Super Cheap telephoto lens for Nilon D5300

[carlosriaga]

Hi, I've just bought a Nikon D5300 for bird photography, I would like to get a cheap telephoto lens, $100 is my budget, 400mm if possible. I don't mind manual focus. Any word of advise will be appreciated.

[calvin83]

If you want a portable lens, you may consider the sigma. It is possible to find one around $100 if youre patient enough.
http://forum.mflenses.com/sigma-400mm-f56-mirror-t81280.html

[marcusBMG]

Hi Carlos

This is a perrrenial question and there are numerous threads here and on forums like Pentax Forums. Definitely read around and check reviews to get a perspective of what's available and how much bang you can get for your bucks.
I've amused myself trying many vintage lenses on my pentaxes. The bottom line is the simple one that mostly you get what you pay for. Modern lenses are better than the vintage ones, but you pay a lot for incremental increases in iq. Note that nikon is not very adaptable in terms of lens mounts: you can get a cheap adapter to go M42 (the most common vintage mount) to nikon but you then lose infinity focus. With a telephoto that might not particularly restrict you, you would still be able to focus to 50-100m which would cover most birding photo distances. But mostly you can't adapt TO nikon, the lens has to come with a nikon mount, or be one of the swappable mount systems (t-mount, adaptall, T4/TX mount). You also need to check how your nikon operates with non-nikon lenses, cheaper models particularly are quite limited in operation.

The cheapest options are indeed the vintage MF lenses. You can certainly get decent pics from eg tokina made 400mm f6.3's (Tokina RMC, vivitar, soligor etc), bide your time and peruse the listings and you should get one for less than 50 bucks. Note I don't recomend the generic "anybrand" 400mm f6.3's - older ones too prone to haze, all too variable in iq. A favourite of mine is the tamron 400mm f6.9, particularly in its cute "nestar" incarnation. I would strongly recommend the sigma apo 400mm f5.6 version 2 (1988> ) if it didn't invariably suffer from haze/speckling of an internal doublet. You can do ok with it if its only slightly affected. The MC sigma 400mm can be quite readily acquired in both AF and non AF forms but I find this a frustrating lens and am reluctant to recommend it.
You can consider mirror lenses, my invariable recomendation on those is the tamron SP adaptall (swappable mount) 500mm f8, either version, with a nikon mount. But mirrors are so ticklish to use. Does your nikon have live view to nail the focus? if it doesn't I would skip the mirrors.
There are more choices at 300mm eg tair 300A 300mm f4.5. tamron adaptall 300mm f5.6 (tamron adaptall 300mm f2.8 if you are prepared to consider upping your buget to more like 500)..

The other thing to say is that if I had your nikon I would diligently browse the listings to see if I could pick up something like an old model sigma for a bargain price (150-300 depending lens, condition etc) eg the 135-400mm apo, 120-400mm apo (there's one of these listed here in UK starting £120, slight fungus, item 176071047505 ), 150-500mm apo; 400mm f5.6 version 3 (1995 > ). Canon dslr owners have the problem that sigmas from the 1990's usually have a microchip incompatibility, nikons don't have this issue. TBH you are going to do better with any of these than most of the vintage MF lenses. But on the other hand you won't get any of those for 50 bucks and getting one of those vintage lenses and learning to use it is both beneficial and rewarding.

[Doc Sharptail]

With the APSC/DX sensor of the D-5300, manual focus 400mm is going to be a handful and a half.
It can be done, depending on shooting methods. With 400 on the small sensor, the apparent focal length will be about 600mm. Getting that long is going to require a tripod, which can be a bit on the cumbersome side depending on your birding methods.

I would try at first with something a bit shorter like the 200mm nikkor A/I f 4. You should be able to find a clean copy for well under 100.00, and at least get a feel for the format's abilities.
If you want to do something really cheap, the Tamron 103-A 70-210 zoom can be had for around 40.00 or so. The 210mm setting will push your hand held limits a bit with the small sensor. Both lenses are worth keeping, especially if you move up to a full frame sensor.

Personally, for birding, you may have a much higher success rate with a stabilized a/f lens on that sensor size.

-D.S.

[visualopsins]

Welcome carlosriaga! Nice to see you here!

Finding myself in a similar situation albeit many years ago I went for one of the inexpensive (in your price range) "girl watcher" lenses which are made and branded by many manufacturers. Click here to see on Ebay

They are comparatively lightweight. The length makes it easy to swing around. The comparative low cost lets you try it to make your own decisions about whether to invest in a faster lens. And best of all the image quality is pretty good!

[stevemark]

[gaeger]

If you want the best possible telephoto lens for a D5300 at $100, you can't beat the Nikkor 70-300mm AF-P DX lens. It comes in VR or non-VR -- I have both, and they both continue to amaze me with the image quality for their size. At the long end, they give you the equivalent of 450mm on a full-frame body. Here are samples of what that lens can do: https://www.flickr.com/search/?user_id=95903184%40N00&sort=date-taken-desc&view_all=1&text=d5200%2070-300mm

But of course, they're not manual focus lenses!

