I've been making occasional visits to a nearby bog, both for the exercise and for photography. I wanted a lens with a bit more reach but preferably not too much bulk and not too expensive. With some doubts I decided to take a chance on an inexpensive 500 mm mirror lens. This morning I took it back to the bog to take some sample pictures, some of which I show below. The captions show my recollection of how far away but they are simply guesses, not measurements and not even the better estimates that with some forethought I could have read off of the lens.

The lens has a fixed aperture of f8 and that gives no control over depth of field (and bokea). The narrow depth of field should be apparent in all of the images below. Focus is pretty critical and is manual only.

With a fixed aperture my usual habit of shooting in aperture priority seemed to make no sense so I shot in shutter priority, but I left ISO as automatic so that the camera had a chance to make adjustments for low light; but the lighting was strong enough so that did not come into play. I'm not sure what would have happened if I'd use aperture priority, however. Perhaps that would be a better choice.

As if one experiment were not enough, I decided to try something else today at the same time. In the past I've used a monopod at the bog, thinking a tripod would slow me down too much. Animals just don't stay still long enough to set up a tripod. But I have a tripod that has one removable leg so you can build a monopod out of it. I've never used it for that, but it occurred to me that I could also take advantage of that to construct a bipod with more stability than would be possible with a monopod. It is also more bulky to carry around but I think the extra stability is worth it.

No need. It’s the brainwashed users who are brain dead ... their brains drowned during brainwashing. Is that you ?

Mirror lenses actually sold well when the Cheerios were supported by the flack press as “fascinating”. Also “fascinating” were the polygon highlights produced by straight iris blades. But marketers always need to invert fashions so as to have something new to sell you as “new and better”. New fashions acoarst pull the rug out from under prior fashions. Money makes the world go round.

No need. It’s the brainwashed users who are brain dead ... their brains drowned during brainwashing. Is that you ?

Mirror lenses actually sold well when the Cheerios were supported by the flack press as “fascinating”. Also “fascinating” were the polygon highlights produced by straight iris blades. But marketers always need to invert fashions so as to have something new to sell you as “new and better”. New fashions acoarst pull the rug out from under prior fashions. Money makes the world go round.

Nikons and Canons are cheap trash. They sell for a few hundred and even less. Beats me why people even discuss them.

Now that paragraph is verrrrrry true if all you know from is old Rebels and low life Nikons. And that is like YOUR limited exposure to mirror lenses. Cheap crap is cheap crap regardless of category.

10% of Hogsters have any experience of what they post ... the rest just parrot stuff. If you’ve never used a fine mirror lens you have no clue. If you’ve got over $1000 to experiment then you can find out ... unless you’re also brainwashed about “bokeh”. That would leave you unhappy with even a Questar.

User ID, How about not hiding in the bushes and come out for a discussion as a genuine adult. "User ID"???
Really. You spout and mouth off, saying nothing but anger, vitirol and God knows what.

Here's my unsolicited advice - and I'm betting you have already lost this fight in the past..... Go to a mirror in your house or bathroom. Say all the things you said here to the mirror. Look at the expression of the person you see who is saying these things. - Would you want to be in the same room as this person? Would you want to be on the same discussion forum as this person? Would you like to know this person???

Was anything you said here that was helpful or constructive? Can I quote you? "Garbage, trash, brainwashed, brain dead" or close enough. For your sake, please!!!

I have the second of the two 500 f/5.0 Reflex-Nikkor prototypes, Serial #171002, with original case and filters (http://www.photosynthesis.co.nz/nikon/serialno.html#Reflex). The grease had hardened from disuse when I bought it some time back, focus is very difficult, and I only took a few shots with it. Need to have it serviced. Image quality is comparable to that of my 500 f/5.6 Kilfitt Sport-Kilar. Surprisingly (to me, at least), there is minimal loss of image quality with the latter’s matched 2X teleconverter.