New Member Registered: November, 2016 Posts: 7 | Review Date: July 24, 2020 | Not Recommended | Price: $40.00
| Rating: 1 |
Pros: | Nothing | Cons: | everything. | Sharpness: 1
Aberrations: 1
Bokeh: 5
Handling: 5
Value: 1
| | I have the Quantaray version of the Samyang lens and its image quality is worse than older vintage mirror lenses. The Tamron 55B, Tokina RMC and Spiratone Pluracoat mirror lenses are far sharper. Even the cheap Makinon beats it out in sharpness. I gave Bokeh and handing a 5 because they don't differ from other lenses. Everything else gets a 1.
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Junior Member Registered: March, 2011 Posts: 32 | Review Date: April 26, 2011 | Not Recommended | Price: None indicated
| Rating: 4 |
Pros: | novelty, weight, price, donuts! | Cons: | low image quality, slow, manual focus | | I have the Samyang version, but is the same lens with the same exact design and 72mm front thread, etc.
Compared to the price and image quality of my cheap 55-300mm DAL, this 500mm mirror falls very short. I found that cropping a picture taken with my 55-300mm DAL at 300mm provided a significantly superior image than anything I could get out of this 500mm mirror. Everything was soft and lacked contrast.
I've read that there are other variations on the 500mm mirror lens that are supposedly better and that this is one of the bad examples of what mirror lenses are capable of.
I'll still continue to play around with this lens and will update this review if my thoughts on it change.
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Site Supporter Registered: February, 2010 Location: Salt Lake City, UT Posts: 1,915 | Review Date: August 16, 2010 | Recommended | Price: $40.00
| Rating: 5 |
Pros: | Lightweight, small, macro focusing, internal and external threaded rings | Cons: | Donut bokeh, F8 is slow | | This lens is ok. Maybe I haven't given it enough of a chance, but it's nothing stellar, and nothing horrible.
It's focus is dampened, and is quite smooth. The macro focusing was a nice idea, although I'm not confident about how well it would perform with donut bokeh in macro images.
It has an external filter thread and an internal filter thread, and mine came with a skylight and 2 nd filters for the internal 30.5mm thread.
It's contrast is ok, if not stellar, and it can be a great performer, but getting the perfect focus is tricky.
Where this lens would really shine is if you needed an occasional extreme telephoto, but didn't want to pack around something heavy. This lens is tiny for 500mm and very lightweight. I wouldn't say quite pocket size, but easy to throw into any pack.
Lens is actually a T mount, mine has the PK adapter attached.
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