But the great thing is that the D5300 can take any F-mount lens, even non-AI lenses that would break full-frame bodies. So you could get, for instance, a Soligor 400mm f6.3 These images are on a D300 with that lens. (Note that there are a couple of non-400mm mixed in there.)
https://www.flickr.com/search/?user_id=95903184%40N00&sort=date-taken-desc&view_all=1&text=400mm%20soligor

Or a Vivitar 400mm f5.6. These are also with a D300, so much lower resolution. Note the 100 percent crop from the first image.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/gaeger2/4320438937/in/photolist-7zMnYv-7zR8UW-9xUunD-a1248i-auRpas-auRpeQ/

As others have noted, rock solid support for those long lenses with a DX body is needed, so you'll need to factor in a tripod or monopod into the equation. (Most of the 400mm images in those links were taken on a monopod.)

[Doc Sharptail]

That vivitar seems to have worked well on the D-300.



-D.S.

[kathala]

[marcusBMG]

The sigma 400mm mirror isn't very common and is therefore not easy to pick up for a good price. In any case I would repeat that mirrors are difficult to use and technically limited (no aperture, rarely deliver the goods if the light isn't good ie bright sunlight). The tamron 500mm f8's are much more readily available, recently I have been seeing examples sell very cheaply (ebay UK) - it's a buyers market in the current economic climate. Another reason to consider getting one is that you can then look around for a matching 02F eyepiece adapter, which turns the 500mm mirror into a very nice, very compact 25x spotting scope which really is just the job for a bit of bird spotting. But they're not easy to find and likely to cost a £100 ish.
The posts with links to examples of pics with tokina made (soligor vivitar etc) 400-6.3's / 400mm f5.6's are more pertinent to the discussion, shows what can be done. Much more useful IMO. IME the later f5.6 400mm tokinas while being a bit faster don't really have much of an iq advantage - even the later more premium SD - but are more compact and have closer focus. Note that the 37xxxxx serial number 400mm f5.6 vivitars are tokinas, but the 28xxxxx ones are komine and while quite sharp those IME are fringing monsters.
So I repeat these are the type of lenses I would point to as best price/performance at the bargain basement vintage lens level. Then it's all about technique, light etc. My most useful accessory: a bean bag, and I make tripod foot plates to more easily sit the lens on one! And definitely have a remote shutter control with you.
Your nikon has a good spec. Live view, articulated screen, 24MPx gives you lots of cropping room. Note that the more you crop the more you need the best technique (forget hand holding) to nail critical focus (max magnification in live view), eliminate shake and use the best f stop (typically around f9-10). You crop 50% its like you are using a 1200mm focal length (given that apsc is already like using a 600mm)! Good processing, resize and sharpen then gets you the best outcome.
Finally I agree with stevemark's recommendation of the novoflex for it's iq, but you have to decide whether you really want this idiosycratic weighty bazooka with its trigger focus insead of a "normal" lens...

[carlosriaga]

Hi! thanks for all the interesting answers, I'm reading all the options you guys gave me and trying to reach some conclusions.

I'm a little worried about the light metering issue, I've been told that the Nikon D5300 can´t measure light with manual lenses, I'm not sure how bad it will be for bird photography.

[carlosriaga]

Hi marcusBMG

[carlosriaga]

While looking for the lenses recommended in this thread found this, way over my budget but quite interesting.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/375124988972?ViewItem=&item=375124988972

Will it work on the Nikon d5300? Any thoughts?
It says the seller don't accept returns, too risky?

[carlosriaga]

[calvin83]

[calvin83]

[carlosriaga]

[carlosriaga]

[carlosriaga]

[Doc Sharptail]

[carlosriaga]

I want to make a resume of the options that you all kindly gave me and some thoughts in front:

*Sigma 400mm mirror lens --> Hard to find
*Tokina/Vivitar/Spiratone ... 400mm --> Several options available
*Sigma APO --> Expensive
*Lenses with 200-300mm --> too short in my limited experience
*Novoflexar --> not safe in Colombia
* Nikon ED AF Nikkor 70-300mm 1:4-5.6 G --> Found one for 100, short reach.

The above resume leaves me with 2 options:
any of Tokina/Vivitar/Spiratone ... 400mm
or Nikon ED AF Nikkor 70-300mm

I'll go with the later with a teleconverter but i've read that it's not a good idea. So the Tokina/Vivitar/Spiratone ... 400mm will be the winner.

I like this one:

https://www.natcam.com/products/nikon-tokina-400mm-f5-6-rmc-ai-manual-focus-telephoto-f-mount-prime-lens/

[marcusBMG]

[alex_d]

[D1N0]

For Birding I would look into m43. Best reach for weight ratio because of the crop sensor and smaller sensors can shoot faster bursts.

[calvin83]