[Laurentiu Cristofor]

My first two bird shots with the Tokina RMC 500/8, both handheld:

1/400 (click to enlarge):


1/25 (click to enlarge):


Need to try it out more.

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Last edited by Laurentiu Cristofor; 04-11-2010 at 08:39 PM. Reason: embedded smaller images that can be clicked for enlargement

[SpecialK]

Pro-Optic (Adorama) 500/6.3...
Attachment 56694

I just noticed today (3/11) that the Sigma 600mm f/8 is available, after at least 2 years not...More than 2X the price of the Pro_Optic. Slightly longer and slightly slower....

[Marc Sabatella]

The Sigma is available where? You mean it's back in production, or just that you found one used somewhere?

[Miserere]

The Sigma is available where? You mean it's back in production, or just that you found one used somewhere?

Yeah, if they're making them new again, I'd like to know too. I like my Sigma CAT 600mm f/8.

...

[SpecialK]

The Sigma is available where? You mean it's back in production, or just that you found one used somewhere?

sigma4less.com (which goes to photo4less.com) has it as "add to cart", though I guess it could be out of stock (other out of stock items say out of stock and have no add to cart button). I thought it was more encouraging than the listing for the last couple years.

Sigma SG600F8PX - 143109 - Tele - Sigma Telephoto 600mm f/8.0 Mirror (Reflex) Manual Focus Lens for Pentax MF

[WiseOx]

Finally joined the club. Won a Tokina 500mm f8 off ebay a couple of weeks ago. Yes the bokeh is harsh....and the extra PP to fix up the contrast and colour helps....but not bad, for the reach is such a small package. She's bag worthy.

[Ecaterin]

I was admiring this thread the other day, when quite unexpectedly a Tamron SP 50B 500mm f/8 lens showed up on the local CraigsList - complete with 2X teleconverter, box and caps. I leaped upon it! Then I took it for a stroll along Lake Washington What a fantastic lens! I can forgive it the nervous bokeh because everything else about it impresses the pants off of me. On the normal images I have bumped the saturation just a bit and teeeeny amount of sharpening.

These are all hand held - I did not take many breaths yesterday :P

These guys were going like a bat outta hell, training for something!
1000mm 1/1000sec. ISO800


Proof of concept - you can use a mirror lens for portraiture :P Okay, so it's a silly lens for portraits - but it was fun to try
1000mm 1/250sec. (holy moly, how did I do that? lol!) ISO800


Playing with PP effects:
500mm 2000sec ISO400


Annnd crazy wide panorama of Mt. Rainier. This is really pushing the limits of sharpness on this lens, I had to pull out all the stops in Photoshop, but I think it came out okay Full size click here.
Four photograph panorama, 1000mm 1/4000sec. ISO1600

[Laurentiu Cristofor]

It's hard to work with this focal length on an APS camera, but I managed to get a few shots today - the first time I tried this lens out. I used a monopod.

ISO800 1/400 (click to enlarge)


PS: WiseOx and Ecaterin - very nice shots!

[Ecaterin]

Thank you! Not a bad bird yourself I like the bokeh on your birdy - it looks decorative rather than merely 'busy' as mirror lens bokeh can

It's hard to work with this focal length on an APS camera, but I managed to get a few shots today - the first time I tried this lens out. I used a monopod.

ISO800 1/400 (click to enlarge)


PS: WiseOx and Ecaterin - very nice shots!

[Just1MoreDave]

I have been working on using my Tamron 55BB to get some usable shots. My wife has seen enough shots to identify (and hate) donut bokeh. I saw this bird with a nice distant garage door as a background and thought I could get something without it. I used the 01F 2X teleconverter here - the combination of a solid heavy TC and a light mirror lens is odd - and had to use a tripod. Shutter speed was 1/60 sec. so I had lots of moving bird shots. Focus with the Katz-eye worked better than you'd expect. Prism blackout wasn't an issue but the viewfinder was really dark.

[ivoire]

I was out in the woods in Illinois today and ran across these. Fortunately i had my Russian MC ZM-5CA 8/500mm M42 Mirror lens with me to capture the event

[ivoire]

I thought i'd try stitching 14 images taken with the Russian MC ZM-5CA 8/500mm M42 Mirror lens, using microsoft ice

[reeftool]

Every so often someone brings up the topic of whether its practical to try shooting sports with one of the Sakar mirror lenses that are being sold for rather cheap. I purchased a used 500mm/f8 Opteka last fall and have patiently waited for this weekend. My daughter is a college crew rower and some of the races are several hundred yards out on a river or lake and difficult to shoot. Today was one of those spots, in Whitney Point, NY. Most of the course is well offshore and most of the shots were from about 200 yards. I was pleasantly surprised at many of the results. I'm still doing some PP as most of the shots needed some contrast adjustment, something I expected. Here are 3 shots which were part of a 20+ burst using trap focus, another question that is often brought up. Most of the shots came out similar to these with only a handful of deletes out of appox 200.

[Laurentiu Cristofor]

I got lucky yesterday with this chickadee landing close by and posing long enough for me to grab this shot:



This is my sharpest shot with the Tokina so far - best light too. When conditions are good, a mirror lens really shows its value. No doughnuts here either.

[Laurentiu Cristofor]

Something changed in how pentaxforums is displaying my shots - I set them up so that clicking on them would redirect to a page showing the larger version - now you need to right-click and open a new tab/window to see the large version - clicking them will just open the same version in a different window.