$200 - 2600MM TELEPHOTO LENS TEST 

Hey guys! Be sure to check out our follow-up video using this lens to take better photos/videos from your suggestions!

On the A7iii, which is full frame, it maxes out at 2600mm, but on the A6100, which is APS-C, it's actually at 3900mm (1.5x crop)! With this sort of zoom, doing it on a still, cold day will give you MUCH better results than a hot windy day, as you are looking through so much space. Nice job guys!

It's soft for three, or more, reasons: 1. Fixed aperture so you can't stop down 2. Shooting through a great deal of atmosphere _and_ 3. Shooting over water = more moisture/humidity/atmosphere, and more turbulence

Very interesting! It actually performed better than I expected. I have recently been trying to get into astrophotography, and one of the first things you learn about is sampling. Basically, there is a fundamental, theoretical limit to the the degree of magnification one can achieve, and this is tied directly to the size of the primary lens. With the combination of lens and cameras you were using, you guys were way oversampling! For the A7iii you were 3.1 times past the theoretical maximum resolution, and the A6100 was 4.6 times past the maximum! So even with perfect optics, there would still have been significant fogging. To prevent this fogging, the minimum size of the objective would have to be 240mm, or nearly 10 inches! If you want more information, I would suggest looking at the wiki pages for Dawes limit and the page "Angular resolution"

Try it on the Moon and Jupiter. Could be a cheap option for some planetary astrophotography. The amount of flex that thing has is a big problem but if you could mount it in a lens support it would probably work fairly well. As long as your not worried about chromatic aberration or edge focus snobbery.

I can tell some effort went into this video, it has good production quality. Hope your channel grows 👍

I started watching without knowing how many subs you got, and with the video's quality and efforts put into it I genuinely thought you got way more subs than you actually got, you got my respect bro

Here's what I would do with it: Forget about the teleconverter. Use the fullframe camera. Under-expose a little bit. Use a rock or a building instead of a tripod. Increase "contrast" in the video or picture settings to get rid of haze. And then it might actually yield usable results. :)

oh my god you have only 150 subscribers aw man that was such a nice video. This channel had a lot of potential! Looking forward to seeing future videos 👀

One other quick thing. When you picked the extended lens up it had flex to it. Without a strong arm or rail to mount the lens at two points and maybe a third point for a camera you cannot get the arch out of the lense. Cannot get a good focus unless looking thru the center of the lens. Good luck guys I think you can get this thing tack sharp.

Hey great work! Love the effort for such a small channel. You guys nailed it. Can't wait to see your progression on RU-vid. You have earned my subscription

This is far and away the most entertaining and authentic feeling lens review/vlog I’ve watched in recent memory. I’m certainly a fan of character over quality down to every tiny production detail. All of the information is there, the character of the people in the video is prominent and authentic, and ultimately it feels like chatting with friends. 10/10

This is it. I'll use this to find big foot.

Harry Potter and Ron Weasley?????

I've had one of these bad boys for 6 or 7 years now and I took it to Africa on safari ( Kenya , Tanzania ) really for a laugh , I set it up in camp on a tripod ( must have a tripod ) and focused in on a spot on small mountain over a mile+ away in Sumburu national park that had Leopards ( allegedly ) , managed to get a good focus on an area of rocks and bushes ( Sony A6000 with a remote controller can of Beer and a large JD and Coke at the ready ) I didn't have the 2x converter so I was at 1300mm + extension E-Mount adaptor + Crop , all being viewed on a 7inch monitor. Well I was quite surprised at the clarity afforded by all this monstrosity , The misses ( wife ) and our guide and camp ranger all huddled around the screen in anticipation with Beer in one hand and remote control in the other waiting for some unsuspecting Leopard ( or anything living ) to walk in shot , but you guessed it , jack sh@t , nada zip , NOTHING, we sat until the batteries went dead and not a peep . But in Tanzania from the Safari Truck with the lens laying on the roof of the truck , begging the wife the driver and cook to remain motionless i captured a Leopard resting in a tree I managed to get 5 or 6 shots before the light breeze picked up a bit and made focusing impossible . The best shot was WOW because the Leopard in shot 5 lifted his head and looked straight at the camera. That moment for me was spiritual man awesome . How I wished I had 61 Megapixels A7r4 with IBIS to then allow the crop in post .

