GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

Yep, that’s known as a “pre-set” aperture.

Scruples Loc: Brooklyn, New York

A bundled lens is what you have to work with. You have a choice of using it or selling it and buying a new one. I don't see the point in selling it at a loss only to buy a more expensive one. With that being said keep the lens you have. Since it is a manual lens, NO information will be transmitted to the microprocessor. There is no aperture. So you have a few options. Spend a small amount of money. Invest in an Ultraviolet Haze filter. Invest in a Circular Polarizing filter. Invest in a Neutral Density filter. Play with them. Play with your white balance and your ISO. This is the true art of the craft. Everything will change based upon the ambient lighting. Good Luck and Happy Shooting!

olemikey Loc: 6 mile creek, Spacecoast Florida

Sound like full manual operation is required, and you would have to have a good understanding of how that is done, to use a manual lens and get good results. If you don't know how to shoot manual then you have some learnin to do.... A very simplistic view; If it is a fixed aperture lens, say starting at f6.3 or f8, then shutter speed is your friend, and try to match speed to lens length as a starting point - 500mm, 1/500 sec, moving up/down in speed from there, and review your results (chimp). With a longer lens, faster shutter is better, up to a point. There are other things that will also help, like ISO, but I suggest starting simple till you have studied manual photography.

There is also the lens itself, if you look through it wide open, is it clean and clear? If not, none of our suggestions will help. Let us know how things go.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Without mentioning which Opteka lens you are using, it's only a guess. I'll shotgun a few. The lens has nothing automatic. Thus, you have to focus and set the aperture. I looked up Opteka lenses. Some have aperture settings and some don't appear to have them. Being a completely manual lens means you'll have to do some twiddling to get the exposure correct. Pay attention to centering your meter using the aperture ring, if that is available on the lens you're using. Otherwise, you'll have to rely on either shutter speed and/or ISO settings to achieve the correct exposure.

My compliments on trying something new. Just don't get too discouraged and give up.
--Bob

David C.

I love using long view optics. I lived in Alaska for a while and saw some of the most spectacular wildlife on earth, through a telephoto lens. Here are my suggestions for you and the long lens. 1st. If you have a camera system you will keep for the duration build you lens options around that system. This does not mean you must buy only that name brand's lens offering. 2nd. Don't be afraid to use adaptors, they are inexpensive and often offer access to high quality but vintage glass at a loser cost. 3rd. My example for you is the Canon 40D which is now a vintage camera by most standards. I will once again state that I am relatively new to the digital format. I have many film cameras and have always loved the Topcon Brand. I purchased a Topcon R to Canon adaptor for $32.00. It fits correctly and works in manual mode as well as it did on the Topcon R, RE and DM cameras. My lens is the very impressive 300mm f2.8 telephoto. It loves light and works well even though it is still experimental in my case. I also have the Topcon R adaptor for my Leica R3 and an adaptor to use the Leica R lenses on my Canon 40D the 75 to 200 f4.5 is a working option for the Canon 28-135 mm f3.5-f5.6 that came with the camera. There is no distortion or change to image quality. If you have a friend or camera shop owner that has some telephoto lens options purchase or use an adaptor and see if the long lens is one you can work with and if the price, (new or used), fits in your budget. Don't be afraid of vintage glass but check if an adaptor is available "first" to make the purchase worth while. Have fun! David

Cookie223 Loc: New Jersey

👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

mas24 Loc: Southern CA

I own a Phoenix Brand 500mm, fixed f8 mirror reflex lens, that I purchased 8 or 9 years ago. It was cheap and I paid under $100 for it brand new. It needed a T-Mount for whatever camera mount you have. I don't use this lens anymore. It was not a very good lens. But, it was satisfactory. You needed to mount it on a tripod to work, and more than one adjustment was needed. You needed bright sunny light. Phoenix is discontinued. Many of the cheap lenses sometimes are the same lens. But come under a different Brand name. You might want to consider an aftermarket 1.4 teleconverter, such as Kenko, if you plan to upgrade your 75-300mm kit zoom telephoto lens. They are good, but are not generally the best quality glass. This includes Nikon Bundle Kits, that generally sell during the holidays at lower prices. Good luck.

vickiejrimes

I used a manual focus lens yesterday and had the same problem. Mine had no available aperture so I lowered the ISO to 100 then moved the shutter around 1000. However, at diffrent views and angles I would adjust shutter speed again. Remember, slow shutter equals more light. I was working with sun, clouds, and shade so that was normal for me to keep changing. Hope that helps.

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

If you are overexposed increase your shutter speed. Should be an easy fix. Also set your iso to 100. The cheap lens won't give you a lot of clarity, but there's no reason it won't expose properly with the right settings.
Attached is a bird on a neighbor's garage roof taken with a Nikon D3100 and a cheap Cambron f8 500mm lens I got on ebay for about $30. I found I could do way better attaching my 55-300mm nikkor lens to a used Nikon J1 with the Nikon FT-1 autofocus adapter, used to take the pic of the bird on the wire. Same type bird at roughly the same distance.

(Download)


(Download)

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Without more info, it's a bit hard to say what happened.

