Mirror Lens

In my advancing years I have lost the desire for new cameras. I own or have used nearly every type marketed, from my Thornton Pickard to Nikon Z but my wife said I should buy something for myself this Christmas. One thing I have zero experience of, but have always fancied, is a mirror lens so I purchased a Tokina 500 f8 in mint condition with all accessories, including the filters. It is in F mount as I have digital and film Nikons ,AF and manual. Can you help me with hints how to get the best out of this lens, as basic as you like, every reply would be appreciated. Happy New Year, Charles.

Search this for a start

Cool Mirror Lenses You've Known and Loved -- or at least Liked

JDM, not on line at the moment is an enthusiast. I have the Nikon version of the same lens, light, small and handy for the focal length. Used with good light, useful. Mine takes special rear mounted filters which give a bit of extra control. They are known for donut shaped bokeh. Have fun with it!

A big issue with any long lens is thermals from the sun heating the ground. Or car bodies, if you like to stabilize yourself on the roof above the door like I do. These thermals can be used for good artistic effect, or can drive you nuts. Mirror lenses tend not to have a lot of contrast, though mine is a particular bad Meade 1000 mm f/11 from many years ago. Should probably try it on the Z6, but haven't yet. One thing it's quite good at is sunspots, with the proper solar filter solidly mounted of course.

My thoughts.

• Check the mirror surfaces. If they are foggy, you won't get a good image. Although the lens is closed so you should not get the kind of stuff that collects on the mirror of reflector astronomical telescopes.
   
  
• If you have a Nikon Z camera, you have IBIS, and you now have a stabilized mirror lens. :D
  
• With a 500mm lens, I would shoot at 1/1000 sec, or faster.
   
  
• I don't know if Tokina made one of the better mirror lenses. There are a LOT of poor mirror lenses out there. Do some research.
   
  
• 500mm on a FX camera is 10x magnification. That is hard to hand hold, even with IBIS. Look for something SOLID to rest/stabilize against. A tripod is your friend. Or at least a monopod.
   
  
• I have a Nikon 500mm mirror. The lens hood is less than one inch long :eek:. That short length makes no sense to me. Sunlight from the side will easily hit the front element. If you can, make a longer lens hood out of black construction paper, or similar DARK material, to shield the front element.
  
• The farther your subject is from you, the more air is between you and the subject. That means, there is more "stuff" in the air also. Stuff like: smoke, dust, pollen, smog, water vapor, etc, etc. I have seen the air around me where the subject just a hundred yards away (the other end of the football field) is hazy, because of "stuff" in the air.
  
• As @conrad_hoffman said, thermals is another issue. I had thought it was only heat, but thermals also happen in the COLD.
   
  
• I found that shooting moving subjects moving towards me, was HARD. It is hard to follow focus on a fast moving subject, like tennis. It is much easier when the subject is stationary, moving left/right, or SLOWLY moving. You have to practice manual focusing on YOUR camera.
  
• I found for a moving sport like tennis, that a gimbal head on a tripod worked the best. The gimbal head let me easily move in both azimuth (horizontal) and elevation (vertical).
  

Enjoy your new toy.

A big issue with any long lens is thermals from the sun heating the ground. Or car bodies, if you like to stabilize yourself on the roof above the door like I do. These thermals can be used for good artistic effect, or can drive you nuts. Mirror lenses tend not to have a lot of contrast, though mine is a particular bad Meade 1000 mm f/11 from many years ago. Should probably try it on the Z6, but haven't yet. One thing it's quite good at is sunspots, with the proper solar filter solidly mounted of course.

My experience is mainly with a former-SU Maksutov (LOMO i believe it is) f/11 1000 mm, and the main issue with that one is weight. It is as heavy as a Stalin tank, and that weighty thing is attached to the tripod using a single 3/8 bolt. So though the tripod is sturdy enough to carry a couple of them, the single point attachment is rubbish, and it is very hard, nigh impossible, to keep the thing still. It rocks at the slightest touch, on a very steady tripod. The way i dealt with that was using wooden wedges, wedged between lens an tripod head. Not ideal, because of the strain on that single bolt. And impossible to focus, once wedges were in place. Later i used some (forgot brand and type) large tripod quick coupling system using which i improvised a better way of attaching that beast to a tripod.