I bought this lens back in 2017 and used it to take pics of the Solar Eclipse in August of that year. Did phenomenal. However, it isn't really suited for much else because of the manual focusing. It's really only good on objects with fixed focal lengths that don't move around too much. Even the moon is problematic due to Earth's rotation moving the subject out of frame consistently at such a high zoom factor. That being said, it's a good introductory lens for understanding super telephoto lenses without the hefty price tag. I upgraded after this lens to a 200 - 800mm with a 2x entender and even though 1600mm is half the distance, it's a lens I 200% love more due to autofocusing and it being a fast lens. Nice test video.

I was looking at almost this exact lens for some astrophotography, this video (of which helped me decide against it, lmao) was randomly recommended to me - you earned a like & sub, great video!

the screw it in part got me xd

When i was watching I thought you have like 100k subs. Great quality!

10/10 for vlogging

its part poor optics and its part simple physics. your shooting through SO M UCH ATMOSPHERE that the air itself distorts the image. this is why those big 800mm+ lenses from canon cost $20,000 $40,0000. the degree of precision you need to get sharp images at that focal length are just astonishing. Try the 800mm reflectors. ($100 to $150) they are a royal PAIN IN THE ASS to focus but when you nail it. the results are actually amazing. if you want big zoom with decent quality on a budget here is how you get it. Sigma 150-600mm $700 used. then you get a high quality doubler (I have a 2x mkiii for my canon) NOW on an FF you have 1200mm (I got a "ok" decent shot of the lunar eclipse with this HAND HELD yes it was 90% luck) and if you pair it with a crop sensor camera now your talking 1800-1900mm of "usable" quality (IE much better than this) but as you no doubt see its gonna cost you $1100 for the sigma and a good quality doubler a 1.4x will greatly improve image quality but at the expense is not nearly as much mm FF 840mm Crop 1260mm also either of these combo's will auto focus. Something I have not tried. is putting my opteka 800mm reflector on my canon 2x doubler. should be better image quality than the included crap doubler it came with that I can't find anyway. might have to try that. would net me 1600mm at F16 the sigma however will net you 1200mm (FF) with a doubler at F12.3 which is much better. and while 1200mm is not 2600mm the resolution sharpness difference will mean you can MORE than 50% crop which means a better overall image at 2600mm effective than with that. ALSO much beefier tripod! I mean it. think surveyor tripod and some weights to make it heavier. the sturdier the tripod the less of those micro vibes you will get. also if your sony has IBIS use that !! it does work quite well and will net you 1800mm effective on the sony if its a crop sensor !!!

I like it guys :) I hope you don't stop public something like this. Because the experiment was crazy and pretty interesting. The lens is not bad I think. Maybe this converter was superfluous. On 650-1300 it can be good lens for animals photography, or maybe this converter can help you to get something interesting in astrophotography. But however don't stop doing you content! It's kind, funny and interesting. Peace!

Ordered mine three days ago. The covid pandemic is affecting shipments these 😁

The images are different due to the sensor size. A6100 APS-C sensor has a 1.5x factor over the fullframe camera. A medium format sensor is about .64x the fullframe. A 4/3 sensor is about 2x of the fullframe. A 1" sensor is about 2.7x of the fullframe. A typical cellphone sensor has a crop factor of about 5.6x.

Finally a good vlog lens!

there's a camera on your lens

Well even if the images are poor it will impress the ladies!! Size does matter!!

I think attaching some heavy weights to the base of the tripod could help with the incessant shaking.

I have this exact same lens. I have had it for about 12 years. I found it was a tad foggy - especially on high magification (1200mm). However, this is to be expected on a lens at the price range it is in. I have used it several times and one excellent thing to shoot with it is ... the moon. But, for the price, the results are good. If you want something crisper and clearer, you will need to save up and buy a much more expensive lens. One thing about tripods - the sturdier it is the better. That is why very good tripods are built like the proverbial craphouse and heavy az.

It works best set to (pulled out to) around 800 to 900mm max, then it's quite sharp.

When using focal lengths of 2500mm + I like to use the celestron edge HD line of telescopes, they are f/10 and much sharper

I loved the video but I really would have liked to have seen a test of the lens at a shorter focal length and without the teleconverter in place to see how it does at 600mm - 1000mm and possibly with a polarizing filter in place on a high res dslr with mirror up, or a mirrorless upwards of 50Mp. That said I guess if you have the money for cameras like that, you wouldn't be in the market for a lens like this? Who knows. Interesting project though, thanks.

So you basically took one of those kids telescopes and turned it into a pinhole camera 😂 awesome

That’s pretty cool that you can get this zoom for just 200… though not sure what you could actually do with it… hope you can think of a good use! Subbed, curious to see more, always on the lookout for some video ideas 😁

About 70K views and only 396 subscribers? You guys should have 100K subscribers by now.

