Talk me into or out of buying a Tamron 500mm f8

You'll get pretty bored of moon shots after about 5 minutes I imagine... and it's pretty useless for things like wildlife unless the lighting is brilliant.

Assuming you have a 200-300mm lens a Kenko 2x converter would probably be better.
 
im not sure on the price of such a lens but i think a combo like a sigma 120-300 f/2.8 with tele convertors will be better! Is the usabilty any good. are there issues with it being a mirror it maybe quite fragile - easy to get dirty/ hard to clean.

what are the main uses of a mirror lens?
 
33L said:
im not sure on the price of such a lens but i think a combo like a sigma 120-300 f/2.8 with tele convertors will be better! Is the usabilty any good. are there issues with it being a mirror it maybe quite fragile - easy to get dirty/ hard to clean.

what are the main uses of a mirror lens?
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you fail to understand. mirror lenses are very durable, with their mirrors rather strongly attached to the metal lens body. they are a relic of the 1970's, and can be bought for about £60 of fleabay.
 
A 500mm catadioptric would cost probably 15% of what a 120-300 F/2.8 + TC would, weigh about 10% of one and also be 90% easier to lug around.
 
The thing about a mirror lens is that it's 500mm & f/8 nothing else. You can't stop it down, it doesn't zoom, nothing. If the light isn't great it's a problem unless you wind up the ISO. You can focus it but it's manual and at f/8 the viewfinder will be quite dark. The bokeh is a bit wierd too, you can get donut shaped heighlights etc.

That said it'll be dirt cheap so it's maybe worth it for a laugh.
 
I had one for years, when I was shooting a lot of film at airshows. Worked great on my old Minolta bodies, X300/700. As they had one of the best/brightest view finders. Then on my Contax I would change the focus screen to a plain one. As the split image would black out at the F8 value.
Thing is if you use one on a modern Autofocus camera, they tend to loose light to the viewfinder as it is split to the autofocus sensors. So manual focus would be a bit slow and tricky.
Plus Tamrons require the interchange amount to fit, so be sure you can get a mount to suit what ever body you have.
Lovely lens having said all that .... should be dirty cheap now.
 
I remember seeing a guy on eith TP or POTN who had bought one (cant remember the particular model...or find the threads!), he got some cracking results with bird photography! A quick google found this gallery anyway....

http://www.pbase.com/dougsmit/sigma600

For the money its not to be sniffed at I suppose!!
 
rpstewart said:
You can focus it but it's manual
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there is 1 AF mirror lens - the Minolta/Sony 500mm f8.

500mm mirror definitely has it's uses (principally where size/weight are an issue but you may want the focal length) but it is generally a niche lens.
 
I had a Tammy 500mm mirror on my old Nikon 35mm. Have to say that I wasn't that impressed. Having said that, as stated it'll be VERY cheap when compared to a good telephoto and if you need a LONG lens, it's clearly an option.
 
BUFF said:
there is 1 AF mirror lens - the Minolta/Sony 500mm f8.

500mm mirror definitely has it's uses (principally where size/weight are an issue but you may want the focal length) but it is generally a niche lens.
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yes, but the minolta (sony) AF mirror lens costs £500...
 
i may have been wrong however mirror lenses are new to me! They seem interesting so may do some digging around!
 
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