Hi anons, does anyone have any experience with mirror lenses?
I am interested in afording a mirror lens for my APS-C cam for around €100, but dont know if its worth.
Are they worth the money?
>>2713027
You don't have control over aperture, focus is hard to get right, bokeh is atrocious, I mean making your eyes bleed kind of bad
Some of them are okay, most are shit. Some russian ones are good some are not. Samyang/Rokinon/Bower are decent but not overly good.
Best is the Tamron 300mm.
Also there are better 300mm manual lenses with perture control, some are even cheaper with much better IQ.
Some people still use them for birding, some for astrophotography but... I wouldn't recommend getting into them. Only buy one if you can spare the money for a toy project possibly ending in the trashcan.
Mirror-guy reporting in.
In my experience the bowers are recent knockoffs of the older Sigma 600mm f8 mirror/reflex I owned as a kid decades ago. They aren't great, so don't expect much.
People will tell you to put a 2x TC on a regualr 300mm. There is validity to this, but that's also a shitty way to get big focal length. Mileage will vary with different combinations of course.
If you actually want 500mm plus:
MTO-11CA 10/1000
or
SMC Pentax Reflex 1:11 1000mm
equally good. The MTO is easier to pull apart and has several mount options, and should be obtainable for ~$300US, the pentax is more likely to cost near a grand.
Tamron Adaptall-2 SP 500mm f/8 Mirror (55BB)
or
ZM-6A 6.3/500 Mirror Zenit Tele Lens M42
tamron is smaller and lighter, and really sleek focus helicoid thats quick to snap focus.
ZM is big and heavy, larger diameter and longer. Built like a weapon and somewhat brighter to look through. Image quality on either is similar. I use the ZM generally and the tamron if i felt like a lighter lens and the sun was blazing.
Best catadioptric lens I own is:
Tamron 350mm f5.6 (06B )
which is really small and light, and expensive, but you would in almost every case be better off with a modern autofocus non reflex lens.
Autofocus is what you will miss if your subject moves at all.
A monopod is very useful.
Manfrotto 685B Neotec monopod
and
Manfrotto 496RC2 Compact Ball Head with Quick Release Plate 200PL-14
is perfect. Even if you are 6'4" and don't need to angle up a lot.
A friend has a sigma bigma
Sigma Bigma Sigma 50 -500mm F4.5-6.3
and he reckons so long as you shoot at f/8 it's pretty decent. From what little I have seen I would tend to agree.
Catadioptrics do not produce chromatic aberrations. That's one of the few reasons they outperform similar non-reflex lenses.
The boke is attractive or 'cool looking' to regular Joes. Disregard sperglord photographer wannabes labelling it bad.
[EXIF data available. Click here to show/hide.]
Camera-Specific Properties: Equipment Make PENTAX Camera Model PENTAX K-5 Camera Software GIMP 2.6.12 Photographer Andrew Wade Eglington oh-hi.info Sensing Method One-Chip Color Area Focal Length (35mm Equiv) 750 mm Image-Specific Properties: Image Orientation Top, Left-Hand Horizontal Resolution 72 dpi Vertical Resolution 72 dpi Image Created 2012:10:09 14:46:48 Exposure Time 1/250 sec F-Number f/6.3 Exposure Program Aperture Priority ISO Speed Rating 400 Exposure Bias 0 EV Metering Mode Center Weighted Average Flash No Flash Focal Length 500.00 mm Color Space Information Uncalibrated Rendering Normal Exposure Mode Auto White Balance Manual Scene Capture Type Standard Contrast Normal Saturation Normal Sharpness Normal Subject Distance Range Unknown
looks like most of my pics from here
http://oh-hi.info/2012/?from=2012-03-06.jpg
scrolling downwards are the tamron 500/8
and from here down
http://oh-hi.info/2012/?from=2012-12-01.jpg
are a bunch of ZM-6A
click an image to see its exif and look for 500mm f/8 (tamron) or f/6.3 (ZM)
Theres thousands. But as the date/index image changes so too does the lens usually change to something else.
