Leica0Series
Well-known
A couple of weeks ago, out of curiosity, I bought one of those el cheapo 500mm lenses from eBay, the ones that include a 2x teleconverter and are advertised as 500/1000 lenses. I occasionally like to take photos of the full moon rising over Washington, DC, but the longest zoom I have for my old Nikon D7000 only goes to the equivalent of 300mm, which is sometimes not enough.
I had considered trying to track down one of the old Leica 400 6.8 Telyt lenses, but they were still a bit pricey for what I wanted to do. I thought, what the heck? How bad could it be? And bought an Opteka lens kit for $106 shipped.
These are marketed under a variety of names, including Vivitar, Bower, Opteka and several others. They are all exactly the same, as far as I can tell, so I just picked one that hit my price point and came with the teleconverter and a Nikon adapter for the T mount.
The lens is pretty long but very light. I took it to a local park and plopped it on top of my old Bogen 3011 tripod and shot the tip of the Washington monument nestled by the Capitol dome. The lens is very difficult to focus on the Nikon, even at 500mm, and it’s much harder at 1,000 mm, when everything in the viewfinder is wiggling around. The Nikon also seemed to emit a good bit of mirror slap.
I was able to get this shot, which I sort of liked, but I wouldn’t try to blow it up past about 5x7 inches, because as soon as you magnify it you can see it’s pretty fuzzy. I thought, well, that’s not bad.
Monument and Capitol by Brett Davis, on Flickr
Then I had another thought. I have a converter to use Nikon lenses on my Leica M240, which I do once in a while. How would that work? Would it be easier to focus?
I packed up my gear and went to the Netherlands Carillon on the Virginia side of the Potomac, where you get an iconic view of the Capitol, the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, all in a row. I set up the lens and camera on the tripod, including putting the VF-2 EVF on the camera.
Here’s the rig, ready to go.
Super Telephoto Leica by Brett Davis, on Flickr
I started with the lens at 500mm. Lo and behold, it was much easier to focus than on the Nikon. I could actually tell when things were in focus, and the magnify button and focus peaking worked pretty well. I took a few pictures and they are in much better focus than on the Nikon, with the lens looking relatively sharp out to the edges. You could print this one up about as big as you like.
Capitol Skyline II by Brett Davis, on Flickr
Why not try for 1,000mm? I put on the teleconverter and attached the camera. Focusing became more difficult, especially when pushing the magnify button; it’s like trying to focus on a bowl of wiggling jello. Focusing with the magnification off seemed to work OK.
And the photo was, considering the price of the lens, pretty astounding. The extreme edges are quite blurry but the rest of the photo cleaned up pretty nicely. The image compression you can get with a 1,000mm lens is astounding. I was probably a bit over a mile from the Lincoln Memorial, which is roughly two miles from the Capitol, and yet it looks like they’re right on top of each other. Please forgive that the sky color doesn’t match from shot to shot; I let Luminar 3 run wild with the more extreme image, but dialed the color back a bit for the 500mm shot.
Capitol Skyline by Brett Davis, on Flickr
The downsides of this lens: It’s difficult to focus, especially at 1,000mm. Also, for some reason, it really highlights the dirt on your sensor. My Leica’s sensor is never the cleanest but this lens showed just how dirty it is. I’ve included a shot of my screen while I was working on the image in Luminar 3, erasing the dust blobs. It was a lot of work.
Opteka Dust Cleaning by Brett Davis, on Flickr
The lens is also very slow, so you need bright light to get anything decent. And, of course, this only works on Leicas with EVFs. Ain’t no rangefindering going on here.
The verdict: Is the lens any good? The answer: For what I want, it’s workable. You won’t be shooting birds in flight with this rig, it’s too hard to focus. You might get away with shooting a slow-moving blue heron but that would be about it. For buildings, it’s great, and I’m really looking forward to getting some moon shots with this setup.
My next project with it is to set it up to my little Pentax Q. That camera’s tiny sensor will introduce a crop factor of about 5.5, meaning my 1,000mm lens will be more like a 5,500mm lens. I’m hoping to use that to capture the rings of Saturn!
I had considered trying to track down one of the old Leica 400 6.8 Telyt lenses, but they were still a bit pricey for what I wanted to do. I thought, what the heck? How bad could it be? And bought an Opteka lens kit for $106 shipped.
These are marketed under a variety of names, including Vivitar, Bower, Opteka and several others. They are all exactly the same, as far as I can tell, so I just picked one that hit my price point and came with the teleconverter and a Nikon adapter for the T mount.
The lens is pretty long but very light. I took it to a local park and plopped it on top of my old Bogen 3011 tripod and shot the tip of the Washington monument nestled by the Capitol dome. The lens is very difficult to focus on the Nikon, even at 500mm, and it’s much harder at 1,000 mm, when everything in the viewfinder is wiggling around. The Nikon also seemed to emit a good bit of mirror slap.
I was able to get this shot, which I sort of liked, but I wouldn’t try to blow it up past about 5x7 inches, because as soon as you magnify it you can see it’s pretty fuzzy. I thought, well, that’s not bad.
Monument and Capitol by Brett Davis, on FlickrThen I had another thought. I have a converter to use Nikon lenses on my Leica M240, which I do once in a while. How would that work? Would it be easier to focus?
