I just got a Christmas present at the door. An Ebay auction of Pentax stuff that included a Meade Schmidt Cassegrain 1000mm f10 reflex lens.
So here's a couple of quick test shots and I was too excited (lazy??) to use a tripod. So the ISO was at 800. Hand held with SR set to the max at 800. So I know with a lower ISO, a tripod and cable release, these can be better. I also shot these as Jpegs in camera. RAW's would be sharper and look better overall.
The lens is a Mirror reflex and I think it's actually a telescope. There are 4 screws in the barrel grouped (in an odd pattern) together right where a range finder lens would mount. Plus the hard shell aluminum case is not a typical lens case. There are also no front filter threads or a drop in filter holder in the back as you would expect in a lens. Last no easy way to add a hood. I'll have to think of something for daytime stuff... Meade was known for telescopes and not camera lenses from what I've read.
It has a T adapter with a T2 k-mount adapter. Easy to mount and the lens is very light considering the FL. Almost impossible to shoot distant objects hand held. Just too shaky and such a limited FOV. It also has a somewhat unique tripod mount (dual screw with a center post slot)
First a car parked about 60-70 feet away @ 1/400th (Looking for some PF but none evident so far)
Second a flower about 35 feet away @ 1/640th
Last another flower at 35 feet @1/500th. I was slightly off on the focus with this one but look at the flower bud on the lower right side.
There's some noise in the shots as I'll have to get used to that "great" M lens exposure stuff on a k10D and these were a bit underexposed. A little sharpening was done to each shot just to see how it would hold up.
Edit: The resized images here don't look nearly as good as on my screen. The noise jumps out and the sharpness seems to drop. I'll post some ISO100 images as soon as it stops raining.
Is it and FA*XXX? Nope. but it seems like a very good lens and I thought I'd share this in case anyone else comes across one at a reasonable price. It's going to be slow to use MF, ME, and tripod at least 80% of the time. Bokeh will be typical mirror stuff with bright highlights and aperture is fixed at f10. There's no front screw thread for an ND and it's at least 6 inches across so it might be hard to find one anyway. But in the right situations, it seems like it might do a good job.
I'll get out the tripod and do some more serious tests with the lens to see if wildlife is really possible. I'll post some more pictures to the thread to give a better understanding of the ablities and weaknesses.
Last edited by Peter Zack; 07-23-2008 at 08:31 AM.
Reason: Comment on resized images