[0.4x] I'm an amateur photographer, growing into my Nikon Z5 and the mirrorless world. I wanted a telephoto with decent enough reach and performance for me to capture the birds and wildlife in my backyard and on nature hikes. This fits the bill! It doesn't weigh a lot as I walk in the field. The depth of field performance actually helps me focus on the wildlife with some nice bokeh. I don't need the highest-quality sharpness or for everything to be automatic at this stage of my hobby life, and my budget is limited. In short, I've taken some good photos with this lens for my birding record and artistic use with this affordable option. I'm extremely pleased.

[f/8] My a7 iii kept up great with image stabilization for some handheld shots, and a lightroom preset can bring back some contrast and vignetting.

Manual focus takes some practice of course, but the size and weight proposition for hikes makes this an easy choice for me.


Perhaps slightly soft and dark compared to refractive options, but plenty for more casual nature spotting.

[1:2.5] This lens is simply amazing. I bought it almost last notice before the eclipse and used it on my Sony A7II camera for the eclipse.

Call it user error but if a lens can produce this type of shot from me not using a tripod and fumbling around with ISO and shutter speed settings, just imagine the pictures when you do incorporate those tools.

[0.4x] This lens packs a wallop for the dwarf size it is, I find it has a lot of character giving my images a nice tonality. The focus ring is very easy to use and the lens hood helps a lot for cleaner picture quality. The body of the lens is a metal construction with a rubber focus ring it feels very nice and has a strict quality feel. I highly recommend this to those who want a longer focal range and don’t want to compromise between backpack space and camera weight!

[APS-C] When your professional Baseball team's ballpark limits you to a less than 6 lens length and you want to check the brand of your players shoe laces, this lens is the solution. Easy to handhold when leaning on guard rail.

[APS-C] A bit of a learning curve for me since this is first REAL manual lens. I am enjoying it so far. My birds pictures pop.... And I am far away. Just what I wanted.

[2.6°] Years ago I had a Sigma 600mm f8 in the camo green color with a canon T70 and found it a bit large and wieldy. This version is super light and about half the size if not smaller and takes a bit of practice to get the best out of it. Tripod important and I also use a minimum of a 2 second timer on the shutter to ensure no movement when pressing for the picture. Using a Canon EOS T6s APS-C so actually getting about 800mm in 35mm format conversion. Also found that the sharpness is better without a UV or similar filter on the front. Possibly a more expensive filter would not degrade the result however I keep the filter on for protection and take it off for shooting. It helps to have the back display screen used to help focus the image and when you enlarge the image you can much easier set the proper focus as the long telephoto is inherintly sensitive. It's taken a bit of time to get used to using a mirror lens again and I'm looking forward to many more good shots. Some recent outings catching the moon at near full have created some excellent results.
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Cheers all!!

[f/8] The Tokina SZ 500mm f/8 is a reflex lens. Reflex lenses use mirrors to reflect light back and forth in the lens barrel rather than using multiple elements as traditional lenses do. This makes the lens much lighter and much shorter. This lens is a fixed aperture at f/8 and is a prime lens fixed at 500mm. The lens is a manual focus lens and needs lots of light to use handheld. The bokeh has circular patterns to it due to the nature of the reflex lens. The lens is sharp edge to edge with no degradation from center to edge. However, the sharpness is notably less than a traditional lens with multiple elements. The lens is well built and feels precise when focusing. It is solid and comes with a metal screw in lens hood instead of teh industry standard plastic hood. For the price, this is a great lens. It is not going to get your wildlife photo on the cover of National Geographic, but if you understand the limitations of the lens and work with its strong points, you will get great results.

[APS-C] Back in the 1970's me and my Nikon F2 had a Nikkor reflex. They were an odd duck to use but fun. With the new 400 and 500 f8 reflex lenses by Tokina, and my getting back into film, it made sense to grab one of these inexpensive telephoto's to hook up to my refurbished Nikon F2p. They are lightweight, with manual focus, and an f-stop that requires some fast film. With modern post processing, the loss of contrast is easily fixed. Unusual doughnut shaped Bokeh can be used to your advantage but some folks find the out of focus areas messy. It works very well for night time shots when mounted to an astronomical guided tripod.