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DPChallenge Forums >> Tips, Tricks, and Q&A >> 500mm f/8.0 Mirror T mount MF
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05/04/2006 11:00:50 AM · #1
looking for photos taken with this lens:500mm f/8.0 Mirror MF (T-Mount Required)

I am thinking of buying this lens and I was looking for photos but none here have been entered in challenges. I would love to see what this lens can do before I lay my hard earned cash down.
05/04/2006 11:22:24 AM · #2
There are a number of lenses in this category, made by various manufacturers. Their main advantage is that they are quite compact. Optical performance varies, but they all share come common traits. They all have a secondary mirror in the center of the front element that makes OOF highlights look like donuts, which can be distracting. They are all constant aperture, meaning you are always shooting at f/8, and cannot stop down further. More importantly, you're also composing and focusing (manually of course) at f/8, which can be difficult. They typically have somewhat lower contrast than standard lenses. Some are much worse than others in this regard. Even the best of these designs are not as sharp as a good refractive optic. The inexpensive (typically Russian-built) ones that you will see on ebay are of just OK optical quality. You may or may not be satisfied with the results.
The combination of logn focal length and snmall aperture means that a tripod is almost a requirement. Handheld, you'd need at very least 1/500s @ f/8, which means you can use 100 ISO only in full sunlight.
Bottom line, if you know what compromises you're making, they can have some interesting applications, but they are niche lenses to be sure.
05/04/2006 12:02:25 PM · #3
well its a sigma lens with the T-mount and a few little lens filter thingys(2x,4x and a ND)
05/04/2006 12:16:32 PM · #4
I have a similar one. I bought it because it was so cheap ($119) and I thought it would be fun. At that time I didn't pay much attention to image quality. Now that I have some good lenses the optical quality of the 500mm looks terrible and I never use it. If you resize a full image to 640 pixels wide for DPC, it might be borderline acceptable. But it still would be worse than a crop from a good 200mm lens.

Bottom line: There's a reason why you don't see many submissions on DPC with this kind of lens. You get what you pay for.
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