A
archangelrichard
Guest
I have a "Soligor" 500 f 8 mirror and a "Cambron" 500 f8 (non-mirror) - both are t mount, one has a thin T to pentax M42 adapter (which goes into a M42 to canon ef with af beep when in focus circuit) while the other has a thicker T to canon EF which is much stronger for the 500mm lens's weight (but I can switch them. One thing about pentax mount and t mount lenses - certain sizes like 40 f 6.3, 500 f 8, etc. had ONE manufacturer that would change the silkscreened bands with the numbers - depth of field and distance, and the name ring in the front - by the vendor (Vivitar, Soligor, Cambron, Spiratone, Kenko, etc; 20,to 30 different names but only 1 manufacturer (like tamron, Tokina, Olympus, Cosina, Kiron, Ozone Optical, Komine, Makinon, Asanuma, Bauer, Perkin Elmer, Chinon, Hoya, Polar and more so the name isn't important - the bigger manufacturers like Nikon, Canon, Asahi (Pentax) Mamiya, Tomioka (Yashica), Minolta etc. had their own factories), the mirrors pretty much the same but some of the main camera makers did not do mirrors - they bought someone else's too. Not sure if Nikon ever made a mirror or it was outside manufacturer but likely - they were not as big as canon (only Mamiya was as big because they made every type of camera: from press graphic, through 8 x 10, 4 x 5, 6 x 7, 6 x 45, 35mm, 16mm, 8mm - everything buy 126) - Nikon probably didn't have the bucks to make mirror lenses
One difference is a mirror has a fixed aperture - F 8 while the long lens is F - to F 22 so you can ne a bit creative and in very good light go for more depth of field (note that when you add a "tele-extender to go 2 x 500 or 3 x 500 it also muktiplies the f stop by the same factor, stealing your light), another is that the generic lenses are mostly pre-sets - you set the apertur eyou want and focus wide open then turning the aperture ring to the desired aperture (it locks you out of smaller apertures)
any long lens like this should be on a tripod but the mirror is so much smaller and lighter you can use it hand held (I recommend you find a tree or something to lean against to help steady your arms). I've gotten great images out of both (one trick is with the pentax adapter I can add a 2x or 3x adapter for much more reach) - I;m a reach fanatic because you are out of range of the target - can take real candids
Nowadays you can get this range with the smaller semi-slr "superzooms" - up to 36 x zoom usually gets you at least 500mm equivalent, likely with similar sharpness on a digital camera (the Canon Sx 40 HS with 35x zoom gets 24 - 840 equivalent with Image Stabilization (dp review claims 4.5 fstops) and 12 MP,l has a digic 5 and HS noise reduction, (the lens is 150.5mm real longest so its very compact), good aperture range (f 2.7 to f 8 at wide angle, F 5.8 to F 8 at the 840mm equiv max ---- probably a better alternative for the casual shooter
One difference is a mirror has a fixed aperture - F 8 while the long lens is F - to F 22 so you can ne a bit creative and in very good light go for more depth of field (note that when you add a "tele-extender to go 2 x 500 or 3 x 500 it also muktiplies the f stop by the same factor, stealing your light), another is that the generic lenses are mostly pre-sets - you set the apertur eyou want and focus wide open then turning the aperture ring to the desired aperture (it locks you out of smaller apertures)
any long lens like this should be on a tripod but the mirror is so much smaller and lighter you can use it hand held (I recommend you find a tree or something to lean against to help steady your arms). I've gotten great images out of both (one trick is with the pentax adapter I can add a 2x or 3x adapter for much more reach) - I;m a reach fanatic because you are out of range of the target - can take real candids
Nowadays you can get this range with the smaller semi-slr "superzooms" - up to 36 x zoom usually gets you at least 500mm equivalent, likely with similar sharpness on a digital camera (the Canon Sx 40 HS with 35x zoom gets 24 - 840 equivalent with Image Stabilization (dp review claims 4.5 fstops) and 12 MP,l has a digic 5 and HS noise reduction, (the lens is 150.5mm real longest so its very compact), good aperture range (f 2.7 to f 8 at wide angle, F 5.8 to F 8 at the 840mm equiv max ---- probably a better alternative for the casual shooter
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