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500mm/1000mm mirror lens/ need some feed back Has anyone used the vivitar, phoenix, or the opteka mirror lens 500mm-1000mm lens. If so are these any good for sports and wildlife are just really good close up shot if you're far away at any event. and if anyone has used one of the following, is the 2x converter tha come with the lens compatible with any of your other lens to double the focal length? Hope to get a respond.
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Michael H. Cothran |
The quality you will get is pretty poor at best. Mirror lenses, especially cheaply made ones such as those you listed, are always lacking in contrast and color fidelity, and often in resolution. They are not worth the money, no matter how cheap, as you will sadly discover should you buy one. They are, however, "fun" to play with, and that's about it. I used mine a lot on the beach to "girl watch" (I'm embarrassed to admit), and got decent pictures on a rare occasion simply because I was using such a fast shutter speed in bright, contrasty light. Focusing is nearly impossible sometimes, and camera shake will affect your images more often than not. And when you do get an in-focus shot, it will lack in contrast and color. These lenses only come with ONE aperture, usually f8, maybe f11 or f16 on the 1000mm. If you've got money to throw away on a "toy", then buy all means, get one. They're cheap (gee, I wonder why?). Just don't expect anything of real quality that you can actually use to come out of it. Michael H. Cothran www.mhcphoto.net
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Jon Close |
No, you won't get the same sharpness you would with a $1000+ lens (such as Sigma 50-500 f/3.5-6.3 or EF 400 f/5.6L USM). And manual focus is a chore with an autofocus SLR. But then again, I think that (some) mirror lenses ARE worth the $100-300 they cost. Obviously, 500mm and longer focal length lenses, mirror or not, are going to suffer from camera shake and should be used on a monopod or sturdy tripod. The blocked center of the mirror design does limit contrast to some extent and can sometimes create annoying doughnut shapes in the out of focus background. But they also can be as sharp or sharper than conventional lenses because the mirror elements do not contribute chromatic aberration that is inherent in glass lens elements. A $200-300 mirror lens of 500mm or 600mm is going to be sharper than a similar $300 600mm f/8 conventional lens, like this one. I can't speak to the Vivitar, Phoenix, Opteka mirror lenses, but I have recently purchased a Ukraine-made MC Rubinar 500mm f/5.6 Macro, and like it alot. This mirror lens is larger, heavier, and 1 stop faster than the typical f/8 reflexes, and I've found it is as sharp as the EF 70-200 f/2.8L USM + EF2x combination that I had been using. It also gives good results with my EF teleconverters, giving me 700mm f/8 and 1000mm f/11.
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John K. Hansen |
Does anyone here have any experience with the 500mm (or the 350mm for that sake) Tamron SP mirror lens? I heard that these are quite good ;)
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David A. Bliss |
I don't know about the mirror lens, but I do know that I have seen a couple of lenses from Vivitar, Phoenix, and Opteka that were all the same. They were some third party lens that all three companies branded as their own, but were the same lens. Too bad about Vivitar, they used to make good lenses.
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