[stoppingdown]

Hi.

 

I know mirror lenses and their limitations - fifteen years ago, when I started taking photography more seriously, I also bought a mirror lens for experimenting. It was the Matsukov 1000mm. It was fun, and something useful for the moon. When I moved to digital, APS-C, it got just too long. Now I'd probably like to use it again, but it's too heavy for me being fifteen years older.

 

Now I'd like to get another mirror lens (perhaps 800mm would be fine for APS-C), not too heavy, and the best quality (being a mirror lens, of course). Suggestions?

[youpii]

The Minolta AF 500/8 has a good reputation

[stoppingdown]

Interesting... it's even AF. But 500mm perhaps are too short. There are zoom products from Sony and Tamron that reach 500/600mm - I've read with interest the praises Michael Reichmann gave to the latter, with an a-mount and adapter. Sure, it's heavier, but it's also more flexible and of superior quality of a mirror. I think that a mirror makes sense only from 800mm.

 

http://luminous-landscape.com/sony-a7ii-...ntarctica/

[davidmanze]

Interesting... it's even AF. But 500mm perhaps are too short. There are zoom products from Sony and Tamron that reach 500/600mm - I've read with interest the praises Michael Reichmann gave to the latter, with an a-mount and adapter. Sure, it's heavier, but it's also more flexible and of superior quality of a mirror. I think that a mirror makes sense only from 800mm.

 

http://luminous-landscape.com/sony-a7ii-...ntarctica/

Alright if you like soft doughnuts!

[Brightcolours]

A Sigma/Tamron will still be superior at 800mm (with 1.4x TC). Only reason for a mirror lens is its compactness and lightness. I like my Tamron SP 500mm f8 and Tokina 500mm f8 for that reason.

[stoppingdown]

A Sigma/Tamron will still be superior at 800mm (with 1.4x TC). Only reason for a mirror lens is its compactness and lightness. I like my Tamron SP 500mm f8 and Tokina 500mm f8 for that reason.

 

Compactness, lightness (and price) are precisely my point for a mirror for that focal.

[popo]

Best bet is probably a Maksutov-Cassegrain type telescope with appropriate adapters. These are the more common type at smaller aperture sizes, but they also tend to be relatively slow. For example I have one which is 1350mm f/13 and unusable hand-held. There are other configurations which can give relatively faster designs, but they only tend to be used at bigger aperture sizes which still wont be usefully handholdable.

[Brightcolours]

That is quite a paradox you got there  .....

You say that Tamron and Sigma have zooms till 600mm that you will prefer over a mirror lens. When pointed at the possibility to add a 1.4x converter to reach 800mm+, you say you want a mirror lens for that because of size and weight. But that situation is exactly the same (minus the small weight and size of 1.4x TC) at 500mm....

 

No idea what you should look at, frankly. The only one I can think of is the MTO 1000mm f10, and that lens weights 2 kilos. Focus peaking won't be of much use at those focal lengths btw, not accurate enoughand you will have to judge by eye. 

[stoppingdown]

Not really a paradox if you consider a buy timeline. The Tamron 150-600mm is an interesting possibility, but it's not in my immediate list of buy - also because at the moment it would require an e-mount to a-mount adapter and I think there are chances that from here in one year a similar lens with a native e-mount might appear (Sigma, for instance, recently commented about the possibility of "porting" more lenses to e-mount). Furthermore, for wildlife I'd give precedence to a lighter lens around 300mm, which at the moment doesn't exist for the e-mount. Perhaps such a lens + 1.7x would make the 150-600mm useless. For purely glass lenses, so, there's nothing I'd buy in this year, waiting and see how the market evolves.

 

Instead, an 800mm mirror would be cheaper (at least I suppose), with far less expectations that a glass lens (in fact I'm just thinking of it for very specific usages) and I could buy it in the short time.

 

Summing up, I see:

1. something around 300mm ƒ/4, or perhaps a zoom in that range ƒ/4.5-5.6, e-mount, for wildlife and BIF, hand-holdable - it doesn't exist and I think it won't in 2015
   
2. a longer zoom lens, such as the Tamron 150-600mm, for more reach, not handholdable, usable for the car or a hide - it exists, but not in native e-mount. I wouldn't buy it, anyway, until there are some hints about how the market for #1 come out, since both #1 and #2 would be a relevant expense.
   
3. a 800mm or such mirror lens, with any mount (because I imagine there's and will be nothing in native e-mount) that could be useful very specific cases, cheaper
   

#3 is the only immediate chance I see.

[stoppingdown]

PS For instance, about the timeline... This friday there's a partial solar eclipse in Europe. I'm not interested in astro-like oriented photos, but a landscape-oriented one. Near where I live there could be chances of having thick fog or light clouds veiling the sun, and I'm figuring out a misty landscape with trees and mountains, including the "oddly" shaped sun in the picture. If these conditions realise, I'll have to use my AF-S 300 ƒ/4 + 1.7x (on the D7000 or the Sony a6000 by means of adapter) and crop. If I had the mirror 800mm, it would be simpler, and not needing the crop.