Jonathan Lewis , Feb 27, 2005; 10:27 p.m.
Hello Everyone! I'm new to this photography stuff, I like it. I
have a Canon Rebel 2k with a regular 35-80mm lens. I want to find a
lens for a closer shot though, a telephoto lens. I have seen a few
Opteka brand lenses for relatively cheap. They are 500/1000mm type.
I was curious if anyone has used this brand and if they had, what
their thoughts are about them.
Winfried Buechsenschuetz , Feb 28, 2005; 08:06 a.m.
First, from 80mm to 500 or 1000mm is a big step. You will get 6x to 16x magnification from the same point of view, and the field of view of course is reduced accordingly. Why not start with a 200mm or 300mm tele? It will bring you 3 or 4 times closer to your object, and in most cases this is sufficient, even for wildlife photography.
If the lenses you mentioned are NOT mirror lenses (i.e. with a relatively short barrel) they are probably reincarnations of some far-east tele lenses which are around for a while. They usually have mediocre quality. Their widest aperture usually is very limitid (f/8 or f/11). In most cases you will need an adaptor to fit it to modern autofocus cameras. Autofocus does not work with these lenses, nor do many of the automatic features. You can have all this in the range up to 300mm or so.
If you are talking about the 600-1300mm zoom lenses, forget about them. I don't know them personally but I have heard that they are pure trash. Even the lens barrel will bend significantly when it is fully extended.
Yakim Peled 
, Feb 28, 2005; 09:06 a.m.
YGWYPF.
Happy shooting,
Yakim.
ROGER VANDIVER , Jun 25, 2005; 11:24 p.m.
I KNOW THIS MAY BE TOO LATE TO HELP OUT VERY MUCH, BUT I RECENTLY PURCHASED AN OPTEKA 100-300 AUTO ZOOM LENS ON EBAY. I ,TOO, QUESTIONED IT'S QUALITY, BECAUSE I HAD NEVER HEARD OF OPTEKA BEFORE. I AM VERY, VERY SATISFIED WITH THE LENS. MY WIFE AND I HAVE TAKEN SEVERAL PICS WITH IT, AND IT PERFORMS VERY WELL. IF YOU DECIDE TO BUY ONE, I HOPE YOU HAVE AS GOOD OF LUCK AS WE HAVE.
Glinda G. Brown , Jul 04, 2007; 08:46 a.m.
Sorry, I have not used one yet. I just ordered the macro lens by Opteka but it has not arrived yet. I was also wondering about its quality. I am searching for affordability to use in college courses. I did look on the web and found a few photos snapped with an Opteka, thus I decided to try it...whenever it arrives. I love checking out photos on the web where users actually show results from the lenses. There are few to be found for the Opteka so far.
