 Jill Skaggs |
Which is better, mirror lens or straight optical? I am new to photography and purchasing equipment as I have funds. I usually take wildlife photos and I am looking into telephoto lenses of 500mm and more. What is the difference in mirrored lenses and straight optical lenses and which is better. I know about the lens shake and using a tripod but until now I have only used up to 300mm. Please help if you can. Also what about the "cheaper" lenses. I have seen some under $200 and $300 dollars. I know the old saying, "you get what you pay for" but right now this is a hobby and I can't put $1,000 dollars into one piece of camera equipment.
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David A. Bliss |
I have never actually used a mirror lens, but the one thing I know about them is that the largest aperture setting is f8. This isn't a very big aperture for a long lens, and you can have problems with getting a fast enough shutter speed. You will be stuck shooting in bright light, which, as we all know, can be detrimental to the outcome ;-) As for cheaper lenses, do research. There are a lot of resources on the internet, if you search the lens with "review," or something along those lines. I tend to research to the point of being confused, because very few lenses get nothing but good reviews!! Just look at who is doing the reviewing. If it is someone who has a lot of experience, then you should probably put more weight into it than someone who is a beginner, and hasn't used a lot of different lenses. Also, one other tip. If your camera has mirror lock-up, try it sometime. I found a noticeable difference in sharpness. I know it is not always convenient to use, especially with fast moving subjects, but when you can, it really does help.
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Samuel Smith |
mirror lenses are for toying around with,i have one.good advice david. sam
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Terry R. Hatfield |
Dont Waste Your Money On A Mirror Lense You Will Not Be Satisfied With It,You Wont Be Able To Find A 500mm For A $1000.00, Depending On Your Brand Camera You Can Plan Spending 5 Times That Amount At Least On A Lense Like This, Used Ones Are Hard To Come By!If You Have A 300mm You can Pick Up On A Teleconverter 1.4x Or A 2.0x The 2.0 Makes Your 300mm A 600mm At The Loss Of 2 Stops Clarity Will Suffer Though.
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Jon Close |
Define "better". ;-) In the price range of $100-$400 a 500mm or 600mm f/8 mirror lens can be much sharper than a similarly priced refracting (ie. straight/conventional) lens such as Vivitar 600-1000 f/9.9-16 or Phoenix 650-1300 f/8-16 because the design is not as affected by chromatic and spherical aberrations (distortions created when light passes through conventional refracting lenses). But the blocked center of a mirror lens's front element tends to lessen contrast. Both mirror and conventional lenses in this price range have fixed apertures that limit exposure modes to Aperture Priority or Manual only. The mirror lenses are commonly 500 or 600 and f/8, but there other choices. For example, the Russian lens company LZOS has a line of mirror lenses that includes 300mm f/4.5, 500mm f/5.6, 500mm f/8, and 1000mm f/10. I have one of their Rubinar 500 f/5.6 mirror lenses adapted to my EOS and really like it. The mirror design results in doughnut shaped out of focus highlights instead of the smoother blurred disks that conventional lenses give. Minolta makes an autofocus mirror lens for their Maxxum/Dynax line, but otherwise all mirror lenses are manual focus.
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Jill Skaggs |
Thanks for all the good info. It looks like I will be looking into a straight opitical lens. As far as price, there are new ones popping up everyday. Tenko has just come out with one, a 480mm-800mm zoom for under $200. I am just not sure how good it is. I know to get top quality I could spend more than $6,000. The men in the white coats are not after me yet. I am not crazy enough to pay that kind of money for one piece of equipment. Keep it coming. Thanks again.
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Jill Skaggs |
Sorry, noticed after posting. I misspelled the lens name. It is Kenko, not tenko. I have read reviews and it sounds like a decent lens for the money.
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Steve McCroskey |
Hi Jill & Joe! I would suggest checking out Ebay or bhphotovideo.com or keh.com.You can find used equipment at a fraction of the cost of new! If you know what you are looking for,be specific in your searches! I found a Tamron 28-200mm lens for under $100 on Ebay!
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David A. Bliss |
The Kenko might be a 9.9 - 16. You are going to run into the same problem that you will have with a mirror lens. You will have to shoot in very bright light, or with a very slow shutter speed. I think you would find you would be very disappointed with it. As much as people tend to speak ill of teleconverters, you might consider a shorter lens, in the 200mm to 300mm range, and a good teleconverter. A 1.4 converter will turn a 300mm lens into 420mm lens, with 1 stop lose in light. So if your 300mm is 4.5, it would be a 420mm, 5.6 with the 1.4 converter on it. This is very acceptable for wildlife photography. Even with a 2x converter, your 300mm, 4.5 would be a 600mm, 6.7, still much better than the lenses you have mentioned.
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Jon Close |
Agree with David, but the math is off. 300 f/4.5 + 1.4x = 420 f/6.3 300 f/4.5 + 2x = 600 f/9
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Tom Walker |
Jon, was doing an internet search for some odd piece of equipment and came across a question and answer page from 5 or 6 yrs ago and you were the most frequent responder. How long have you been doing this?
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David A. Bliss |
Jon, you get 2 stops lose of light with a 2x. 4.5 minus 2 stops would be 6.7, correct? 1.4x converter is 1 stop lose of light.
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David A. Bliss |
I looked this up again, and my math is correct.
