Mirror lenses anyone?

I have used two. The first one was a 500mm Vivitar which was supposed to be F8 but metered at F11. That I could forgive but the image quality was appalling. Quite simply the worst lens that I have ever used. Every picture was dull & looked like it had been shot through a fly screen. It wasn't a case of technique either as I gave it the best possible chance with a tripod & a cable release.

I suppose that I could have had a bad sample but I haven't read a good word said about the Vivitar one online.

I got rid of it for a Tamron 500mm SP Mirror lens. This one meters as the advertised F8 & the picture quality is quite acceptable to me.

I don't use it a lot & it has its limitations with speed & the doughnut shapes but I think it is a handy lens to have. It has seen most use lately on my DSLR shooting the moon.

If you are thinking of getting one I have seen mixed reviews on the Sigma 600mm. Some of the Russian made ones are supposed to be OK. The Nikkor's are supposed to be good. The Tamron is in my experience good. It is an Adaptall lens too which is handy. If you are on a budget I would avoid the £100 lenses like the plague & look for a used Tamron one.
 
It might be worth consider a 2X extender to use on a 200mm prime or zoom lens (to get 400mm-420mm) instead of a mirror lens....mind you, you lose a stop and also in my tests some lenses work better on some extenders so would need recommendations from the members on what successful combos they had.
 
Dont touch them with a poohy stick, your cheapest "normal construction" lens will give you better IQ. (y)
 
It depends on the mirror lens I've found. Cheap ones are... Cheap. Tried the new Sony ones a few years ago when I worked for Jessops and it was rather good IQ wise. Terrible as a usable lens I personally found.

X2 converters loose 2 stops of light, not 1 ;)
 
I used to have a centon mirror lens. Cheap, cheerful and don't think I used it much. It was £99. It is fine in full sunshine. Anything other then you have issues with speed.
 
Dont touch them with a poohy stick, your cheapest "normal construction" lens will give you better IQ. (y)

Depends on the extender, the seven (I think it's seven) element Kiron is very good, and it saves buying a 400mm lens, but of course a prime is better, but then a very good prime with extender is better than a carp mirror lens

Cheap Ensinor zoom at 200mm. City about 15 miles away



Cheap Ensinor zoom with 2nd best Kiron 2Xs extender. City about 15 miles away.

 
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Following from Excalibur2's post, here are some more test images that I took a few minutes ago. I thought that a brick chimney would be a good test subject as there is plenty of detail

200mm AI Nikkor at F8

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Same lens with a Vivitar 2X teleconverter. I opened the lens up to F4 to offset the 2 stops light loss. The Vivitar is not what I would call a quality teleconverter. It was bought as an impulse purchase for £5.

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Not at all bad though.

300mm F4.5 AI Nikkor at F8. There was a few minutes break between this photo & the ones above & the light had changed a bit.

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Finally one taken with a 500mm SP Tamron mirror lens:

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Mirror lenses get knocked for lack of contrast compared to primes & I think that it is fair to say that the last photo shows less contrast to the earlier ones. Mirror lenses sometimes also have a hot spot in the centre with the edges being darker. The Vivitar that I had before the Tamron suffered from this. The picture shows that the Tamron doesn't suffer with the problem.

Even with less contrast than a prime the image quality is acceptable to me.
 
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