Bower 500mm f/6.3 Manual Focus Telephoto T-Mount Lens

Comments about Bower 500mm f/6.3 Manual Focus Telephoto T-Mount Lens:

I need a lens to photograph my bird sightings here in the wild of South Africa. So I chose this inexpensive 500mm f/6.3 Manual Focus Telephoto T-Mount Lens by Bower. It is a great lens but you have to practise and practise getting the focus right especially after having being used to autofocus. The focus is very delicate but once its done, it produces a good photograph. The focussing requires a steady hand but with time, you will get used to it and focus faster.

Comments about Bower 500mm f/6.3 Manual Focus Telephoto T-Mount Lens:

I've compared two 500mm mirror lenses- Opteka f/8 and this Bower f/6.3 and went with Bower. Opteka [*] was unacceptably blurry. This lens is [*] much better craftsmanship and good enough sharpness. I use it with T2i mostly for video and some pics. Assuming you know how to deal with manual focus lenses - good tripod required, remote shutter release, mirror lock-up, etc., this is a good lens for the money and real life introduction to telephoto shooting. Last thing- doughnut bokeh, I kind of like it!

Comments about Bower 500mm f/6.3 Manual Focus Telephoto T-Mount Lens:

I bought this lens because I was on a budget and needed a long-throw lens for taking cross-country pictures. Overall very pleased. Specifics:
- It takes in a LOT of light for this focal length. Given that I am in manual using the lens this takes some getting used to.
- Pitures are reasonably sharp - whne it's in focus!
- It is EXTREMELY sensitive to focus. Forget depth of field, it is nonexistent. Quite a challenge to focus on a moving subject - takes me back to when I took high schol fottball pictures with a manual camera.
- Not sure how I feel about out of focus areas. Given the lens' construction they are - weird. I expected this but it takes some getting used to the results.

Comments about Bower 500mm f/6.3 Manual Focus Telephoto T-Mount Lens:

I wanted a sharp, cheap lens for shooting sports with a DSLR. Although this lens may be great for shooting stills, it is totally unusable for sports film making because...1. the focus pull is extremely short. Move the focus ring 1/8" and there is a dramatic change in focus. 2. Because its a fixed aperture, you can't stop down to increase depth of field. 3. Regarding exposure, you are further limited...not only can you not change aperture, but you also have the obvious shutter speed limitations when shooting video. (remember the 180 degree rule). So for shooting sports video, don't use this lens.

Comments about Bower 500mm f/6.3 Manual Focus Telephoto T-Mount Lens:

500 mm, F6.3, manual focus.

As with any 500 mm lens at F6.3, it has a rather shallow depth of focus (3 inches at 30 feet). Without the ability to stop it down, it will always be shallow.

It is reasonably good quality, but, limited in application.

Comments about Bower 500mm f/6.3 Manual Focus Telephoto T-Mount Lens:

The good: looks cool, produces amazing images, close focus gives you something similar ot a macro lens, no autofocus confirmation for Canon EOS

The no so good: it sits rather loosely in the T-Mount for EOS (no bearing on anyhting), the focus on infinity ia far beyond infinity which is odd.

Need to know to get good results: need light, need a good camera (I use a 7D, on TV = 1/1000 or 1/2000, and autoISO) as you may need good high ISO, a tripod or sure hands, shoot and delete after strategy, and finally very good eye/hand coordination to nail the focus.

So, in bright sun light, with a 7D, and steady hands I got fantastic shots of my son windsurfing on the lake; also got beautiful flowers, even some hummingbirds.

All that to say that for the price, it is already a fun and useful tool. If it could muster the focus confirmation, this would be perfect. Btw, any 800mm f6.3 not stabilized would require most of the above recommendations.

Comments about Bower 500mm f/6.3 Manual Focus Telephoto T-Mount Lens:

Not easy to focus... Need tries

Comments about Bower 500mm f/6.3 Manual Focus Telephoto T-Mount Lens:

I have a number of lenses and needed a telephoto lens for my digital camera. I use the Olympus OM adapter on my digital so I can use all my old OM lenses as well as this one.

The lens is lightweight and has produced extremely high qulaity images. I would recommend this product to anyone looking for a hgih powered lens.

