Beginner Telephoto lens

Adhd.Artwork

Adhd.Artwork

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Shaun
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So I’m new to photography and I’ve been shooting with zoom and prime lenses however yesterday I found a great deal in Cex for a Sony SAL-500F80 (500mm F8 Reflex S.Tele).

I can’t wait for it to arrive but does anyone have any recommendations around this lens and how to get the most out of it

Cheers
Shaun
 
Adhd.Artwork said:
So I’m new to photography and I’ve been shooting with zoom and prime lenses however yesterday I found a great deal in Cex for a Sony SAL-500F80 (500mm F8 Reflex S.Tele).

I can’t wait for it to arrive but does anyone have any recommendations around this lens and how to get the most out of it

Cheers
Shaun
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Just to mention that the SAL 500 f/8 is an A-Mount lens - so designed for older Sony Cameras, and will require an adaptor to use on the newer E-Mount cameras (You've not said which camera you have).
As Steven says, you need to use some care with it in terms of background - otherwise you will get 'dunuts' in the bokeh.
It is, however, extremely small and light for 500mm (and one of very few of that type of lens which allows autofocus).
 
While I have no experience of that Sony lens I do have a Tamron SP 500mm f8, which is similar in design. DOF is extremely shallow, my lens is manual focus, but you will need to choose your Autofocus points very carefully. If you can use a tripod, and an ISO that allows 1/1000 or faster if possible.

Ian
 
I have a collection of mirror lenses ranging from 300mm upto 1000mm, they are generally compact & lightweight as well as being reasonably priced for their reach. They usually have a fixed aperture f/5.6, f/8 or f/11 depending on the model for mine. My MTO1000 fails the lightweight part

One of my 500mm models is light enough to be used with the Techart pro for autofocus which helps a lot but sadly the auto ISO on my camera wouldn't go low enough for the airshow shots I took with this.

Out of focus point sources give the donuts mirror lenses are well known for, but they can also give a bad look to longer features such as the waves here which are effectively doubled up

FS test - Reflex + focal reducer by Mike Kanssen, on Flickr

Mirror lenses can be tricky to manually focus I used one pre-focused on the corner to capture this back in 2010
BSB Brands Hatch 2 by Mike Kanssen, on Flickr

Then when one of the riders came off, and ended up on the other side of the track it turned out he was distinctly out of focus
125 rider midtumble by Mike Kanssen, on Flickr
 
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