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Having dealt with one of these a few years back, I would not waste your time or money with one of these things.
First up its a fixed aperture, Then you will have to use it in manual focus only, Then there is the very iffy image quality......
Was mighty glad to see the back of it, Thanks to " Fleabay " ......
If your looking for a long focal range, There is NO substitute for a proper lens type, Such as a Sigma 150-500mm or similar, You would be wise to save the pennies and find one of these excellent Zoom lens models.
IF your in a big hurry avoid the old mirror lens rubbish, You will have more luck trying " Digiscoping " ......
Look the subject up, Sometimes if your clever you can get lots of range in " Digiscope world " That said its not all rosy, There are several draw backs, Unless your very happy about working completely on manual, As well as stabbing a guess here and there.....
Whatever.....!!!!! Save yourself a whole bucket of disappointment and avoid the 500mm Mirror route, No matter what brand name is on it.
Ask yourself this question, If Mirror lens where so great, WHY have most if not all the manufacturers stopped making them.....? ? ?
[quote)
Ask yourself this question, If Mirror lens where so great, WHY have most if not all the manufacturers stopped making them.....? ? ?
The reason they stopped making them is, I believe, because mirror lenses are incompatable with digital cameras.
I used a Tamron 500mm mirror lens back in the days of film, with FM2's, and I once had a front page newspaper pic. out of it across the whole page, with excellent quality.
The only problem with them was they could go out of alignment easily if knocked, so you had to treat them with kid gloves. Also focussing could be difficult at the fixed aperture of f8, you had to be extremely precise. I found focussing to be a lot easier by use of a plain focussing screen with grid lines.
I've used several different mirror lenses over the years and with most Vince is correct - they are average quality but the Tamron is capable of taking decent photos and it's one of the best mirror lenses going. I still have one and have a couple of shots in my portfolio taken with one. They're always coming up on ebay. The price they fetch varies depending on who's bidding and how good or (ideally for you) how bad it's described. You can get the Tamron for as little as £40-£50 but generally it fetches around £100, sometimes more.
Quote: I've used several different mirror lenses over the years and with most Vince is correct - they are average quality but the Tamron is capable of taking decent photos and it's one of the best mirror lenses going.
I agree about the quality of the Tamron. It carried the designation "SP" as did several of their other lenses. This indicated "superior quality" at a time when Tamron were attempting to obtain professional quality with some of their lenses.
The whole point of 500mm Mirror lenses was they were easily handholdable; providing you used a shutter speed of at least 1/500th. With a fixed f8 aperture, that meant film speed ratings of at least 400 or preferably 800asa in "average" UK light.
It enabled you to get a result in situations where there was no time to erect a tripod, something you would have to do with a heavy non-mirror 500mm lens.
Having said that it certainly wasn't easy to get a pin sharp result with a mirror lens, the depth of field of sharpness at 500mm, even at f8 is very shallow, and atmospheric distortion/heat haze/pollution etc., all intervene to degrade definition with such a lens. The beauty of such a lens was that you got a result, in situations where you would not have done, without it.
I believe that mirror lenses cannot be used on digital cameras, but I'd welcome confirmation of this or otherwise, from someone with more technical knowledge than myself.
I belie
Quote: ve that mirror lenses cannot be used on digital cameras, but I'd welcome confirmation of this or otherwise, from someone with more technical knowledge than myself.
I've used my Mirror lens on a Pentax ist D and a more recent Pentax K20D both digital and it worked fine. Here's an example of a sharpish one: Sheep taken with Tamron mirror lens
I posted this shot on a similar thread fairly recently, but this is on the Tamron 500 through a double glazed kitchen window and then cropped to fill the frame, so you can make your own mind up! The lens can certainly be used on a DSLR, but the big problem is that the viewfinder image is quite dark and the focus screen isn't really designed for manual focus, especially when the DoF is small.
I owned a Tamron 500mm mirror lens on a Nikon FM2 and the lens was a waste of money. Very poor image quality and those doughnut OOF highlights, just horrible. The aperture is fixed as already stated at f8. Small ND filters could be used to reduce the amount of light entering the lens but you would generally need more light, not less.
It would be better to buy a quality lens even if it's less than the 500mm you desire.
With care these can produce decent results in good lighting or using a tripod.
Pete used one in a video on EPZ tv, no idea if its still available for viewing. just seen this one on Ebay, but its at the dearer side of the price scale.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140480470775
Nothing wrong with the image quality of the (Sparrowhawk?). This is exactly the situation where a 500mm mirror lens scores...i.e. no time (or space) to mount an alternative long 500mm telephoto lens on tripod..the bird would probably have flown.
It seems you can use such a lens on a digi...but you have to do it totally manually.
The quality looks excellent.....did you find you needed to set the ISO to 400/800asa? in order to get a high shutter speed of 1/500th or 1/1000th? Some people don't like the "doughnut" effect of the out of focus areas....I find it very effective.
This would have been handheld and it was a bright, sunny day so I certainly don't think it would have been iso 800, but possibly 400. The sparrowhawk one was taken using a tripod and was one of only a couple that were acceptably sharp/well focussed out of 20 or more.
There's one on eBay that finishes in about 20 minutes, it's at £55.00 right now. Here's the link http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Tamron-500mm-f-8-0-mirror-Lens-/150523999086?pt=UK_Cameras...
I've got a good one of these and wouldn't let it go for any money.
Cheers ~ Dave
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