[TexSon]

I may have made a mistake, but at $100 I couldn't pass up this lense on eBay.
I have been thinking about getting one and the reveiws and pictures I have seen posted sound like it fits the level of photography I shot. I just hope Vivitar is still making lenses as good as the ones I have for my film SLR.

[Marc Sabatella]

Vivitar doesn't really make lenses any more - they put their name on lenses made by others. So some are better than others. The 500/8 mirror they put their name on is made by Samyang, and is also sold under the names Phoenix, Opteka, and Quantaray (perhaps others too). If you'rve seen the samples from the Mirror Lens Club thread in this forum, you'll get an idea of what it can do - it's average by mirror lens standards.

[TexSon]

Average for $100 I can live with. If it becomes a passion vice a light hobby or I decide to do something more artistic with it, then I haven't got much invested and what I learn making this one work will just make me that much better with a high quality lense.

[Laurentiu Cristofor]

Please post some sample shots when you get your Vivitar lens. I've been disappointed with a Phoenix variant which afaict is made by Samyang as well - very poor contrast and resolution. Might have been a bad sample, but I didn't had the patience to try another one. Got a used Tokina for about the same price and it's much, much better.

[TexSon]

I'll do that when get a chance to use it.

[TexSon]

Here are 3 pictures I took with the lens. I did size them down a bit to load quicker, but that is it. The first is with the 18-55 Pentax, the other 2 with the Vivitar 500 mirror. They were all taken freehand, without a tripod. The one of the mailboxes is showing some heat wave from off the road, but they are definitely images I can live with. The top oval is the transformer the lower one is the mailboxes.