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Test shots with my telephoto lenses. All were shot on a tripod (Manfroto 055XProB) at ISO 100 with mirror lock-up on a 2-second timer. Subjects were mostly in the shade, and the camera's "shade" white balance (6000K) was used, so any color variations are from the lens itself. Aperture and shutter speed were set manually and the histogram was used to get each shot to a somewhat equal brightness. It was a partly cloudy day, so even though the subjects were in the shade, an overhead cloud occasionally darkened the scene somewhat. The Opteka lens was also shot an hour or so later in the afternoon than the others. The focus point was the red hub cap on the motorcycle near the middle of the frame. Autofocus or AF-confirm was used where available. The Yashica and Opteka lenses were focused completely manually. This turned out to be a problem, as focus wasn't always spot on with the manual lenses. I may have to repeat these tests after I get a split focus screen. Even the two autofocus lenses didn't always focus correctly, so we can't just blame my eyes.

What did I learn?

• At 70-75mm and wide open, the Canon (f/4) is a shade sharper than the Yashica (f/4) and has better contrast. The Sigma (f/4.5) is similar, but I can't say for sure without accurate focusing. At f/11, the Sigma seems to jump into the lead, with the Canon & Yashica maintaining their close relationship.
• At 70-75mm, the Sigma has by far the warmest rendering of the three, with the Canon the coolest and the Yashica in between.
• At 135mm and f/8, the Canon, Nikon, Super-Takumar, and Yashica are all very similar -- enough that I can't decide among the first three without more accurate focusing. The Dionar is quite soft (although it's also wide open, as I lack the proper adapter to stop it down), and the Takumar (Bayonet) appears to suffer from severe flare, even though there was no direct light shining on the front of the lens.
• Of the 135mm lenses shot wide open, the Canon (f/5.0) and Nikkor (f/2.8) are pretty much equal (within the bounds of focusing accuracy), with the Super-Tak (f/3.5) a close third and the Yashica (f/4) a solid fourth. The Tak-bayonet (f/2.5) and Dionar (f/4.8) are somewhat equal in softness and considerably worse than the others, although neither was focused very accurately in my tests.
• The Vivitar 400mm is already far sharper at f/5.6 than the Opteka 500mm is at any aperture. It was a somewhat windy day, so even though my tripod felt sturdy, I can't say if some of the softness in the long lenses was due to camera shake.
• The Vivitar 400mm is a shade sharper wide open (f/5.6) than the Canon @ 300mm, but it's considerably harder to focus correctly. The Canon appears to pass it by f/8 or f/11, but that might just be inaccurate focusing again. The Canon renders much cooler than the Vivitar.

[These photos have yet to be culled]

Other files:

• MVI_2059.AVI: RIFF (little-endian) data, AVI, 640 x 480, 30.00 fps, video: Motion JPEG, audio: uncompressed PCM (mono, 44100 Hz) - 7.7 MB