To be honest I gave up using my cats a while back. Now that I have found the most useful focal lengths for a couple of things I do regularly, and really NEED autofocus in order t be quick enough, I'll probably never use my catadioptrics again. Although I do half-plan to shoot the military helicopter display next year at RiverFire with a 1000mm... if i can be bothered luggin all the gear around and probably being tracked by most of the onboard targetting computers.
...military people and machines tend to notice huge center-occluded lenses looking at them.
[EXIF data available. Click here to show/hide.]
Camera-Specific Properties: Equipment Make PENTAX Camera Model PENTAX K-5 Camera Software RawTherapee Photographer Andrew Wade Eglington oh-hi.info Sensing Method One-Chip Color Area Focal Length (35mm Equiv) 127 mm Image-Specific Properties: Image Width 900 Image Height 600 Compression Scheme Uncompressed Pixel Composition RGB Image Orientation Top, Left-Hand Horizontal Resolution 300 dpi Vertical Resolution 300 dpi Image Data Arrangement Chunky Format Image Created 2012:11:23 14:23:29 Exposure Time 1/125 sec F-Number f/4.0 Exposure Program Aperture Priority ISO Speed Rating 1600 Exposure Bias -1.3 EV Metering Mode Pattern Flash No Flash Focal Length 85.00 mm Rendering Normal Exposure Mode Manual White Balance Auto Scene Capture Type Standard Contrast Normal Saturation Normal Sharpness Normal Subject Distance Range Distant View
tamron 500/8
[EXIF data available. Click here to show/hide.]
Camera-Specific Properties: Equipment Make PENTAX Camera Model PENTAX K-5 Camera Software RawTherapee Photographer Andrew Wade Eglington oh-hi.info Sensing Method One-Chip Color Area Focal Length (35mm Equiv) 120 mm Image-Specific Properties: Image Width 900 Image Height 600 Compression Scheme Uncompressed Pixel Composition RGB Image Orientation Top, Left-Hand Horizontal Resolution 300 dpi Vertical Resolution 300 dpi Image Data Arrangement Chunky Format Image Created 2013:01:17 14:07:44 Exposure Time 4 sec F-Number f/16.0 Exposure Program Not Defined ISO Speed Rating 200 Exposure Bias -1.3 EV Metering Mode Pattern Flash No Flash Focal Length 80.00 mm Rendering Normal Exposure Mode Manual White Balance Auto Scene Capture Type Standard Contrast Normal Saturation Normal Sharpness Normal Subject Distance Range Macro
[EXIF data available. Click here to show/hide.]
Camera-Specific Properties: Equipment Make PENTAX Camera Model PENTAX K-5 Camera Software K-5 Ver 1.02 Photographer Andrew Wade Eglington (BETLOG) Sensing Method One-Chip Color Area Focal Length (35mm Equiv) 75 mm Image-Specific Properties: Image Orientation Top, Left-Hand Horizontal Resolution 300 dpi Vertical Resolution 300 dpi Image Created 2011:03:03 10:31:37 Exposure Time 1/125 sec F-Number f/5.0 Exposure Program Not Defined ISO Speed Rating 2000 Exposure Bias 0 EV Metering Mode Pattern Flash No Flash, Compulsory Focal Length 50.00 mm Color Space Information sRGB Image Width 3264 Image Height 4928 Rendering Normal Exposure Mode Auto White Balance Auto Scene Capture Type Standard Contrast Hard Saturation Normal Sharpness Hard Subject Distance Range Distant View
tamron 350/5.6
tamron 300/2.8
[EXIF data available. Click here to show/hide.]
