lens comparison

Joined: 19 May 2005 Posts: 484 Location: Cincinnati, Ohio

I'm looking at 2 types of 500 mm lens (for nikon). One is the mirror lens and the other is not.

I know the mirror lens is more compact. I'd like to know whether one gives up much for the convenience of compactness.

gene

Joined: 09 Apr 2006 Posts: 199 Location: Worcester, England

I don't think it is as simple as that.
Firstly the Mirror will almost certainly be manual focus, and is fixed apeture.
The standard design lens will have apeture control and the focussing may be automatic.
Do either of these things matter?
Quality also comes into it, there are some good and some dire of both types. Again how important is the lens quality?
There is a third way to go to get you a short lens without going for a mirror. You could have a 250-300mm and a 2x or 1.7x teleconverter. If your prime lens is good and fast it may be a better combination than a mediocre prime 500mm of either conventional or catadioptric design.

Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 6:21 am

Just to add to what ncmoody said. Mirror lenses produce a different type of out-of-focus highlights than 'standard' lenses. They appear as doughnut shapes instead of circles.

Mark

Joined: 18 Nov 2006 Posts: 288

Mirror lenses vary all over the board in terms of image quality. The Nikkor 500 f8 is a pretty good performer. The $100 ones you see on ebay are truly awful - amazingly awful. There are some in between as well like the Tamron. Understand that, with a mirror lens, you only have one aperture so you are likely to need a tripod for nearly everything you do with it. The only advantage of the mirror lens is small, compact size and low weight. In terms of image quality you're normally better off with a refractive lens.