Mirror lenses, any good?

Uncle Bill · Jun 5, 2006

One of my regular haunts has a 500m Tokina Mirror lens with an OM mount. Are they any good? I don't usually do a lot of massive telephoto work but 1) the price is right and 2) I do have an assignment involving action photography at a medium distance.

Bill

rbarker · Jun 5, 2006

It won't be as sharp as a good prime conventional lens, but it's far more compact and easier to work with. Remember, highlights in out-of-focus areas will be donuts.

David A. Goldfarb · Jun 5, 2006

I had that one for a while. It's very compact and sharpness is okay, but it won't have the contrast, sharpness, and nice bokeh of a good refractive lens, and of course you're stuck on f:8.

One of the better deals these days in big glass is the Tamron 300/2.8. It usually comes together with matched 1.4x and 2x adapters and a hard case, and takes Adaptall II mounts.

Dave Parker · Jun 5, 2006

They are great for magnification, they are bad for color fringing if your shooting color and the out of focus donuts are terrible, they are also fixed focus at f/8 which is very slow, they are lightweight and easy to handhold which leads to a lot of soft pictures combining slow aperture and long distance gives you really low shutter speeds, all in all, to much trouble to be worth much to me, as David said, the tamron 300 f/2.8 is a far better value now a days, I have seen these go for between $400 to $800 with the teleconvertors and filter kit.

R.

Uncle Bill · Jun 5, 2006

I think I'll take a pass on this one. I won't be using a mirror lens all that often and I prefer the conventional lens technology and not deal with drawbacks.

Bill

Jim Jones · Jun 5, 2006

I have a Nikkor 500 mirror lens, but always use a conventional telephoto.

firecracker · Jun 5, 2006

I have a Canon NFD 500mm F8 mirror lens. I bought it used for about 25,000 yen or a little less than 250 USD a couple of years ago. It's compact and usable in many ways, better than big zoom lenses that are hard to operate manually.

I'm not a big fan of the "donut" effect, but it's okay for some shots.

Claire Senft · Jun 6, 2006

If you want to find out go to the camera store with your camera loaded with the film you use on a brigt day. Take it outside the store an that a photo in four different directs. Then after you develop and print your negatives you will have some basis for deciding if it is a lens suitable for your use.

A well made mirror lens should have vitually zero chromatic abberations as the basic design allows them to be highly corrected for this type of abberation. Along with the donut effect the lenses of this type are known exhibit darkened corners.

David A. Goldfarb · Jun 6, 2006

Here's a photo I took with the Tokina 500 when I had it. This is a classic example of "double line bokeh"--

Roger Hicks · Jun 6, 2006

I own two, and have owned a couple of others. I almost never use them. Don't like the doughnuts or the slow fixed aperture (often even slower than marked).

That said, I have had some excellent pictures from them, especially the 600/8 Solid Cat.

Cheers,

Roger

Ole · Jun 6, 2006

I've got one - an "Opteka" 500mm with additional 2x converter. IMO it's a good option for long lens when a "normal prime" would be too big to carry. The nominal f:8 is usually more like T:10 in practice, due to the occlusion in the center.

The really cheap ones are better than expected - not as good as a prime brand lens of course, but very decent for what it is.

PhotoJim · Jun 6, 2006

The effective aperture (t-stop) is always worse than the actual optical aperture (f-stop) because the mirror is in the way, blocking some light. Expect a loss of about 1/3 to 1/2 a stop compared to a native f/8 lens (assuming an f/8 cat lens; I had a 400/5.6 Sigma once so you will see f/5.6 occasionally).

These lenses aren't great but can be good for certain types of photography. Tamron's is very good, probably the best for the money. The Phoenix I had for awhile was awful, frankly. My Sigma 400/5.6 was a good one but I had the system it fit stolen, so there was no point in keeping it. If I saw another in Nikon mount, it'd tempt me.

Dan Fromm · Jun 6, 2006

PhotoJim said:
The effective aperture (t-stop) is always worse than the actual optical aperture (f-stop) because the mirror is in the way, blocking some light. Expect a loss of about 1/3 to 1/2 a stop compared to a native f/8 lens (assuming an f/8 cat lens; I had a 400/5.6 Sigma once so you will see f/5.6 occasionally).

These lenses aren't great but can be good for certain types of photography. Tamron's is very good, probably the best for the money. The Phoenix I had for awhile was awful, frankly. My Sigma 400/5.6 was a good one but I had the system it fit stolen, so there was no point in keeping it. If I saw another in Nikon mount, it'd tempt me.

I disagree with nearly everything you say. My 700/8 Questar is a very very fine lens, although not easy to use because of its focal length. Hard to aim, demands absolute steadiness and, when shot at any distance, clear and steady air. Shot with flash at its near focusing distance, it is as good as a 55 MicroNikkor at f/8 at 1:4 shot with flash. And it t/stops at t/11, not the t/9.5 you predict.

There are worse mirror lenses. Nearly all of them. And there are unusable dogs of mirror lenses. Celestron C-90, for example.

naturephoto1 · Jun 6, 2006

Dan Fromm said:
I disagree with nearly everything you say. My 700/8 Questar is a very very fine lens, although not easy to use because of its focal length. Hard to aim, demands absolute steadiness and, when shot at any distance, clear and steady air. Shot with flash at its near focusing distance, it is as good as a 55 MicroNikkor at f/8 at 1:4 shot with flash. And it t/stops at t/11, not the t/9.5 you predict.

There are worse mirror lenses. Nearly all of them. And there are unusable dogs of mirror lenses. Celestron C-90, for example.

Dan,

I was waiting for someone to make comment about the Questars. I have never seen or handled them, but certainly know that they have an extremely good reputation. Glad you could speak from experience about this expensive optic. Also, glad that it performs well for you and enjoy using the lens.

Rich

Mirror lenses, any good?

Uncle Bill

rbarker

David A. Goldfarb

Moderator

Dave Parker

Uncle Bill

Jim Jones

firecracker

Claire Senft

David A. Goldfarb

Moderator

Roger Hicks

Ole

Moderator

PhotoJim

Dan Fromm

naturephoto1

Mirror lenses, any good?

Moderator

Moderator

Moderator

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency