500-1000 mm opteka lense

[hairybobby]

Has anyone tried these 500-1000mm lenses with a fixed aperture... opteka.

do they work ok... any info would be appreciated

[Nikolas]

how about waste of money?

[CyberDyneSystems]

That pretty much sums it up nicely.

[hairybobby]

from what I have seen .. or understand you cannot focus these lenses with auto focus.. but with sports photos or surfers who are always going to be twenty metres(70 feet) away then that is no problem.. as they will always be at infinite

what is it thats specifically wrong with these lenses.... is it just mirror lenses full stop are useless

[Nightcrawler]

Mirror lenses have weird bokeh. Instead of a solid circle as a highlight that is out of focus, it would be a doughnut shape instead. That would be a bit more distracting. I am sure there are other reasons, but that is the main one that would keep me away from a mirror lens.

[hairybobby]

if all I am wanting to do is take pictures of surfers in the far distance then it should work?

or are mirror lenses really completely useless

[defordphoto]

Welcome to the forum, Bobby. You have not found the deal of the century. The old saying of you get what you pay for definitely applies here. It's nothing more than a cheap telescope. You would NOT be happy with this.

[defordphoto]

if all I am wanting to do is take pictures of surfers in the far distance then it should work?

or are mirror lenses really completely useless

No.

Yes.

:)

And welcome to the forum! :) :)

[buze]

I disagree!

I might get myself a Rubinar 500mm f5.6 (yeah, 5.6, not 8 ) because I've seen a gallery with pretty impressive results for a mirror lens. OK, it's not 500 L but it's about 1/20 of the price, and it can be pretty sharp, and show pretty good saturation. And it's cheap enough that you don't have to break the bank to play with it...
And it has the donuts highlights, but heck, my Takumar 50mm f1.4 has wierd highlights too, and I like it anyway! And even the 70-300 DO has wierd "multidonuts" highlights and nobody seems to care so..,
And please, don't mix up "bokeh" and "highlights" they are totaly different characteristics. The bokeh of that lens is "ok", it's the highlights that are donuty.
Check that out:
http://ray3d.free.fr/Rubinar500/gallerie.html

[mbellot]

And please, don't mix up "bokeh" and "highlights" they are totaly different characteristics. The bokeh of that lens is "ok", it's the highlights that are donuty.
Check that out:
http://ray3d.free.fr/Rubinar500/gallerie.html

Nice pictures for a "cheap" lens, but the donuts are very distracting in a couple of images (mostly the park ones), but barely noticable in others interestingly enough.

Thanks for the samples.

[defordphoto]

Where's the closest Krispy Kreme? :lol:

Aside from the funky bokeh, those aren't half bad. You could fix that in PS too...

[scr7b]

The bokeh is horrible in the park shots, but I suppose if the lens is cheep cheep it could be worth a punt just to have a new toy!

[elkootcho]

Those doughnut reflections are REALLY weird.

[CyberDyneSystems]

if it were feasible I would be willing to place a significant bet that if either of you get a mirror lens.. it will be sold in under a year...

thus far this has been the case of those I know who have insisted on geting one.. 100% resale .. usually in about a month.

[tim]

The bokeh is horrible in the park shots, but I suppose if the lens is cheep cheep it could be worth a punt just to have a new toy!

It's very distracting and takes away from the image, but like CDS said you might be able to do something in photoshop to fix it up a bit.

[snappa]

I disagree too ! I have had, for many years, a Canon 500mm f8 mirror lens. My missus nearly threw me out when I bought it because it cost about £1.00 per mm.
However for taking pictures of aircraft it was superb. The only problem was if you lost the plane it took a while to find it again, due to the narrow field of view I believe.
And panned pictures or pictures taken against the sky did not produce donuts.