Comments about Bower 500mm f/6.3 Manual Focus Telephoto T-Mount Lens:

EXCELLENT PRODUCT

Comments about Bower 500mm f/6.3 Manual Focus Telephoto T-Mount Lens:

I love this lens. It means a lot to me as part of my repertoire. It is one of the most interesting and impressive things I own, and I would never give it up. Its appearance is that of the most modern, sleekest, most artistic depiction of a Jet Engine. It's a work of art, a show-piece.The reason I am giving it only 3 stars is because this a professional site and it deserves a review that is lifted above my superficial appreciation of the aesthetics of this lens.Here is the truth about this lens.In terms of image-quality, it is actually Decent. By decent, I mean that at its absolute best, it was capable of delivering identical quality at a 100% crop to the Sigma 70-300mm, which is the same price. And the quality does Not decrease when mounted with a 2x Teleconverter, so compared to an equivalent crop of 300mm, it can even be considered good. This is in contrast to the 800mm mirror lens by the same company, which is worse in image quality, even at 1600mm, compared to the bare 500mm.The one thing this lens has in comparison to the professional ultra-long angle lenses, is weight. Even with the 2x TC, it still weighs under a pound and a half. So, it's perfect, seemingly for the GigaPan EPIC 100. But read on to see why it might just not. However, and this is the reason why this lens is so poorly recommended, it is nearly impossible to focus. At the 500mm focal length, not to mentionthe 1000mm, even with a special lens supporter, it is.. just not possible to focus properly. That is to say, to get to the tiny, ultra-precise point where it is focused and sharp enough to be comparable to the Sigma lens, you would have to turn the focus ring far slower than humanly possible. Needless to say that by hand, you have no reason to ever think of it. Even a 135mm lens cropped would be more sharp, cropped all the way to 1000mm.The next issue, is also related to focus.Even though the aperture is set to f/6.3 or even f/12, only what is closest will be focus, while the rest will be blurry or at least soft. Also, even if you spend over a minute focusing until your hands hurt, if you move the camera any more than a few degrees, you will have to focus it again. And if you move the camera over 90 degrees, it will be nearly completely out of focus, with the signature "donuts" appearing all across.Lastly, images taken with the lens appear extremely washed out and colorless, no matter how much I tweaked.In summation, this lens is perfectly fitted for one niche of photographers - the one that includes people who want an extreme zoom without paying outrageous prices (comparatively), need to see/shoot something specific in the distance, and are extremely dedicated to every shot.If you're not part of this small niche, and don't have the spare cash to have this lens lying around most of the time as part of the decor, I highly recommend and suggest you get the Sigma 70-300/Canon 75-300 lens with a 2x Teleconverter for roughly the same price. If you have more to spend, a more expensive 300$+ 300mm lens would give you better to a lot better image quality, and if you have 1000$ to spend, the Sigma 150-500 with a 2x TC, is the only thing I'd use for shooting at 1000mm.Now as you can see, I've spent a very long amount of time reviewing this and the 800mm lenses, and to help myself fully understand without a doubt the virtue and value of these low-priced pieces of glass.. I've created a composite image of shots from each lens with and without the 2x TC, cropped to show the same scene. You could see from it, that the 600mm option (300mm w/2x TC) although absent, would be far superior.Make sure you zoom in to 100% to see the detail.[@]. This review is not here to claim to Mirror Lenses are, by nature, bad quality. [...]

Comments about Bower 500mm f/6.3 Manual Focus Telephoto T-Mount Lens:

I wanted a 500mm lens that was not heavy and not expensive. That is what I found with this. I does need quite a bit of light, but for the OCCASIONAL time when you need a long lens, this fits the bill both in weight and in $$. If I were using a long lens a lot, I would go for something more 'high end', but this lens is perfect for the once in a while stuff.

Comments about Bower 500mm f/6.3 Manual Focus Telephoto T-Mount Lens:

This is a well-made classic mirror lens, compact and lightweight. Manual focus goes much closer than most long focal length lenses, and is fairly easy once you get used to it... although I use M42 mount with a focus-confirm adapter on my Sony A350, and the focus confirm doesn't help much with this lens. It is possible to accidentally unscrew the adapter while focusing.
IQ is better than a cheap 400mm f/6.3 conventional lens, but not spectacular. Bokeh are huge doughnuts, which are often a distraction if there are specular highlights in the out of focus regions.
In short, if you don't need a compact 500mm, skip this -- it's nice but weird. If you do, this is about as good as they can get and priced very reasonably.

Comments about Bower 500mm f/6.3 Manual Focus Telephoto T-Mount Lens:

This is a great lightweight lens for specific purposes, not your everyday shots.
Best results when used with a tripod or other form of steady rest as the level of magnification makes camera shake look like the end result of a force 9.8 earthquake.
Images are slightly soft, but generally respond well to minor sharpening

Comments about Bower 500mm f/6.3 Manual Focus Telephoto T-Mount Lens:

I use the 500 with my eos 5 mark 2 as I can increase the iso to 1600 without noise and with an old eos 1n film camera that I usually have in the car. The eos adapter that came with the lens sits quite loose on all of my cameras. There also seems to be a problem with focusing of objects around 15 meters away from the camera. There is no sharpness nowhere to be seen!? The lens lacks the easiness of the old nikon 500 mirror that i use to have but never or less my intention was to have it as a toy for some arty shots. It is great fun to shoot object out of the car or use it for still life images. You can focus on objects 2 meters away. A great fun lens not to be used for shooting bill boards.