Camera-Specific Properties: Equipment Make PENTAX Camera Model PENTAX K-5 Camera Software RawTherapee Photographer Andrew Wade Eglington oh-hi.info Sensing Method One-Chip Color Area Focal Length (35mm Equiv) 75 mm Image-Specific Properties: Image Width 400 Image Height 600 Compression Scheme Uncompressed Pixel Composition RGB Image Orientation Top, Left-Hand Horizontal Resolution 300 dpi Vertical Resolution 300 dpi Image Data Arrangement Chunky Format Image Created 2013:04:28 15:23:54 Exposure Time 1/50 sec F-Number f/8.0 Exposure Program Aperture Priority ISO Speed Rating 6400 Exposure Bias 0 EV Metering Mode Pattern Flash No Flash Focal Length 50.00 mm Rendering Normal Exposure Mode Auto White Balance Manual Scene Capture Type Standard Contrast Normal Saturation Normal Sharpness Normal Subject Distance Range Distant View
another little-mentioned thing catadioptrics do is they tend to see around things that are out of focus in the foreground.
[EXIF data available. Click here to show/hide.]
Camera-Specific Properties: Equipment Make PENTAX Camera Model PENTAX K-5 Camera Software GIMP 2.6.8 Photographer Andrew Wade Eglington Sensing Method One-Chip Color Area Focal Length (35mm Equiv) 600 mm Image-Specific Properties: Image Orientation Top, Left-Hand Horizontal Resolution 72 dpi Vertical Resolution 72 dpi Image Created 2011:07:07 20:13:10 Exposure Time 1/90 sec F-Number f/0.0 Exposure Program Manual ISO Speed Rating 1600 Exposure Bias -1 EV Metering Mode Center Weighted Average Flash No Flash, Compulsory Focal Length 400.00 mm Color Space Information sRGB Image Width 6528 Image Height 9856 Rendering Normal Exposure Mode Manual White Balance Auto Scene Capture Type Standard Contrast Normal Saturation Normal Sharpness Normal Subject Distance Range Unknown
you can hand hold them.. but not easily
this is the 1000/11 pentax
[EXIF data available. Click here to show/hide.]
Camera-Specific Properties: Equipment Make PENTAX Camera Model PENTAX K-5 Camera Software K-5 Ver 1.02 Photographer Andrew Wade Eglington Sensing Method One-Chip Color Area Focal Length (35mm Equiv) 1500 mm Image-Specific Properties: Image Orientation Top, Left-Hand Horizontal Resolution 300 dpi Vertical Resolution 300 dpi Image Created 2011:07:12 13:22:48 Exposure Time 1/1500 sec F-Number f/11.0 Exposure Program Manual ISO Speed Rating 3200 Exposure Bias -1/2 EV Metering Mode Center Weighted Average Flash No Flash, Compulsory Focal Length 1000.00 mm Color Space Information sRGB Image Width 4928 Image Height 3264 Rendering Normal Exposure Mode Auto Bracket White Balance Auto Scene Capture Type Standard Contrast Normal Saturation Normal Sharpness Normal Subject Distance Range Distant View
>>2713084
uncropped
[EXIF data available. Click here to show/hide.]
Camera-Specific Properties: Equipment Make PENTAX Camera Model PENTAX K-5 Camera Software K-5 Ver 1.02 Photographer Andrew Wade Eglington Sensing Method One-Chip Color Area Focal Length (35mm Equiv) 1500 mm Image-Specific Properties: Image Orientation Top, Left-Hand Horizontal Resolution 300 dpi Vertical Resolution 300 dpi Image Created 2011:07:12 13:22:48 Exposure Time 1/1500 sec F-Number f/11.0 Exposure Program Manual ISO Speed Rating 3200 Exposure Bias -1/2 EV Metering Mode Center Weighted Average Flash No Flash, Compulsory Focal Length 1000.00 mm Color Space Information sRGB Image Width 4928 Image Height 3264 Rendering Normal Exposure Mode Auto Bracket White Balance Auto Scene Capture Type Standard Contrast Normal Saturation Normal Sharpness Normal Subject Distance Range Distant View
>>2713087
The bokeh looks like shit.
