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100 in 100: Field report: Pro Optic 500mm f/6.3 mirror lens

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100 Photographic Tips in 100 Days, Part III: Day 41

By Mason Resnick

October 27, 2008

Lots of mm's for the $

For more tips, go to the 100 in 100 Part III Homepage

This week, we at Adorama are tooting our own horn. You see, over the years we've created many, clever, useful or just plain fun gadgets that fill particular photographic needs and can enhance your photographic experience. Some of these accessories are designed for hobbyists, while others are meant to meet the needs of pro shooters. So, here are a bunch of stand-out gadgets made exclusively for Adorama's customers.

If you're an aspiring nature shooter who is discouraged by the high cost of supertelephoto lenses (which can run into the thousands of dollars), here's a low-cost alternative: the explained last week by Bryan Peterson.

Focusing: Depth of field is so shallow that you have to be really careful focusing. Use live view if you have it to confirm focus, or zoom in on your preview image to make sure you got it. However, when focus was good and the camera was stable, I was impressed by the quality of the images. I was also pleased with the fact that you could focus as close as approximately 3 feet.

Image quality: On a flat plane subject I found image quality to be very good. While I didn't have an all-glass equivalent tele lens to compare to, independent testers such have found the quality difference between better-quality mirror lenses and much more expensive glass lenses to be minimal.

Center detail: Here's a center detail of the above image, shown at ISO 100, 100 percent. It is acceptably sharp, with no fringing or distortion.

Corner detail: Quality in the corners--where sharpness tends to deteriorate, looks very good. Hardly any noticeable deterioration in quality in this 100 percent detail.

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Supertele! With a 750mm (equivalent) focal length, I was able to get this close encounter between real and man-made bird (even though the plane and bird were probably close to a mile apart). I shot this hand-held at 1/1500 sec.

Conclusion: A fun lens!

Yes, there are some challenges with this lens: the aperture is not adjustable, it's not autofocus, and some people don't like donut-shaped specular highlights. It is faster than the other indie mirror lens on the market, the Previous | Next

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