Mirror Lenses?

[WadeCourtney]

Has anyone ever used one?
Mirror Lenses

[gturner]

I had one years ago for a Minolta system. It was better than nothing at the long end, but not very good. I regretted the purchase.

[BigVinnie]

Yup.

picture below was taken with a Tamron 500mm f/8



Uncropped. I was at the top of the bleachers, handheld. REALLY hard to hold it still enough hand held. Even on a tripod the slightest vibration gets amplified.

The driver is a friend and I wanted to get some shots of him driving. I had about a 25% keeper rate.

Camera needs to be set on Aperture priority mode (Av) if you want to use the meter.

[OsmosisStudios]

I've tried one, but they're generally fairly difficult to use. f/8 aperture (that cannot be changed), weird looking bokeh, manual focus. All that means that you basically have to be out in broad daylight and that anything less makes things unuseable. In the examples in that link, even, there is a fair bit of noise likely from the photographer having to increase ISO in less-than-blinding-light.

[BigVinnie]

True. I probably should have added more information.

My shot above was bright daylight ISO 800.

To add to it this lens likes a bit of over exposure and processed down. Otherwise you get excessive noise. Any haze in the air greatly reduces contrast and this lens has soft contrast already. The Tamron is considered to be one of the better mirrors.

To keep things sharp you really need a good tripod, mirror lock up and remote trigger. If wildlife is what you are after you might want to rethink this lens. The image below was shot with just that setup. It was an overcast day.



Be ready to work with curves in photoshop to bring out the color.

[sbunting108]

Nope! Thanks for sharing the link I had never heard of them before. You learn something new everyday here on DPS