Mirror Lenses? Any good?

[Spee]

As above really, I've seen people using them (last trip to Oulton there was a guy shooting next to me with one) and I'm told the zoom available is huge, but are they up to much, not seen them mentioned in a single thread on here (that I could find anyway).

G

 

[dunganick]

As far as i know they are mainly MF?

 

[TOGUSA]

zoom is amazing but will never focus!! plus your camera will think it hasnt got a lens attached so will chuck up an error and you will have to use live view.. its just a lot of hassle... i borrowed one thankfully before buying one. really are a waste of money

 

[Andy.]

You get very strange bookeh from them too. They're cheaper than normal lenses for a reason. If picture quality, colours and contrast don't matter to you, then give it a go.

 

[Spee]

I suspected they were frowned upon! I wasn't looking to buy one, I have my eye on a new lense, just wondering why they aren't so common considering the zoom they give. The guy at oulton had some superb pics he'd taken, panned and zoomed right in, maybe he was just very gifted!

G

 

[PinkoCommie]

I've been thinking of getting one of these for lunar photography.

Got my eye on a Tamron SP/500 on ebay, meant to be one of the better ones.

It seems that you can get good pictures out of them as long as you persevere, but you have to do everything on manual.

 

[Nick_P]

Mirror lens by mikekingphoto, on Flickr

 

[SamP]

Nice Laser.

 

[PinkoCommie]

I actually really like the bokeh you get off of some mirror shots, it does seem to be very dependant on the type of shot.

I might grab the one off ebay and if I don't like it I can always put it back up there.

 

[Xanda73]

Horrible lenes. You're not going to be 'zooming' them; their fix length, 500mm, 800mm even 1000mm. Be aware that they are stupidly hard to use well. The depth of field is tiny so (manual only) focusing is super critical even at the really slow speed they are (f/8, f/11 or even f/16). Get a 1.4x or 2x teleconverter for the lonest lens you already have IMHO.

The shot above should of been great, but in reality it's unuseable due to the terrible bookeh as andy says above.

 

[dunganick]

I quite like that Bokeh in the shot. It suits it well. However its backfocused and thats why its soft as fook. The wave just behind the boat is in focus. And i bet this was the closest to a useable image that he had.

Manual focus is a huge ball ache. I dont care if they used to do it before AF, i'm lazy and a bit cack handed.