New Member Registered: February, 2014 Location: Bristol, England Posts: 3 | | Review Date: October 23, 2018 | Recommended | Price: $50.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Very compact, very sharp | | Cons: | | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 5
Handling: 8
Value: 9
Camera Used: Sony A58, Nex 6 mirrorless
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I've been a fan of mirror lenses for years, and currently have four. The two Tamron 500mm adaptall lenses (55B and 55BB) are among the sharpest lenses of their type and produce excellent moonshot images (the earlier one is better with its tripod mount). They are probably also T8 and not F8 (ie, the light gathering power of an F8 non-mirror), whereas the cheap f8 mirrors are nearer T11 (f11 in light gathering power). Mind you, many of the cheap mirror lenses you see on sale are horrid anyway - poor sharpness and apallingly low contrast, useful only as paperweights!
I have the Kenko 400mm f8 (bought new) which is quite compact and very sharp, and has a short enough MFD to be useful at macro if you can avoid donuts from anything close behind (further away is fine). A fine lens, and produces great donuts on Christmas lights.
So how does the Super-Paragon 300mm f5.6 compare?
Well my copy is extremely sharp, and 100% crops from a 20MP DSLT (Sony A58) or 16Mp mirrorless (Nex 6) still look sharp which is my usual metric. Contrast is good - I generally use a little sharpness and contrast enhancement for in-camera jpegs and results are very satisfactory.
However it is not a low-light lens and like most mirrors, isn't suited to birding in dense woodland, for example, though in open fields it can work well. On the Sony A58 I have IBIS which allows shutter speeds down to 1/20th to work, but on the Nex 6 or other mirrorless without IBIS you need 1/320 for best sharpness and results below 1/250 will be variable.
Mechanically the MF is very nice to use, though it doesn't focus as close as the Kenko (around 8 feet). The really great thing about this particular mirror (apart from the esential optical quality) is the compact size. It is no bigger than a typical 50mm SLR lens and looks like one, especially with a polarisor or filter in front to hide the mirror, and possibly a lens hood. It is a really neat lens for candid beach portraits ... it is also okay on surfers if you fit the polariser to kill the reflectiosn from the waves which give annoying donuts.
Compared with non-mirrors, it lacks a few things: AF, bokeh, OSS, zoom and for general purpose telephoto use an AF tele zoom make smore sense; but if you want a very compact prime and can live with the snags, a small mirror can be great fun. It certainly will fit in a pocket, and I find the lens to be a very good option on the small mirrorless Nex-6, as with the LA-EA1 adapter on it it is no longer than the camera is wide and fits in one seciton of a small shoulder bag with the camera in the next section.
I don't have the 350mm Tamron mirror lens to compare it to, but that one is reputed not to be as sharp as the 500mm and it is just as big, whereas the Paragon is tiny.
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Veteran Member Registered: September, 2010 Location: Manchester, UK Posts: 2,653
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: May 27, 2011 | Recommended | Price: $150.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Short, light, inexpensive, well built | | Cons: | Flare without hood | | Sharpness: 7
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 7
Handling: 8
Value: 10
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I'd always wanted a mirror lens, just to see if they were really as bad as some people make out - poor contrast, irritating bokeh, impossible to focus because of the shallow depth of field, hard to use, etc.
Well none of that is true. I'm very happy with this lens - once you get used to its limitations. It is very susceptible to veiling flare and a good lens hood is essential. Focusing is not that hard, after all it is only a 300mm. Sharpness leaves a bit to be desired but does not seem to vary much across the frame. Colour rendering is fine and the doughnut bokeh is sort of cute. Being a mirror there is no CA. I doubt that this lens is a f5.6, more like f6.3 or less.
Another myth is that you need a rear filter fitted, even if it is just a skylight one. With this lens it does not seem to make any difference whatever.
Being physically short, it does not spook people as much as a long telephoto pointing at them would.
A keeper.
  
  
  
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