I packed up my gear and went to the Netherlands Carillon on the Virginia side of the Potomac, where you get an iconic view of the Capitol, the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, all in a row. I set up the lens and camera on the tripod, including putting the VF-2 EVF on the camera.
Here’s the rig, ready to go.
Super Telephoto Leica by Brett Davis, on FlickrI started with the lens at 500mm. Lo and behold, it was much easier to focus than on the Nikon. I could actually tell when things were in focus, and the magnify button and focus peaking worked pretty well. I took a few pictures and they are in much better focus than on the Nikon, with the lens looking relatively sharp out to the edges. You could print this one up about as big as you like.
Capitol Skyline II by Brett Davis, on FlickrWhy not try for 1,000mm? I put on the teleconverter and attached the camera. Focusing became more difficult, especially when pushing the magnify button; it’s like trying to focus on a bowl of wiggling jello. Focusing with the magnification off seemed to work OK.
And the photo was, considering the price of the lens, pretty astounding. The extreme edges are quite blurry but the rest of the photo cleaned up pretty nicely. The image compression you can get with a 1,000mm lens is astounding. I was probably a bit over a mile from the Lincoln Memorial, which is roughly two miles from the Capitol, and yet it looks like they’re right on top of each other. Please forgive that the sky color doesn’t match from shot to shot; I let Luminar 3 run wild with the more extreme image, but dialed the color back a bit for the 500mm shot.
Capitol Skyline by Brett Davis, on FlickrThe downsides of this lens: It’s difficult to focus, especially at 1,000mm. Also, for some reason, it really highlights the dirt on your sensor. My Leica’s sensor is never the cleanest but this lens showed just how dirty it is. I’ve included a shot of my screen while I was working on the image in Luminar 3, erasing the dust blobs. It was a lot of work.
Opteka Dust Cleaning by Brett Davis, on FlickrThe lens is also very slow, so you need bright light to get anything decent. And, of course, this only works on Leicas with EVFs. Ain’t no rangefindering going on here.
The verdict: Is the lens any good? The answer: For what I want, it’s workable. You won’t be shooting birds in flight with this rig, it’s too hard to focus. You might get away with shooting a slow-moving blue heron but that would be about it. For buildings, it’s great, and I’m really looking forward to getting some moon shots with this setup.
My next project with it is to set it up to my little Pentax Q. That camera’s tiny sensor will introduce a crop factor of about 5.5, meaning my 1,000mm lens will be more like a 5,500mm lens. I’m hoping to use that to capture the rings of Saturn!
shawn
Veteran
The Q is really fun with telephoto. If you don't have a loupe for the rear LCD you might want to pick one up as they are very handy for focusing.
Q-S1 with Nikon 500mm f4P, uncropped
Shawn
Q-S1 with Nikon 500mm f4P, uncropped
Shawn
Beemermark
Veteran
This lens design has been around for ages (the dark ages). I had one before electrons were invented. Most long telephoto's are really a rather simple lens design. The price comes in, as you discovered, in the construction of the lens' tube. That and chromatic aberrations.
Leica0Series
Well-known
This kind of shot is what I'm looking for! Thanks!
The Q is really fun with telephoto. If you don't have a loupe for the rear LCD you might want to pick one up as they are very handy for focusing.
Q-S1 with Nikon 500mm f4P, uncropped
Shawn
Mackinaw
Think Different
Canon FL-F 500/f5.6 on a Leica M240.
Jim B
Jim B
hap
Well-known
Any way to mate a M240 with a Zeiss Gavia 85 spotting scope?
hap
Well-known
Is there an old thread that deals with digital leicas and spotting scopes? I can understand trying to use cheap telephoto lens. However, spotting scopes get a lot of love from digiscopers. Problem is that eyepiece of of scopes has exit pupil very small, so need to spread a very small image on to the large sensor of a FF digital Leica , when using an adapter. Seems that most digiscopers use phones or m4/3 .
shawn
Veteran
The Q is pretty great for this. It is actually a little nicer than the Q-S1 as you can set it to have stablization on all the time which helps with focusing this extreme. The Q-S1 dropped that option, but it does step up IQ a little more.
I tried the 500mm with a teleconverter and my biggest problem was just how fast the moon was moving across the frame as I was just using a fixed tripod.
Because the Q uses an electronic shutter with adapted lenses you have to be careful about the read time of the sensor or you can get rolling shutter problems in your image. And you can't do long exposures due to the subject movement unless you have a tracking mount.
You can get around the electronic shutter but only if you use the Pentax shutter adapter and K mount lenses.
Shawn
Vince Lupo
Whatever
Brett -- Had I known you were curious about using telephotos on an M240, you could have tried my 560. Gone now 
560 Telyt by Vince Lupo, on Flickr
560 Telyt by Vince Lupo, on Flickr
boojum
Ignoble Miscreant
The old trick for the wiggling is to take off your jacket or sweater and drape it across the length of the lens. This will damp a lot of the movement. And you always have the damper with you.
BTW, there are mirror telephoto lenses for sale on eBay for about the same amount. I got a Tamron 500mm f/8 for around US$130 and it is a good lens and a lot easier to work with. https://www.opticallimits.com/Revie...p-macro-adaptall-to-nikon-review--test-report