A 500mm lens of any brands (that support AF and other whatsnot) will not be the cup of tea for most people... for many reasons... For me... it will break my back and make me more than S$10k poorer. So I value my back and my wallets (not making alot these days)... especially not for something that I would only use once in awhile.
So I decided to get a cheap second hand mirror lens to test out my skills for birding around 1 year ago. It was not my forte... so this lens had been resting in my dry cabinet until recently when I wanted to play with a longer range lens.
Well... this lens is light enough and small enough to be carried around easily. If you are used to a 7D... the weigh poses not restiction of whatsoever to you.
Anyway, some of the spec from the net:
Focal length: 500mm
Aperture: f/6.3 (fix - meaning, you cannot change aperture at all... of course many had claimed that by adding whatsnot, you can do it, but I am not going there).
Optical Construction: 7 elements in 6 groups.
Length: 119.5mm
Maximum dia: 98mm
Weigh: 705g
Mount: T-mount
One thing worth noting was that the lens is very thick in diameter... but feels very good in hand. It is a T-mount lens and so an adapter is needed if you wanted to mount it on your camera be it Sony, Canon, Pentax or Nikon.
Seen here is the Opteka mounted on my Canon EOS 7D.
First off... the Opteka 500mm f6.3 mirror lens was also being manufactured and carried the brand of Samyang too... that is why the lens is made in Korea (Samyang being a Korean company) and the lens is actually being designed and make by them.
The lens had a buttery smooth zoom ring that is a joy to use and so very very simple and effortless to zoom in and out.
Due to the big size of the lens (thickness wise), it needed an equally large dia filter if you wanted to add in a filter (filter size is 95mm) and so the filter is not going to be too cheap.
Anyway, the lens don't cost more than S$400 second hand (in fact I got it for around S$200).
Sharpness wise, it is quite good... for stationary object in bright daytime.
Well... sharpness is good if you can achieve a good focus on your subject and if your subject is moving, then unless the sunlight or environment is bright enough, it will make capturing of that subject a near impossible.
A failed attempt to shoot a bird... it is jumping all over the place and was very very fast. I believe that I would not have any trouble if I am using my trusty old 300mm with a 1.4x teleconverter because my aperture will still be bigger as compared to the 500mm f/6.3 lens... so my shutter speed will be good.
Another problem with this mirror lens was the terrible CA issue.
As per the photo on top, you can see very bad purple fringing on the cable and the entire outline of the crane.
Another issue with this lens is the weird donut shaped bokeh. Not sure if that is a problem... because to me... I like that unique shape.
This is a lens that gives alot at that price... but it would not be everyone's forte... I like it alot but not enough for me to be bringing it on all my travelling... and shoots.
Given the choice and if money is not an issue, I will still get a proper EF 500mm... But, if money is the issue, then this 500mm f6.3 would work very very well indeed.
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