Big Mike’s HD Telephoto Zoom Lens for Canon EOS

I was skeptical, even after seeing the photos others sent. Color me surprised though. Let’s face it: you’re looking at this because you want to take lunar pictures. Maybe even planets! I’ll say that I don’t think this has *quite* enough zoom even on a crop frame to get a good picture of Saturn or Jupiter, but it does great for the moon and stationary terrestrial objects! I compared the results to the S23’s zoom and it is night and day. If I wanted to spend a bit more time and effort, I could probably get nearly crystal clear images of the lunar surface, but even without seriously fiddling with the focus, it gives a significantly better image than the S23 and its witchcraft of cropping a 200mp image and using AI and extant images to fudge the results.
It is a beast though. I’m 6′ tall and even collapsed with the 2x adapter, it’s longer than my forearm. That said, it’s not heavy! A sub-$100 tripod will easily hold it up even with the attachment being on the camera body.
Again, I have to make sure people understand: there is no autofocus, you zoom by literally pulling the lenses apart from each other, there is no image stabilization, and it absolutely needs the telescope mount. What do you expect for a $150 lens?
That said, this thing is an amazing value. Go check for a 500mm lens right now. It’s probably more expensive than this thing. Sure, your uses are going to be more limited especially as you learn to finesse the focus, but for the price, I don’t think you’re ever going to do better.
Obviously these aren’t Zeiss lenses, and you’re going to have to live with correcting some chromatic aberration. That’s to be expected. Even in my best lens, there’s a tiny hint of it.
If you’re looking for a recommendation to get this lens, you’ve got one here. Just understand the limitations and you’re good to go!

It took about 4 or 5 sessions, but now I can take shoot a Heron from a moving kayak w/ no tripod and no remote shutter. If you want to get into wildlife for the cheap, this will do it, but you gotta want it bad enough. Be ready to be frustrated for a bit.

It has no stabilizer or auto focus. Everything is manual so put camera on M. It is just a cheap telephoto lens but it works. I will play around with it and next time put camera on tripod and use wired shutter to help stabilization and it should help some. I attached a moon pic I just took when I tested lens tonight for first time. Lens is the 420 – 1600mm Vivitar on Canon t3i. It isn’t a 10000 dollar lens. It is a 150 dollar lens that came with doubler. It works about how I expected. It is okay if you are patient and not wanting action or sports shots. Updated: I tested and It also records okay in movie mode as long as you are not shaking lens and you don’t continuously need to readjust the focus. For anyone worried about adapter or connector or lens just spinning or falling out. There are a couple of tiny set screws that simply need to be tightened. It requires a tiny screwdriver. Overall the cheap lens works but requires lots of practice.

I am new to astrophotography, and to photography in general. I bought this lens because I wanted something affordable to capture some decent photos of the moon, and to learn more about my camera and photography. I am finding this manual focus lens is great for learning. I feel like a lot of the negative reviews are due to lack of experience and patience. It is a manual focus only lens; there is no electronic communication with the camera. The aperture setting (a term I was unfamiliar with 2 weeks ago) is constant, relative to the focal length of the lens, and also cannot be otherwise adjusted. There is no stabilization control. You can (and probably should) adjust your camera’s shutter speed to minimize blurring due to instability. I’d like to try and get some shots of the planets with this lens and see how that goes. I recommend a sturdy tripod, a remote shutter, and a willingness to be patient and take your time learning. Here is my best shot so far of our beautiful moon! 🙂