This is definitely for stills, fast shutter speeds and in body IS will help the shake situation and make photos usable for things like birds and wildlife. That said, it won’t be as sharp as other options. The max quality from that lens will be without the teleconverter and somewhere at the lower end of the range. Again, not ideal, but for a birder on a budget, it may be better than no long reach lens.

I have this lens too. It's looks pretty good with circular lens. I use auto breaking for images and manual focal length. With two tripods, no movement.

I recently started into photography and i was looking for some gear i could use at the beginning. I firstly thought on analogical lens, which would save me some money, but i could only find small ones, since the high focal distance ones always looked shady (and so that one you showed kkkkkkl, but then it got some good results and i might look forward to have one later. Greets from Brazil, a quite difficult country to be a photographer KKKKKKKKKKKKKK

Instead of comparing at a distance too far , determine ,at what distance it does, produce a better result with more detail, on a perched bird. Obviously the wobble ,and haze is a problem at that lens extension, and distance. THAT, would be helpful to know. Thanks

I had one of those and it worked well for Moon photos. =)

Enjoyed the video a lot - great job and of course the crop sensor is the difference. I still think the lens did a pretty good job and of course it's $200. For that price it's just amazing. At these zoom levels you're going to need extreme stabilisation - an incredibly expensive tripod or pedestal for it to shine, but that kind of defeats the purpose of a two hundred dollar lens. Plus there's the atmosphere itself that comes into play, so video is way out of scope. Just as a comparison, in TV we have used a UHD Canon Digisuper 122 box lens with the standard Sony Pro B4 mount. They extend out to 1000mm and 2000mm with the built-in doubler and are designed for sports and concerts. You might find a special deal on one of those for $300,000 - if you're lucky. Plus the hyper expensive mounting gear. Canon and Fujinon make cheaper versions of similar lenses - 1300mm at 86x about $200,000, the 100x Fujinon equivalent is $250,000. The reason so expensive? The multiple various elements of artificial fluorite glass take months to grow and refine. Plus the electomechanicals are microscopic precision works of art. So $200 is pretty amazing that it even works at all! Gear like this simply wasn't even thinkable 20 years ago. For someone who wants to try lunar photography I think it would be ideal and an absolute bargain.

casually just screwed on a telescope to a camera

Man this video is so funny 😂

Image is blurred because of small aperture. Basically you are seeing diffraction artifacts. Check out Hyugens Optics channel. The guy explains this effect in details in his recent video.

I can HEAR the quality of materials as you screw the 2x converter on. I don't even need to see the rest of the test (but I will, for the algorithms). :D

I would like to see more of this type of videos

Hey there, some great video here. Would you guys please zoom at the moon with the lens? Maybe some comparisom between 650mm and 2600mm. Thanks

Ah, two tripods. That's the trick. (I am struggling to use this lens, don't want to give up yet.). Fun vid. Maybe lunar photog?

Perhaps in the future computational photography will be able to deal with the many issues of heat, vibration and filtering by the atmosphere. The mass market may not justify that kind of development work, but I suppose that satellite and military applications would. There is a feeling of power and fun being able to see things from such a great distance, but I can think of no other useful application other than wildlife photography and video.

Need to try shots with and without the x2 converter. Good glass vs this products converter should have a huge effect on the quality of the image. I am curious if without the converter if it would be a clear focus image.

i really like this video. Keep it up!"

Should try something like this on my 5dsr and 1dx mark iii

What distance were you apart from eachother when you were filming your buddy on the other shore?

In the UK at the moment you can get this type of lens for around 100 pound. Which is around 130 dollars rounding up. And for that price its very much worth it. I was thinking of getting this lens for wildlife photography as im just getting into using interchangable lens cameras and dont have the money to spend on a really expensive lens yet. But looking at this video it really seems like this would be a big hassle to use. And the lack of auto focus as a beginner is abit scary. But for astro which im getting a massive urge to do it seems amazing. So ill definitely be picking up one of these next month

Looks better than I was expecting it to, but my only telephoto is the EF 75-300mm so that's probably why. I compared the price to cheap telescopes and adapters and saw the lens isn't cheap enough when you can get comparable reach with cheap telescopes. Part of me kind of still wants one but I know I can put that money to many better uses. I like how the lens bends when handled.

You needed to use, hacked canon 5d mark iii or EOS M/M2 with magic lantern open source custom firmware why? Then you could use 10x zoom feature to focus on his nose🙂

Good enough for physical surveillance purpose.

