Older Manual focus telephoto lenses

[mike1187]

I'm currently taking a photography class, and my professor mentioned she has some older lenses that belonged to her husband who did a lot of long range shooting. She will probably never use anything longer than 200mm, and has no use for them.

I took a look at what she had, and the one that I thought may be worth buying was a 400mm Tele-Takumar F 5.6. She has no idea what she would want for it, so I looked around for some prices, and I didn't come up with much useful information. I found a lot on their 300mm, and 500mm lenses, and a few references to a 400mm someone "got cheap" and was happy with, but I don't even know where to begin price wise for this lens. Does anyone here have any recommendation on what I should offer for the lens, or weather or not it would even be worth buying? I'd really like to get a nice fast longer L series lens, but it will likely be a few years before I can afford that. If I can pick this lens up fairly inexpensively(if the quality is decent), add an M42 screw mount adapter, and use it until I can afford something better it looks like a good option.

On another note.... I took a chance on ebay, for a poorly described "huge hoya 72mm camera lens" that turned out to be a 400mm RMC Tokina F5.6 lens. The lens was damaged during shipping and came in with the front filter smashed. I think I can cut the filter off, and take a look at the lens itself to see if the glass coating was scratched by the broken filter glass... But it is an FD mount lens, and I need a mount for an EOS body, so I will need to modify the lens, or make an adapter our of a small teleconverter. I've read some good, and some bad about this lens. Would it be worth putting some time into it to see if its not internally damaged, and making it fit my camera, or should I just write it off as a $20 gamble that didn't pay off? I don't really want to put too much time into it if it'll still only be a $20 lens when I'm done.

Thanks in advance for the advice.

[OsmosisStudios]

Generally speaking, FD to EOS conversions aren't worth the cost. Just throwing that out there.

[mike1187]

Originally Posted by OsmosisStudios

Generally speaking, FD to EOS conversions aren't worth the cost. Just throwing that out there.

yea, that is kinda what I figured. But if the lens itself is decent, I wouldnt mind spending a little time to make it work. But if I'll spend 6 hours working on something with image quality below what my kit lenses have, I doubt it woud be worth it.