Phoenix lenses-good or bad?

[perylousdemon]

I know I've been quiet on here for some time, but I really need some opinions on this matter. I've been looking for an affordable telephoto lens for my Pentax K1000 for a while, and today I stumbled upon a Phoenix 500mm f/8 telephoto lens for $99.95 on Amazon. I was wondering if it was even possible to get a good lens for that price. I just don't have a whole lot of money to spend on a Pentax telephoto lens and any out would help a lot. Thanks.

 

[Garbz]

You were wondering for all the right reasons. Stay away!

 

[Mike_E]

It would make a great paper weight.

 

[Alex_B]

there are no useable 500mm lenses in that price range. So I would say away from it.

Is it mirror optics? Gives a horrible bokeh then. Might be nice to experiment with it, but do not expect quality images from it.

 

[perylousdemon]

Well, okay, then. What do you recommend for a Pentax K1000 that maybe doesn't cost $500+? And it's an actual telephoto. They do have a mirror optics one as well for slightly more, which I found odd, but I don't know anything about camera lenses, so maybe it makes sense.

 

[Alex_B]

500mm is very long on a less than 35mm sensor anyway. you need a very good tripod for that focal length ... you need mirror lockup and you need an excellent lens to get decent image quality.

If you are not sure if you have the urgent need for such a long lens, then you do not need it. 300mm is hard enough to handle, even if it is a fast f/2.8 lens. I am sure there are OK-ish 300mm lenses out there that do not cost a fortune, they will be slower though. But still easier to handle than a 500mm

 

[Don Simon]

There were a number of 500mm lenses produced by very minor third-parties which pop up on Ebay quite often. I had an old Sunagor for about half the price of that Phoenix you're looking at... the optical quality was not great, as you would expect from a cheap lens. But it got the image when I needed a 500mm.

As Alex said, do you really need a 500mm? I only ask because you say you need an "affordable telephoto", and there are plenty of those - just not going to 500mm. It's going to cost quite a bit more than $99 to get a good 500mm lens for a current lens mount. If your current lenses go up to 200mm then you could still get a longer lens with decent quality for a good price. Even 300mm can have noticeable advantages over 200mm. But a good 500mm on a budget is pushing it... so is it specifically 500 that you need?

 

[perylousdemon]

Okay. I'll have a look at some 300mm lenses. It would be a slight improvement over my current zoom, which is 210mm. The thing is, I received the camera and two of my lenses for free from my boyfriend's dad: the camera because he had three of them (he sold the other two on eBay), and the lenses because I guess he didn't want me to foot the bill for lenses quite so soon (the zoom lens works with his camera, so I'm really not sure why he gave it to me). I managed to purchase a Pentax 50mm lens for $50, so I'm sort of new to the idea that lenses are an investment.