watebo

I've been looking at this lens and would like to hear from anyone with personal experience with this equipment, especially quality of build and images obtained.

chaman

Bad and bad.

watebo

Thanks chaman

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

I've had mirror lenses before, and agree with chaman. Non existent depth of field, kiss of death hand held, bokeh is funky little circles. One one hand, they are cheap.

RWR Loc: La Mesa, CA

The Opteka is a prime lens, which one would expect to be better than a cheap telephoto zoom, right? See here what can be done with the latter:
http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-206902-1.html
Usually facts trump opinions..

jim quist Loc: Missouri

I have a Vivitar 500mm mirror lens and like to play around with it. I wouldn't say any mirror lenses are much on the quality side, you get what you pay for. The images look pretty good.

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

They can be challenging, even if of good quality. They are fixed aperture, frequently f/8, the f/6.3 versions seem to be of higher quality, but will have razor thin DOF. Most are manual focus, and these are.

If your camera is an APS-C then they have an equivalent field of view to an 800mm lens, which is challenging to use even on a tripod unless it is very, very stable. Most DSLRs won't even give focus confirmation over f/5.6 so it is up to you. One the positive side they are small and light weight, can be hand held, but to do so needs patience and bright light.

I have an old Canon FDn 500mm f/8 reflex adapted for use on an EOS APS-C camera, and I enjoy using it periodically, but unless you are a masochist I wouldn't necessarily recommend spending your money on a manual focus reflex lens. If you look at the EXIF data, don't believe everything, I was messing with it for various reasons, but this is a Canon 500mm FDn f/8.0 reflex lens, with very strong back lighting and used with a monopod.

(Download)

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

I don't have the Opteka lens, but I do have a 500mm f/6.3 Korean-made mirror lens labeled for Rokinon. Part of the issue here is how much quality are you willing to pay for, and what your other requirements are. A mirror lens is much lighter and easier to handle than a standard lens, but you have to be willing to hand focus it; I don't have an issue with focusing, because my Pentax K-30's focus confirmation works fine with my lens; the DOF is adequate for the size bird I tend to photograph. The bokeh from any lens depends on the shape of the aperture, which is why these lenses provide such funky bokeh, but my attention is focused on the subject and I don't find the bokeh from my lens to be jarring.

Recently I posted some cropped images from that lens after an afternoon in our backyard
http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-432870-1.html
{these pictures were all taken hand-held BTW}

Leicaflex Loc: Cymru

Opteka 500mm mirror lens, I am not familiar with this particular lens.
I just have an aversion of all mirror lenses.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

I would suggest that if you want to play around, it's fine - not too expensive, and a good value. If you are hoping to record good images, it may not be the best choice. I have owned the original Russian MTO 500 F8 (really more like F9), and a Sigma 600 F8. They lack contrast, have small apertures making them sunny-day lenses, and even then a little hard to focus because of a dark viewfinder, they have really short minimum focus distances for great magnification, have donut-shaped highlights in bokeh, and are quite light and very compact compared to conventional lenses.

As far as image quality is concerned, The two lenses I owned were considered decent examples of mirror lenses, but they did not hold a candle to a good prime or current day zoom. Even with post processing there is a limit to what you can get from an image taken with a mirror lens.

Oh, and as far as changing apertures, I found a hack in an old Modern Photography or Popular Photography magazine that had templates to use cut disks that could fit over the MTO's front element that consisted of a smaller circle hole cut into the larger circle disk tangent to the edge of the disk. There were 3 disks each with smaller inner circles - representing F11, F16 and F22. The results looked something like this. A nice project for a rainy weekend if you end up getting a mirror lens.

David in Dallas Loc: Dallas, Texas, USA

I have one of the original 500mm f/8 mirror lenses made by Nikon back in the 1960s or 70s. It is possible (with a little finagling) to mount it on my D7100 DSLR, but it is not easy to use. The focus ring is extremely stiff and the DOF very short, which makes getting a good focus very difficult. I read a similar article many years ago about creating aperture disks, but never got around to it. I suppose that since exposure would not be through the annular area that the Bokeh would be more normal. (That lens is built like a tank and is very heavy! They came out with a lighter f/11 version some years later, but I didn't buy one.) One advantage of a mirror lens is that there is no chromatic aberration (all colors reflect to the same point).

bull drink water Loc: pontiac mi.

my main mirror lens is a Minolta 500m f 8.0 with auto focus. here are a few samples. with a 1.4 tc I still have auto focus.

chaman

Oh it does! Those images prove the so-so to mediocre IQ of these.

These lenses need lots of light for a decent image and you just showed evidence of it. Ive tried a lot of these and they are mostly crap. The only one decent enough for me to keep is a Canon FD lens 500mm modified with focus confirmation. Well built, decent IQ (not great) but hard to come by in a decent condition and usually a bit pricey.

wj cody Loc: springfield illinois

i would certainly pass on this and purchase a mirror lens directly from your digital body manufacturer. well worth the extra money.

Fat Gregory Loc: Southern New Jersey

I gave mine away to a fellow Hogger!