I got the same lens several years ago. It sucks! The shake is a problem but the real issue is that you can't really focus it. It's never sharp. I took it out once to photograph the sandhill cranes in a cornfield. I had to rest the lens on my car door because I only had one tripod and it wasn't strong enough. I was able to zoom pretty well on the birds, but nothing was in focus.

Nicely done and a fun little field test. :) I would partly blame diffraction for the fogginess. With the Teleconverter it results in an aperture of f/32 which makes loss of detail due to diffraction very likely. You could test a cropped 1300mm shot against a 2600mm shot and see whether the cropped resolution looks worse.

I have one of these (though without the 2x teleconverter) -- used for $30 US (and it looked unused), on my Lumix G85 Micro-Four-Thirds mirrorless (2x crop factor). So that's an equiv of 1300-2600mm full frame. I was not shooting video but stills, and I had all of the same issues that you encountered -- very hard to get steady, image was very soft, and not a lot of light makes it through. Fun to test out once, but I cannot see any reason that I would ever use it for photography *or* video.

You need to be a good sniper to get a good shot with this!

Need a Vixen mount and my telescope mount that holds 18 lbs. A 12 inch vixen mount to shim up the camera.

I have the exact same lens and it does a decent job at photos of the moon for how cheap it was

At 1:05, no it does not "zoom". It is a multifocal lens. There is a difference.

"It's a photography lens!" - and yet...there are no photos? Cool!

This is a far better test than all these test chart- shooters poduce all the time....!

not quite new, back in the 35mm film day(yeah, I'm old) these type of lenses would be in the back of Petersons Photographic or Popular Photography magazines(are these mags still even around)?

cool reviews guys!! i'm thinking to buy these lens lol

Atmospheric Haze. You are shooting super far through all sorts of things in the air, especially water vapor! No matter what you do the farther from your subject the more hazy it’ll be! It’s just physics!

I can imagine it’s minimum focusing distance is like 20 feet 😅

i have a Pentax Q with PK adapter, a 2x TC and an old sigma 100-300 so thats 5.6x crop + 2x300mm gives me the FOV of a 3360mm lens... and its abslolutley bullcrap! i tried the moon once but needed a really short ss coz the moon was running through the frame. IQ was garbage and i need tons of light coz the Q isnt any good at anything but base ISO. This stuff is only good to please your curiosity, no practical value 😅

I actually have seen similar lenses before, No way it costs 200$, a 450-900 plus 2x converter is around 80$ and actually useable if you use it as a telescope to "see" instead of trying to get a sharp photo

No way! The focal length is insane!

Would have been good to see what it would look like without the teleconverter on also. Might of been able to get a better focus, but wouldnt of been as much of a zoom

Try it without the Tele converter. The quality should be better. Really like the video.

I wouldn't mind seeing some more intermediate shots. Max range does not look great but if it can produce some sharp images at a more mid range, it could be worth the $200. Unless you're a very low budget P.I. I would skip using it for long range video.

Wow. Great Video. Well done, especially like how you took the time to go to separate places and did test. I've bought one aswell and its come with a t-mount, would you know what adapter I need to attach it to a micro 43? Thanks

I have those tripods. Not so good in the wind.

impractical but fun video :D

Jack Harlow out here testing out lenses

The world's first suspension bridge zoom lens. 😂

Surely not a good idea to test it over a vast expanse of water. The water vapour and atmospheric refraction it causes must affect both definition and contrast. A bit of fun though. 😉

it could be used for astronomy

what do you expect from Chinese brands vs Japanese brands

Useful video

not available now on amazon ... you must have made them sell out the inventory.

Great lens for street photography

I'm thinking of situations where you have to be far from your subject. At a motorsports event like a NASCAR race. Looking across a city from a tall building. Maybe you're on a hill in Yellowstone overlooking a field full of bison being chased by wolves.

need to make a brace mount for it

Better buy 2 bottle bottom abd glued together in a tube 😅

Don't you want to try to shoot some planets with this lens? Maybe you will find a flag that was left on the Moon? :D Also maybe you'll try to use it on micro-four-thirds camera, that would be nice 5200mm zoom!

2:46 you need a dovetail plate and a telescope mount, wimpy camera tripods are pretty useless even at 700mm

I can use this on my EOS R if I use my adapter correct?

I'm betting you would need an FX like 45 megapixel and then dumb down to 20 in post just to sharpen it up..

gawd, youtube algorithm just blew this up

Isn't it amazing with so little money you can get so much of a lens?!

I wish I could find someone to trade this lens for my Nikon 70-200mm 2.8 lens because it doesn't go anywhere near that far.

If use Olympus with IBIS would be much more interested vs 35mm sensor

you could take a picture of the moon.

the dirt is on the sensor