Among the best mirror (catadioptric or "cat") lenses I've used over the years were the Tamron SP. They made two: 500mm f8 and a 350mm f5.6. Very close focusing (5 feet). Well made. Good IQ for that type of lens. Nice color rendition and contrast. The 350mm is much less common, the 500mm is pretty easy to find. If you get one, try to get it with all the accessories that were originally supplied: a tripod mounting ring, set of filters including a couple neutral denstity, lens hood.
These are Adaptall2 lenses, with interchangeable mounts. Very easy to adapt for use on just about any camera. The mounts are still being made in China, if you have trouble finding an original one to fit Canon EF. Plus you can get chipped adapters for use with Canon EOS cameras. (I have a manual focus Tamron SP 90mm f2.5 macro lens adapted for use on EOS/EF).
Many other Cats are "T-Mount" lenses, which are also easily interchanged.
You need specular highlights in the OOF area to get the "donut" effect shown above. Otherwise the lens will simply act like a long telephoto with a fixed aperture (variable with filters only in most cases, although I know of a couple that used Waterhouse stops)... rendering shallow depth of field. In fact the Tamrons have lovely bokeh, aside from the "donuts". I had some scanned film images that were made with this lens, but a quick search only found this one thumbnail from around ten years ago, so far... if I can find more I'll upload additional examples.
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Orange Canna Aglow. Tamron 500mm f8 "Cat" or mirror lens. Ektachrome 200 slide film. A backlit subject with no specular highlights makes for a very nice bokeh. This lens focuses incredibly closely... to about 5 feet. I hope you are shooting in large churches, or have a lot of working distance outdoors, in order to use a 500mm lens! Most Cat lenses are that length or even longer. It's rare to find a 250, 300 or 350mm. Cat lenses are compact for their focal lengths... That's the whole point, they use a series of mirrors to "fold" the path of the light coming throught the lens.
And, I agree... Your viewfinder will be pretty dark with the f8 lenses. If you get a chipped adapter, AF will likely just barely work (focus confirmantion only, of course... since they are manual focus lenses).
I'm not familiar with the Canon FD mirror lens mentioned above. I used around a half dozen different Cats over the years and always thought the Tamron the best of the bunch. I only reluctantly sold it when I switched to Canon system in 2001.... but as a consolation I
was getting the 500/4 IS instead
. I also noticed that the Nikkor 500/8 mirror being offered in the 80s (and 90s ?) bore a striking similarity to the Tamron... Look identical in many respects, except for some minor cosmetic differences such as the rubber grip on the focus ring. That was back in the days when Nikon still swore they made all their own lenses! I never knew for sure, but suspected the Nikkor was a rebranded Tamron.... not really a bad thing since the Tamron was so good.
There were also some top quality Vivitar Series 1 Cat lenses... Some or all of those were based on a well respected earlier Elmer Perkins design. There was also a very popular Sigma, 600mm if I recall.
There were also a lot of what I'd call "junk" mirror lenses, el cheapos made all over the world.