The "cheap Opteka" might be a manual focus, manual aperture lens.



Not true. Yes, you CAN set the exposure fully manually... However there are also limited auto exposure modes that can be used. It's possible to use Aperture Priority (Av) and - probably - Manual (M) with Auto ISO (if your camera has this mode... most newer ones do, but I'm not sure about the Rebel T5).

Other auto exposure modes WILL NOT work with a manual aperture lens. It IS NOT possible to use full "Auto", or ny of the "scene" modes ("sports", "landscape", "portrait", etc.) or to use Program (P) or Shutter Priority (Tv) with manual aperture lenses. Any mode where the camera needs to control the aperture is unusable.

But you still have at least one AE mode that can be used: Av or Aperture Priority.

Another possibility is that the "cheap Opteka" is an auxiliary lens which screws into the front of your other lens... the 75-300mm. If that's the Canon EF 75-300mm "III", in particular, I wouldn't expect very good image quality when it's combined with an auxiliary lens. The "III" is Canon's least expensive telephoto zoom and doesn't have all that great IQ to begin with (it also lacks image stabilization and uses slower micro motor focus drive)... any shortcomings of the lens will get even worse if used with a lower quality auxiliary lens. OTOH, a slight advantage of an auxiliary lens is that the camera's metering system will work with it and compensate and all the auto exposure modes can be used... so in this case it's more likely that you just had something set incorrectly.

If you post the image here, we might be able to suggest more or even give some guidance recovering it, if that's possible. Just make sure the image EXIF is left intact and be sure to use "store original" when you do the upload.

EDIT: I just did a search for "Opteka 500mm" and see two currently being offered. One is a manual focus, manual aperture 500mm f/8 (under $100) and the other is a more compact 500mm f/6.3 "mirror" lens (under $150). Most mirror lenses do not have a variable aperture. To use them you have to work around their rated aperture (f/6.3 in the case of the Opteka 500mm mirror lens)... OR you can add Neutral Density filters to them to give the same effect on exposure as stopping down (depth of field will not change).

The other "non mirror" lens is a "preset aperture" design, as someone else already noted. Those have an aperture you can adjust manually, but they have two rings... one is used to pre-select (i.e. "preset") the aperture you want to use, but leaves the lens wide open to aid in manual focusing... Then at the moment of exposure you manually stop the lens down using the second aperture control ring. If you had set up your exposure for a smaller aperture, but forget to stop a preset lens down at the last instnat, it would cause over-exposure.

Both of those are "t-mount" lenses. They have an interchangeable mount that allows them to be adapted to work on most film SLRs and DSLRs.

Opteka also offers a cheap "2.2X High Definition Telephoto Lens II" (under $40) which screws into the front of another lens, such as your 75-300mm. If this is what you have, it's an auxiliary lens such as I described above.

Jsykes

Kudos to CHG Canon for his reply. I enjoy this "blog" but find some of the responses at times condescending. We can't all be experts folks!

David C.

Another note: Some long lenses will have filter option that fit the image side of the lens, others are attached
internally or at the viewing end of the lens. The internal or slip in filters are rare and very limited in application. The viewing or rear mounting filters are very small diameter and also can be rare but offer more variety. So if you experiment with filters or shoot black and white and use filters for effect, know up front that telephoto lenses can have limited options. I do suggest that you always purchase a UV or Sky
filter for the image end glass. It offers a level of low cost insurance for protection. And don't forget front and rear lens caps/covers. Some more cheap protection for your camera and lens...if you ever come across
a heavy weight optic clear plastic bag or in my case a high quality plastic zipper case from a new bedding
purchase. Use the plastic as a cover for your camera and lens when out in the elements. In most cases you can use the camera functions with no hinderance, just cut a hole to photograph through and position it correctly when you are using the camera. Some photographers will set up an umbrella this works as well and should have no effect on your shot when using the long lens. You get to stay dry as well. Enjoy the outdoors
no matter the weather...life goes on in the rain! David C

ballsafire Loc: Lafayette, Louisiana

So, you bought a Canon Rebel T5 with a 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III Canon lens (sells for abt. $114 brand new) - I have one of these, which I like, too.

You also have that Opteka telephoto lens which you call "cheap" because you didn't pay very much for it - being Chinese (South Korea) made. I don't know that lense's specifications and you didn't disclose the specs. so I can not help you by teling you how to set this telephoto lens to take photos. Others have guessed at the specs and apparently, you know the shot was "over-exposed." So- the first thing you can do is close the aperture down to cut down the amount of light coming in. I think you would've tried this already...so what were your results? Are you shooting in Av or Tv mode? Do you follow the instructions on how to use your telephoto Opteka lens?--I have one too, it's an Opteka 85mm f/1.8 - a prime lens (fixed focal length) which is a very good lens! I own a Rebel T1i/500D camera.

Let me know some more information so that I (we) can help.

scooter1 Loc: Yacolt, Wa.

Great reply. Thank you.

scooter1 Loc: Yacolt, Wa.

I'm strictly an amateur trying to learn. It was in an automatic mode first for landscape, then portrait then sport. I know I've got to learn to shoot the others. That's one big reason I'm on this site to learn. There was no info on the optika lense.