Description
The Opteka mirror lens is incredibly compact and lightweight. Using an advanced reflex design, this is a mirror lens that is ideally suited for
wildlife photography and
sports photography. It has a fixed aperture of f/6.3.
When combined with the T-mount to fit
your camera system, this
Opteka mirror lens incorporates advanced computer designed optics and the latest in multi-coating techniques. The process of multi-coating assures virtually flare free photographs even under adverse lighting conditions resulting in crisp high
contrast pictures with full color fidelity.
Catadioptric lenses have several drawbacks. The fact that they have a central obstruction means they cannot use an adjustable diaphragm to control light transmission. This means the lens's aperture value is fixed to the overall focal ratio of the optical system (typically f/8 for 500 mm designs, or f/11). Their modulation transfer function shows low contrast at low spatial frequencies. The folded optical path does reduce the length of the lens, but increases its width.
Their most salient characteristic is the annular shape of defocused areas of the image, giving a doughnut-shaped 'iris blur' or bokeh, caused by the shape of the
entrance pupil.
Currently only Sony (formerly Minolta) offers a 500 mm catadioptric
lens for their Alpha range of cameras.
Samyang offers a variety of uniquely priced optics, delivering a lot of optical
capability for very little money. These rebranded catadioptric lenses are
available under the names of Bower, Opteka,
Phoenix, Rokinon, Sakar,
Vivitar and others.
Mirror lenses can produce pictures and under carefully chosen conditions they
may even produce pretty good ones. However, these situations are rare and therefore
most will have unsteady background blur. Most mirror lenses suffer from a rather mediocre optical performance. This may all be fine for personal purposes and for documentation but most likely you'll not be able to sell such pictures. Therefore a classic (refractive) lens like a 400/5.6 fix-focal or even a xx-500mm zoom
or even a 70-300-f/4-5.6 with a 1.4 or 2x teleconverter is usually a better and more serious approach. Nonetheless mirrors are quite cheap
(but you get what you pay for).
(To rephrase the paragraph above: Mirror lenses are Junk!)
Features
Advances in high-index / low-dispersion optical glasses, new barrel materials, and exotic anti-reflection coatings, along with the latest in computer-aided-design / computer-aided-manufacturing, are combined to produce lenses of unprecedented quality. Diamond-cut from crystal-clear, water-white optical glass, Opteka lenses are ground and polished to a precise precision.
Item Includes
• Opteka High Definition 500mm F/6.3 Mirror Telephoto Lens,
• T-Mount Adapter,
• Pouch,
• Front and Rear Lens Caps.
