Nice video! I'm relatively new to the professional camera market and hobby and recently got this lens for experimenting a bit and taking pictures of the moon. The channel Nebula Photos also has a comparison, showing this lens can do some nice astrophotography, so I might check that out at some point. I only run 2 other lenses, a 10-18 and 17-70 on my a6700, which, in turn, gives me a crop to about 750mm, which is quite huge and exactly why I bought this lens. While I wish, this lens was a bit easier to carry around (I guess this extends to any super zooms for larger sensor cameras.), it's been doing its job just fine, and I've had no issues with it, apart from the challenge of handling this thing and getting the focus right. This is where I love the newer camera features, which allow you to mirror your viewfinder to a phone or laptop display making focusing much easier, even though focus peaking is pretty nice, already. I've successfully gotten a few nice pics of the moon with the 500mm, and I think it'll prove useful for more stuff in the future! I'm planning to go for skylines and taking pics from more elevated positions, as I've also done a long exposure above the city at night on my 17-70, which I quite enjoyed. Love that pic!
I find your results with this lens interesting. Because it reminds me of a lens that was rather famous/infamous back in the 1975 to 1985 time frame. It all revolved around one single lens that featured a multitude of lens mounts and 3rd and 4 party brand names. Most often it was identified as the TeleAstranar 400 mm f6.3 and at one point it was reviewed by herbert Keppler, the founder of Modern Photography magazine. What made it infamous was the low selling price, when I first saw an ad for one the price was 39.90 USD, back around 1985 inflation had driven the price up to 59.95. I picked up a used sample wearing the Soligor brand name and was actually was a fairly good lens. Recently mounted my FTX II on it and tested it out on my Z7 II. Which confirmed it does have decent sharpness but manual focus with a lens this long is challenging, my hit rate for focus on a moving squirrel was 2 out of 20 shots and even the best was off just a tick with sharp ears but the eyes a tiny bit soft. So I am quite certain that you have NOT mislead anyone with your findings, they fall exactly in line with what I observed with my 400mm. BTW when I am focusing manually I use the Viewfinder zoom to get it spot on. Mainly because I have found the Focus Peaking to allow too much variation in focus. Hopefully that focus confirmation for dumb lenses in the Zf will be spread to other Z models thru firmware updates, because I have found that to be very accurate with my AF Micro Nikkor which does require manual focus but is chipped. I'll also note that it helped me make my final decision about getting the Tamron 150-500 zoom, because the AF on that lens works quite well and I get a much better hit rate. BTW, talked to Tamron about the failure of their lens utility software to adjust the linear focus features and apparently they are still working on the software for this particular lens. It's seems that the Tamron is still using it's pre-production firmware but good news is the AF works well. I can also state with certainty that the Tamron 150-500 is a very very good lens in terms of optics, not S line class but very close as long as you use the AF.
Well-done! Happy to see your thoughts on something which could be interesting to those of use who might have an occasional use for such gear and therefore not planning to spend significant money on a more "pro" lens. As they say on Fox News, :"Fair and Balanced" review 😊
Interesting ! 500mm manual focus lens. Certainly would make life very different ! I have a few of their smaller manual lens and they are interesting. Not technically wonderful but give a very unique look. As for getting freebies you seem honest and as long as you keep your objective was and don’t claim something is perfect it’s ok . It’s hardly like they sent you a Hasselblad x2d. They did send out about 50 of them as freebies for TH-camrs mind you 🤓
Nice video!
I'm relatively new to the professional camera market and hobby and recently got this lens for experimenting a bit and taking pictures of the moon. The channel Nebula Photos also has a comparison, showing this lens can do some nice astrophotography, so I might check that out at some point. I only run 2 other lenses, a 10-18 and 17-70 on my a6700, which, in turn, gives me a crop to about 750mm, which is quite huge and exactly why I bought this lens.
While I wish, this lens was a bit easier to carry around (I guess this extends to any super zooms for larger sensor cameras.), it's been doing its job just fine, and I've had no issues with it, apart from the challenge of handling this thing and getting the focus right. This is where I love the newer camera features, which allow you to mirror your viewfinder to a phone or laptop display making focusing much easier, even though focus peaking is pretty nice, already.
I've successfully gotten a few nice pics of the moon with the 500mm, and I think it'll prove useful for more stuff in the future! I'm planning to go for skylines and taking pics from more elevated positions, as I've also done a long exposure above the city at night on my 17-70, which I quite enjoyed. Love that pic!
I find your results with this lens interesting. Because it reminds me of a lens that was rather famous/infamous back in the 1975 to 1985 time frame. It all revolved around one single lens that featured a multitude of lens mounts and 3rd and 4 party brand names. Most often it was identified as the TeleAstranar 400 mm f6.3 and at one point it was reviewed by herbert Keppler, the founder of Modern Photography magazine. What made it infamous was the low selling price, when I first saw an ad for one the price was 39.90 USD, back around 1985 inflation had driven the price up to 59.95. I picked up a used sample wearing the Soligor brand name and was actually was a fairly good lens. Recently mounted my FTX II on it and tested it out on my Z7 II. Which confirmed it does have decent sharpness but manual focus with a lens this long is challenging, my hit rate for focus on a moving squirrel was 2 out of 20 shots and even the best was off just a tick with sharp ears but the eyes a tiny bit soft. So I am quite certain that you have NOT mislead anyone with your findings, they fall exactly in line with what I observed with my 400mm. BTW when I am focusing manually I use the Viewfinder zoom to get it spot on. Mainly because I have found the Focus Peaking to allow too much variation in focus. Hopefully that focus confirmation for dumb lenses in the Zf will be spread to other Z models thru firmware updates, because I have found that to be very accurate with my AF Micro Nikkor which does require manual focus but is chipped.
I'll also note that it helped me make my final decision about getting the Tamron 150-500 zoom, because the AF on that lens works quite well and I get a much better hit rate. BTW, talked to Tamron about the failure of their lens utility software to adjust the linear focus features and apparently they are still working on the software for this particular lens. It's seems that the Tamron is still using it's pre-production firmware but good news is the AF works well. I can also state with certainty that the Tamron 150-500 is a very very good lens in terms of optics, not S line class but very close as long as you use the AF.
Great video as usual Rob, good price too. Take care mate
Well-done! Happy to see your thoughts on something which could be interesting to those of use who might have an occasional use for such gear and therefore not planning to spend significant money on a more "pro" lens. As they say on Fox News, :"Fair and Balanced" review 😊
Interesting ! 500mm manual focus lens. Certainly would make life very different !
I have a few of their smaller manual lens and they are interesting. Not technically wonderful but give a very unique look.
As for getting freebies you seem honest and as long as you keep your objective was and don’t claim something is perfect it’s ok . It’s hardly like they sent you a Hasselblad x2d. They did send out about 50 of them as freebies for TH-camrs mind you 🤓
kudos for pointing out (what should be obvious) if you receive something free it's hard to claim be completely unbiased
Fantastic not review! Thank you for the video.
James May of cameras bruh
Right! He totally is 😂❤