[kmurphy220]

Any tips on how to handheld a 500mm lens. I picked up the adaptall mirror and it also came with TC if I wanted to have 1000mm lens. I was wondering if anyone had any tips for handling such a beast. Thanks!

[civiletti]

The 500mm mirror is a lot easier to handle than a refracting lens. As with any extreme tele, tripod or sandbag helps. The lens has low contrast, so increasing contrast, microcontrast and saturation in post-production helps.

[civiletti]

Tip for handholding: use very short exposure times, 1/500" and faster.

[old4570]

I have one , and if mem serves its fixed F8 ..

I have used mine with 2x and 3x tele converters .. And the hardest thing was getting a good focus .. ( Moon )
The viewfinders on SLRs are just a wee bit small ...
So if you have focus peeking or live view , might be an idea to use it .

[Just1MoreDave]

Mirror lenses have a center obstruction which makes some out of focus parts of the image look odd. It's often called "donut bokeh" because points look like small rings. You can see them clearly if the point is a bright highlight. Tree branches or tall grass start to look doubled. As the donuts get more and more out of focus they blend together into an even blur. Take some shots of birds in trees and you'll see what I mean. The effect gets stronger when you add contrast in processing, so I like to avoid shots with out of focus branches.

I use live view a lot to focus. The focus confirmation hexagon will not always work because f8 is darker than the AF sensors like, and the lower contrast doesn't help. When you use a 2X teleconverter, the lens is effectively f16. I use a Tamron Adaptall teleconverter, the 01F.

For shots of the moon, you have to consider how fast the moon is moving across the frame, and raise ISO enough to compensate. I ended up doing a test one night to figure out a minimum shutter speed. I raised ISO until I got a well-exposed moon shot at 1/125. Then I lowered shutter speed to 1/60 and dropped ISO one stop, so I got the same exposure for my second shot. Do that for 1/30 and so on. Look at the shots later on a big screen at 100% and you should see when the shutter speed gets too slow. When I did this, I was using a K-7 which was not that great at ISO 1600, so I also looked at the noise level and dynamic range to see where the best compromise was.

[fwcetus]

Mirror lenses have a center obstruction which makes some out of focus parts of the image look odd. It's often called "donut bokeh" because points look like small rings. [...]
For shots of the moon, [...].

Well, at least for the moon shots you don't have to worry about donut bokeh (unless you're trying to include a tree, etc., in the frame, of course).

[kmurphy220]

Thanks guys great tips! Sky is pretty clear now, so I can hopefully get some solid moon shots tonight! Thank You!