Nikon D5300 question

salukfan111

Senior Member
I bought a special lens that is essentially a spotting scope. It is 800 to 1600mm very cheap and looks awesome thru the viewfinder (at 500 yards the flagstick on a golf green fills screen top to bottom). I use this for spotting Osprey nests for which it is very good. My issue is that the camera says no lens attached. I put it in manual and took pictures but everything on the images is black (the lens cover was off). I really need to be able to take pictures with this thing. If I can get this to work I'm buying a 2600mm which should be even better for this task.

What do I have to do to force the camera to take photos with this? This newbie appreciates any help you can provide.
 

nickt

Senior Member
Re: Nikon 5300 question

Welcome. Like you suspected the camera needs to be in manual. You need to now learn about exposure. The picture is dark because you need more light or more time or camera needs to be more sensitive to the light available (higher iso). Not sure if that lens has an aperture that you can adjust, so that leaves you with shutter speed and iso. You need slower shutter speed and possibly higher iso (more sensitivity). There are trade offs as you make these adjustments. Plenty of info around the web on 'exposure triangle'. Here is a video to get you started:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8T94sdiNjc
 

nickt

Senior Member
Re: Nikon 5300 question

More thoughts....
I'm assuming you are using this lens on a tripod so you can go fairly low on shutter speed without getting camera shake. Even on a tripod though, at some point, too slow of a shutter speed is going to blur things due to wind or animal movement. So ISO (light sensitivity) will need to increase to be able to let you keep that shutter speed at the minimum that YOU determine for a stable image. Raising that iso will give you more noise in your image. Some of that can be fixed in post processing.
If you are hand holding, things will be harder. Recommended hand held shutter speed is 1/focal length to not show camera shake. This will need a pretty high iso which will make for a much grainier picture.
 

RocketCowboy

Senior Member
Re: Nikon 5300 question

Sounds to me like the lens either does not have any electronics inside, or the D5300 firmware does not recognize that as a valid lens. If the camera body says no lens attached, the camera is obviously not communicating with the lens.

Does this spotting scope have a manual aperture ring? Do you know the minimum aperture for this lens?
 

salukfan111

Senior Member
I got up with a guy doing a review of these lens on youtube and he suggested setting up with max power (~f32), set shutter speed at 1/1600 sec, and play with iso starting around 800. I plan on using this to monitor nesting Osprey so simply establishing a good picture that captures what is inside nest (chicks and parents) is just what I'm after and possibly video. I live right on a golf course with greens visible from the neighborhood from 300 to 800 yards away. I can use my golf buddies out there putting on the greens as guinea pigs to figure out whatever I need for cloudy, sunny, etc. and tape a cheatsheet to the lens. Once I figure this one out I will likely get a 1.4x for my Tamran 18-270, give what I have to a biologist, and get one of those 650-1300 with a 2x and work on figure that one out.
 

adityasoman

Senior Member
I got up with a guy doing a review of these lens on youtube and he suggested setting up with max power (~f32), set shutter speed at 1/1600 sec, and play with iso starting around 800. I plan on using this to monitor nesting Osprey so simply establishing a good picture that captures what is inside nest (chicks and parents) is just what I'm after and possibly video. I live right on a golf course with greens visible from the neighborhood from 300 to 800 yards away. I can use my golf buddies out there putting on the greens as guinea pigs to figure out whatever I need for cloudy, sunny, etc. and tape a cheatsheet to the lens. Once I figure this one out I will likely get a 1.4x for my Tamran 18-270, give what I have to a biologist, and get one of those 650-1300 with a 2x and work on figure that one out.

Looking forward to the pics !!
Looks interesting what you are trying to do

Sent from my GT-I9070 using Tapatalk 2
 

RocketCowboy

Senior Member
With those apertures, my assumption is the D5300 will need you to manual focus regardless, but that lens is likely o only manual focus anyway.

Good luck and looking forward to see what you're able to capture with that beast!


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