I haven't used the lens a lot. In fact, i think the last time i used it 'in earnest' was to take pictures of the last full solar eclips in west Europe, some time during the nineties of the previous century.

 

What i do not like about catadioptrics, besides size and weight, is the out of focus rendering. Otherwise not bad.

That reminds me, stability on a tripod is all about balance. You have to have the center of gravity right over the support. Sometimes an aluminum adapter plate can accomplish that, if drilled in the right spots. If the center of gravity is away from the support, you end up with a cantilever spring that shakes every time you touch it. Combine that with bad damping and it will ring for a long time as well.

Speaking strictly from my own experiences, the Nikon 500 1:8 Catadioptric is so light and handy that except for Astro or when the light is poor, it absolutely cries out to be hand held. it weighs a mere 2.2 pounds.

I also have the Nikon lens and carry in my bag often. I’ve used that and the 1000/11 over the years, both at the same time once on a pair of F2’s at a shuttle launch. They tend to be a bit low in contrast but not bad and background highlights will often be donut shaped. Depth of field is a bit narrow but it can be a lot of reach in a small, lightweight hand holdable package.

 

Rick H.

If you do any wildlife photography from a vehicle, a window-mounted clamp (like those used for spotting scopes) or beanbag rest can be useful. As mentioned, a (deep) lens hood is a must.

 

Mirror lenses can be interesting to use for close-distance photography. I used to have a Russian-made Rubinar 500/8 which had 1:4 macro, but found the f/8 aperture made for difficult focusing on most of my film cameras. They can also have noticeable light falloff in the corners, something else to keep in mind when composing images.

Edited January 2, 2022 by m42dave

I have a pair of mirror lenses: a Tamron Adaptall II 500mm f 8 for which I have adapters to fit all of my film cameras as well as my digital Pentax K50. I also have a Sigma 600mm f 8 in Minolta MD mount. My Celestron C90 can be used as a 1000mm f 11. Longer focal lengths do require more care to produce sharp images (due to air quality and vibration suppression). I always bracket exposure (and focus) when shooting with mirror optics.

Over the years I've owned a Canon, Nikon, Leica and 3 Tamron mirror lenses. I found the Tamron (the one with the tripod mount) to be sharpest of the bunch. As others quite rightly said, a sturdy support is an absolute must, and contrast isn't up to standards IMHO, but can generally be adequately compensated for in post processing, I bought mine for nature, but more often than not my best/favorite shots were astronomical. Advice, enjoy it for what it is and coax the best you can out of it...with TLC you may find that you really like it for specialized use.

If you do any wildlife photography from a vehicle, a window-mounted clamp (like those used for spotting scopes) or beanbag rest can be useful. As mentioned, a (deep) lens hood is a must.

 

Mirror lenses can be interesting to use for close-distance photography. I used to have a Russian-made Rubinar 500/8 which had 1:4 macro, but found the f/8 aperture made for difficult focusing on most of my film cameras. They can also have noticeable light falloff in the corners, something else to keep in mind when composing images.

 

Close-up use, a.k.a. "long distance microscope", was a selling point of the 3.5" Questar, which is optically excellent. A bit out of my league though.

What I liked about the Nikon 500/8 reflex/mirror is that it easily goes into my regular camera bag. That is something that a refractor lens cannot do. They were called "stove pipe" lenses for a reason.

The Olympus 500/8 mirror is even smaller.

So taking a LONG lens on a shoot became much easier.

Thank you all, I have learnt so much. I am touched that some of the wisest heads here have taken time to help. The Tokina is relatively light so I will try it handheld but I am sure a sturdy support will be the long term answer. The lens has macro in its' title so it will be very interesting to see what it can do compared with my usual Nikon 55. It will arrive with a hood which should help with shooting at 1/1000. This lens also comes with rear fitting filters, some say it is difficult to get sharp focus if such a filter is not fitted. Anyway it sounds like fun to try it in many ways on different cameras, even with IBIS on the Z. Every post made an insightful point, much appreciated, Charles.

It is possible with a bit of ingenuity to devise a lens-cap style aperture for the front of a mirror lens. A round off-centre hole that avoids the central obstruction enables the mirror lens to be in effect "stopped down". This can deliver much increased depth of field and avoids the ugly donut (doughnut?) bokeh for out of focus areas.