Mirror Lenses: 500mm F6.3/8.0 or 800mm F8.0

[felixcat8888]

Which is more useful on DSLR? Thinking of getting one for wildlife shots.

500mm F6.3 from Rokinon (Korea) F8.0 is Vivitar Series 1 (Korea, but under Vivitar USA warranty)

800mm F8.0 from Rokinon and Vivitar Series 1

[dnaxe]

hope you have a great tripod...

[scorpioh]

Originally Posted by dnaxe hope you have a great tripod...

Yeah, a Gitzo 3 series may not even hold it well.

[creampuff]

Felix, may I suggest you look at the Tamron SP 500mm f/8 (either the older 55B model with a tripod mount or the optically revised 55BB model which has no tripod mount) or perhaps the Sigma 600mm f/8 instead of the models you have mentioned as they have consistently shown to give superior images. With the Tamron, you will need to get an Adaptall adapter to fit the camera.

I have just got a Tamron myself and it is not a heavy lens that you can shoot handheld, though using a tripod or monopod would obviously reduce camera shake. Can't say about the lenses you mentioned as I have no idea how heavy they are, but 800mm definitely will be a challenge to hand hold... but no need Series 3 Gitzo lah...

As to the fixed aperture of mirror lenses, the issue of DOF versus max aperture for ease of focusing needs to be assessed. But as most long tele shots are taken in daylight, I'm less worried about focusing as compared to DOF, which is pretty thin at such a focal length. There are a few others who have mirror lenses who can give their inputs. My take is get the model with the best optical performance. Mirror lenses produce image with very low CA but can suffer from low contrast as the optical path has to bounce off two internal mirrors. Typically the cheap ones don't do so well in this area and show poor resolution.

[felixcat8888]

Thanks Dennis. so go look into EvilBay? hehe . . .