in Ireland and its not very practical here

Sorry. Without a location under your avatar I had no way of knowing.

Sirrith wrote in post #12590124
And your point is?

probably that it can't be stopped down and will have to be shot wide-open...


for your budget, honestly if you're on a crop body, i'd look at the 55-250IS...and then just crop the shot some more...the only other way you're getting over 400mm or above any other way is going to be a mirror lens probably...

some mirror lenses are good, and can produce good results...however they are a pain to use...will be MF only, and will have distracting bokeh...

but the image sharpness is there...one of these is from a mirror lens, and one is from a sigma 150-500mm

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/algregoire/5766​640896/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/algregoire/2526​488017/

DreDaze wrote in post #12593605
probably that it can't be stopped down and will have to be shot wide-open...

Well seeing as I already mentioned that in my post I still don't really understand his reason for posting, lol

I got a Tamron 200-400mm f5.6 for around US 150. It is not a bad lens. See the photos below!

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consider a 300F4Lis w/1.4xII will take you to your 400mm range...

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i bought one of these on ebay a couple of months ago for around $100.

It's a little unwieldy to use handheld, so a tripod is highly recommended. Since it's an old lens, it doesn't have IS (which would've been nice to have), manual focus only, and you also have to manually stop down the lens (via the aperture ring). The one that I bought came w/ a nikon adapter, so I also bought a couple of nikon to eos adapters. If you do plan on buying this lens, you have to buy a t4 adapter. Because it was before canon's EF mount, you probably have to either get nikon, pentax (m42) or maybe an olympus adapter and then an appropriate EOS adapter.

I've used it a few times and I'm happy w/ my purchase. It has a long min focus distance, so it's a little limiting to use in my small backyard.

Anyways, pics...here's a moon shot I got w/ this lens on my 7D (stacked a few pics and processed w/ CS5)

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