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Dependable manual tele

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    Dependable manual tele

    40 years ago I did Nature Photography, especially birds, I shoot an entire book with two A-1's and mainly a FD 300mm F4L with extender. I switched to video 25 years ago continuing with Nature and Wildlife. On those days, on Betacam and later DVcam used the original zoom lens with B4 extender and the very same above lens with or without extender. Switched to Canon XLH1 when SD died (a nightmare as a gear but with great canon EF lenses) and later Sony NX5 with a big Raynox HDP-9000EX in front of it. Recently sold the video gear and entered the 70D field to do time lapse and keep doing video on wildlife when possible. I bough a very good kept FD300mm F4 and even better 2X FD-A extender for the job (that now I am selling) but went very disappointed about the quality because of the FD to EF adapter. Changing the mount to EF is out of the question, too expensive.
    I have been looking for a 300, 400 or 500 mm manual focus lens 9no matter aperture, I shoot at f8 minimum) to do the job but I've not been able to find something to be worth a try. Tamron's and Sigma's are zoom lenses with a very diminished capacity on the last range of the zoom and really Canon prime are too expensive for a hobby, I am now a pensioner.
    Wondering if someone can recommend me some old lend with EF mount that could give decent image for video. Remember that I still have the chance to use the 3X of the camera to zoom thru, works very well with the sigma 18-250 (1200 in the end) but sometime I need to reach 2000mm with small birds very far. Australia is not as easy as South America regarding birds diversity and quantity.

    #2
    Re: Dependable manual tele

    What kind of budget are you looking at?

    One advantage of the 70D (and all EOS models) is that it's possible to get an adapter to fit most SLR lens mounts to the body. Looking at Grays of Westminster a Nikkor 400mm f5.6 ED lens would be about £600 rising to almost £1300 for a later f3.5 IF-ED version. A Nikkor 300m f4.5 IF-ED looks to be under £500. Grays are a bit on the expensive side so another dealer or eBay make turn up something cheaper. You can pick up a Nikon to EF mount adapter for very little.

    Another possibility might be the Tokina 400mm f5.6 AT-x. Aparrently this does exist in Canon EF fit or alternatively look out for the earlier manual focus version - I have a manual one in Nikon and it's pretty good.

    HTH
    Nigel

    You may know me from Another Place....

    The new ElSid Photogallery...

    Equipment: Far too much to list - including lots of Nikon...

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