[ron chappel]

if all I am wanting to do is take pictures of surfers in the far distance then it should work?

or are mirror lenses really completely useless

I've used quite a few cheapo tele lenses and can confidently say that the cheap mirror lenses are close to crap.Not completely so by very close.
The only exception i've heard of so far is the rubinar..allthough i've seen some bad results from them too.I hope to try one sometime

On the other hand there *IS* a cheap tele lens that gives pretty good results.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Canon-EOS-Mt-500mm-Tele-Lens-Digital-20D-10D-Camera-NEW_W0QQitemZ7537536794QQcategoryZ4687QQrdZ1QQcmdZ ViewItem

In absolute terms these are abit sharper than ,say, a canon 75-300 used at 300mm (75-300@300mm).
While that's not anything to be greatly thrilled about,it is at least quite good for a bargain priced lens!!:)
Here is the best,sharpest example pic i have from one of these lenses-
http://members.dodo.net.au/~l8r_ron/pages/kimunor-500mmf8-%5B80k%5D.html

[snappa]

Sorry forgot to ask. My 500mm mirror is an FD lens. Is there any way I could attach it to a digital camera ?
It has a fixed aperture of f8 and I do realise that it would obviously not be autofocus. However the equivalent lens, L or otherwise, would cost me an arm and a leg. Probably literally if the wife found out !
It was one of the more expensive Canon lenses when I bought it a long time ago and I would like to try it if only for a bit of fun.

[buze]

The FD->EF adaptor might cost you about 1/2 the price of a new mirror lens :/

[JayKitty]

Nice pictures for a "cheap" lens, but the donuts are very distracting in a couple of images (mostly the park ones), but barely noticable in others interestingly enough.

Thanks for the samples.

i agree. the donuts are very distracting. i couldnt help but notice them even in the thumbnails.

[ron chappel]

Sorry forgot to ask. My 500mm mirror is an FD lens. Is there any way I could attach it to a digital camera ?
It has a fixed aperture of f8 and I do realise that it would obviously not be autofocus. However the equivalent lens, L or otherwise, would cost me an arm and a leg. Probably literally if the wife found out !
It was one of the more expensive Canon lenses when I bought it a long time ago and I would like to try it if only for a bit of fun.

While you can easily do it with those FD-EOS adapters,they do degrade the optical performance .
I don't know for sure but i assume your FD mirror- as good as it is -wouldn't take very good shots with the dodgey adapter attached.Canon did once make a high quality FD to EOS adapter but it only fits certain lenses (not sure about the FD500mirror) and costs a fortune

One possible option is to simply remove the whole FD mount and adapt an EOS mount to it :D
Fiddly but cheap and it wont degrade the optics!

[ron chappel]

Just checked out that rubinar gallery.
I've been struggling to find many example shots from this lens and here are a whole bunch of them.
Very interesting!
What's obvious is that it's not much (if any) better than other cheap mirror lenses .It's really struggling for sharpness in too many of those shots-way too many to be excused by camera shake.

Too bad :(
I was kinda hoping for a bargain mirror (i can mostly work around the donut thing)
I guess i'll have to try one of the good name brand ones like the nikor,Leica,or Zeiss.(or adapt a canon FD or minolta MD mirror)

[condyk]

I wonder what the keeper ratio would be with these kind of lenses ... and whether 1 out of 100, 1 out of 50, 1 out of 1000 would be worth it.

[hairybobby]

Yes thanks eevryone... I think I am totally convinced... it does sound a very reasonable option in terms of price.. its nice to see some pictures.. that shows exactly what I would be getting

its just there was a very cheap second hand lense on ebay... I was kind of curious

its a funny thing ... someone I know actually uses a telescope and sticks it on the end of a camera ... well it seems to keep him happy... I dread to think what the pictures are like

great forum btw

[ron chappel]

I wonder what the keeper ratio would be with these kind of lenses ... and whether 1 out of 100, 1 out of 50, 1 out of 1000 would be worth it.

That's a very good way of putting it i think.
I often think in terms of the keeper ratio when i'm debating borderline lenses (as i often do- what me tight?;) )

When all was said and done i never got any REALLY good pics from any of the cheap mirror lenses i've tried.None i am happy to keep
The best i got were 'OK' pics and they worked out at about 1 in 100 *which includes losses from camera shake and missfocus*

In the end i decided i never wanted to seriously use one again,not because of the bad keeper rate, but simply because they never got ANY great shots:(


The cheap preset lenses i've used give a far higher keeper rate but much more importantly, the best of them are WAY better than those from the cheap mirrors.
Some of them i'm actually abit proud of-they are very nice.