Tokina SZ SUPER TELE 500mm F/8 Reflex Lens (Canon EF-Mount)

I purchased this lens for lunar and solar photography. The lens has unusual characteristics, discussed in other reviews, and not covered here. With a goal of focus at infinity and a flat plane it was relatively easy to test the lens. The test was to shoot some photos of the Moon which was ~67% illuminated making it a good target. I was able to use manual focus and the focusing dot on my Nikon D750 viewfinder to get best focus. I also used Live View to test focus. For Live View, I zoomed in until the Moon filled the back screen and then used a loupe to view the image. In both the viewfinder and Live View it was pretty obvious when best focus was attained. The camera was mounted on a sturdy tripod and I used 3-second shutter delay and a remote trigger. One set of images was taken with Mirror-Up and a 10 second delay. Shutter speed was 1/125th second, ISO 800, and aperture was, of course, f/8. None of the images exhibit anything remotely useable as a Moon photo. Poor contrast, soft focus, and fuzzy edges resulted in unacceptable image quality. For comparison, I also shot images with various lenses (Nikon AIS 180mm /2.8 manual focus, Nikon AIS 80-200mm /4 manual focus, and Nikon AF-P 70-300mm /4.5-5.6). All of these images were shot at 1/125th second, f/8 and ISO 400 with a sturdy tripod and 3-second shutter delay. All of these lenses vastly outperformed the Tokina. On the other hand, the Tokina lens is inexpensive, light, and small. Those count for something. I returned the Tokina to and ordered the Nikon 200-500mm lens. Score: 2 stars.