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Jon Close |
Yes, 1.4x is one stop. 1.4 x 4.5 = 6.3 2x is two stops. 2 x 4.5 = 9
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David A. Bliss |
You are absolutely correct. I wasn't thinking. I thought about this on my drive home, and I was like, DUH! I had half stops in my head. I know, stupid mistake ;-) Anyway, thanks Jon, for not calling me stupid ;-)
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Jill Skaggs |
Thanks everyone for your responses. I understand about the light problem, I didn't know it would be that bad. I am also looking into a 2X converter and using it with the lens. Such as turning a 400mm into an 800mm. I have used converters before but only up to 300mm. While they did make things better, there are some shots that I try to shoot that I am several hundred yards away and 600mm does not get close enough. Thanks and keep all the comments coming. As far as how long I have belonged, less than a year I think.
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David A. Bliss |
If you put a 2x on a lens that is f8, like the mirror lens, or an inexpensive (didn't want to say cheap ;-) ) telephoto, you end up at f16, which would be very, very hard to work with. If you are going to use a 2x (or even a 1.4x) you need a lens with a fairly large aperture. Got it right this time Jon!! Thanks for keeping me honest!
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Jill Skaggs |
David B. thank you for your response, I am very new to this depth of photography and I understand most of what everyone is saying I am not sure about the "f" settings that you are refering too. It is a shot that I am taking from several hundred yards would a large f settings bother me that much. I would think being that far away you would want a larger f stop. Like I said I am very new so I may be very far off base. But please do keep all comments coming.
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Bob Cammarata |
You would be wise to get the biggest and fastest (used) prime telephoto your budget will "almost" allow. I say this because many who want the best possible images will go out on a limb a little to get good glass. The lens is what takes the picture. If you invest in a good one it will probably out-live you and the photos you can produce with it will make the initial outlay and sacrifice worthwhile.
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David A. Bliss |
f stop can be confusing at first. The larger the number, the smaller the aperture (the amount of light that the lens lets in). Example Say you have a shutter speed of 1/500 (or 1/500th of a second) at f5.6 (a fairly large aperture opening). This is a good shutter speed for stopping action in wildlife. If you changed the f stop to 6.7 (a little smaller aperture opening), your shutter speed drops to 1/350. If you change to f8, your shutter speed drops to 1/250. This is still a reasonable shutter speed for wildlife, but you cannot hand hold anything over a 200mm lens (it will have camera shake, causing it to be blurry). If you change the aperture to f16 (a fairly small aperture opening), the shutter speed has now dropped to 1/60. This is getting pretty slow for shooting anything but still or slow moving subjects. To put this in perspective, the shot in my gallery of the red wing blackbird was shot with a 400mm lens. I took the picture around 7am (in the early spring), when the sun had just fully come over the horizon. The shutter speed was 1/180 at f5.6. This was just fast enough of a shutter speed to stop action on the blackbird displaying. If I had a lens where the biggest aperture was f8 (big meaning how large the aperture can open, remember, the smaller the number, the larger the aperture, the more light that goes through the lens), f8 my shutter speed would be 1/90. That is what we are talking about when we are saying that you would need to shoot in bright sunlight, which is generally a bad time to shoot. When the light gets high (sun moves higher in the sky), pictures lose contrast and saturation, making them look washed out and flat. I hope this helped, and didn't just confuse you more. ;-)
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Jill Skaggs |
David, No you are not confusing me you are helping very much. The tip about bright sunlight was helpful too. I did not know that, I had always been told different, "use as much light as you can". Thank you very much. I have wondered why my pictures that I take mid day look "funnier" than the ones taken in the early evening. I know see what you are saying about the larger f stop. Wildlife won't pose for a picture.... Thanks again and keep it coming.
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robert G. Fately |
Jill and Joe (funny, name, that), A lot of good points have already been made, but if I may let me add a couple of thoughts. As was stated, some catadioptric (mirror) lenses can be optically as sharp as some refracting type lenses; there is nothing inherently wrong with the design concepts, it's just a matter of execution of the design. That is, a well made mirror lens can outperform a poorly made all-glass type. One thing that hasn't been mentioned about mirror lenses is the doughnut shaped out of focus highlights they produce (as a result of their design, where the rear mirror has a hole in the center to allow the light through). There are some who like this effect - it's a matter of personal taste more than anything else. For example, a shot of a bird on the water might appear with dozens of tiny white fuzzy rings in the background; these are the out of focus reflections from the ripples on the surface. While it's true that almost all mirror lenses are fixed at f8, this might (I emphasize might) be an advanatage anyway as it will give you more depth of field - when trying to catch a moving animal this might be of some value, particularly if you have a manual focus lens. Finally, the lighter weight and smaller dimensions of the mirror lenses mean that you can lug them around the forest more easily - perhaps a consideration as well. That said, straight refracting type lenses is what most pro nature photgraphers use, despite their bulk and weight. This is because they use the fastest lenses they can afford - plus the ginormous tripods and Wimberly gimbal heads these beasts require - in an effort to minimize depth of field as well as use slower film for finer grain (or lower ISO settings for less noise - same difference). But if you're not prepared to spend as much as a small car for the lens, they're out of your budget. Since you're new to all this, it certainly makes sense not to invest multi-thousand dollars in a lens (even if you had the bucks) right now. So if you're talking about sub-$500 type pricing, then the choices are either slower glass or the f8 mirror style lenses. Of course, if you want to impress the neighbors, then the all glass version in it's 10-12 inch tube format certainly looks more "pro" than the squat mirror type only 4 inches long, but I would hope that doesn't really matter to you. You mention Kenko - they seem to have two general lines of gear, a lower priced "consumer" line and the better high end line. For example, I know they make a coupple of teleconverters, one retailing for about $100 and the other 200 or so - but the latter is far better. My point is the brand name alone may not guarantee much. Anyway, since outdoor shooting requires the patience and skill of a hunter stalking prey (which is, after all, what one does, albeit with image captureing gear) you probably will be best off getting some lens and getting out into nature to get some practice.
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