Many 3rd party manufacturers used to make mirror lenses from 250mm, on up, in "T" mount, "T" mount allowed you to adapt the lens to any brand camera (even vintage mounts). I appreciated that versatility.
I just picked up a 250mm Minolta Rokkor reflex lens to fly on the Inspire 3 and use on my sony. It's fascinating to shoot with, the bokeh is interesting but the reach in such a small package is amazing.
Interesting that you mention that lens. I’m testing a yet to be released 250mm reflex lens that was inspired by the fact that the vintage Minolta is so sought after. The mirror lens thing is pretty cool.
I have the Rokkor 250mm too, had it a while. Lovely little lens, and I like the images it has given me, but, it’s not so good if you try to use it for stitched panos, that’s it’s weakness.
Wow Mark, stunning street photos with this little gem! Depending on camera, foreground and background distances, the bokeh makes the photos look a little like paintings rather than photos. From all unique look lenses you've shown us, this one has to be my favourite. And 100% the optical flaws here contribute to the look of the images. Congratulations on the manufacturer for their first lens!
I have the Minolta 500mm AF Reflex lens - it's such a unique lens as it is a mirror lens with autofocus. Definitely a cool piece of history that I don't think any other manufacturer will try again. Would be cool if Tokina tried a modern version.
Nice. If the first glass element is a corrector it seems like a mini Maksutov reflecting telescope. I know the Skywatcher Skymax 127 and 150, cheap, very good long lenses!!!
This looks good. I had a Minolta Rokkor 250mm and 500mm (so heavy) lens from around 1975. When I tried them on my M50m2 they were so shockingly bad, unsharp, low contrast, that I gave them away to a photo equipment collector within days.
First reflex lens I've ever heard of that has reasonable contrast and sharpness in the results. I hope they make more! Would love a 500+mm that's light enough to walk around with.
Love to see some love for mirror lenses! I shoot deep-sky astro and very long telephoto with a vintage Tamron 500mm f/8 55BB with good results. A lot of mirror lenses were produced with poor quality, which is what gives them their bad reputation, but there are a couple models out there that were produced very well and give great results.
When mirror lenses first came out in the 1960s and 1970s, the prominent donut bokeh was considered undesirable but these lenses were much cheaper than the refractive competitors. My, how things have changed. At $600 and up, the Kase lenses are very pricey but you find the bokeh pleasing. Tastes change over the decades, I guess. I have a Vivitar Series 1 600mm solid cat lens from the 1970s, bought used in the UK nearly 20 years ago. Manual focus, which makes it hard to focus because it's a huge, heavy beast. Maybe 200mm is the right focal length for a mirror, but it's way out of my price range. You got yours for the price of a review. At that price, I'd be happy to have it.
I bought a Tamron 500mm f/8 reflex lens in Adaptal 2 mount. I also have the extenders for it. It makes lovely images of the moon on full frame and crop sensor bodies. I've had it for years and bring it out now and again.
Kase made a "mirror effect" filter before for 24-105mm standard zooms, basically blocking the center portion of light to replica the circular bokeh. It was pretty cool, but results differed from lens to lens. I'm a little bit surprised that they would go this far to make a dedicated mirror lens though.
Mirror lenses tend to be very sensitive to stray light, part of the reason for the low contrast. That hood is probably too small to help much. I've got a Tokina 400mm szx and the hood is the same length as the lens.
I had a mirror lens back in the 90s. I got it with my first SRL camera, a Minolata Maxum something. I was surprised of the focal length and the size of the lens. I don't remember the exact focal lenght but I went to a Dolphins game, was sited all the way up in the grades and still got medium shots of the players. The people who went with me to the game couldn't believe it. I sold the lens together with the camera some years after and never got another mirror lens. Don't know why. probably because you don't hear bout them much. This one looks interesting. Love the bokeh and 200mm is a great focal lenght. I may save for a while and give it a try. Thanks for sharing
This is a really interesting lens, shame it’s so expensive but it renders really really interestingly and nicely. I reckon it’d be the perfect fit for some saul leiter esk abstract ish street photos
Hi Mark, another great review. How do you think this lens would go at outdoor photography of insects? We are a Canon family currently with a 750D and a M50.
Good Video! Here is a topic you can discuss, and it would be a good one to keep in reserve if you can't do a video. What is the difference between medium and full frame. It doesn't seem to be the number of pixels. As an example Fuji has a 100 hundred megapixel camera that is medium frame. I have seen full frame as low as 26 megapixels. So what denotes medium and full frame?
This sent me down the rabbit hole of finding a similar lens with an ef-m mount. Is the Tokina SZ 300mm f/7.1 on your list of lenses to review? I would love to see you go into detail on that lens as well!
In one of your videos you suggested the 7 artisans 50mm T1.05 APS-C MF Cinema Lens for Fuji,Sony,M43,Canon RF ,L-mount it’s for my Sony fx30 and I’ve asked for some help if you could help me in setting my camera for a videos so do the lens please thx
Learned what these things are the other day in photography class. Really weird lenses, I feel like I wouldn't be able to figure out how to use one creatively.
Nice, but for stealth Tele street, I'd suggest rather something like a Lumix 35-100mm f4-5.6 and M43 camera. It's a 70-200mm equivalent zoom, with full AF, and much smaller still.
Mark, you review a lot of cool budget lenses, so I wonder if you know of a good budget 20mm full frame lens, at least f1.8, that is low-coma that would be good for astrophotography? Full manual, no AF, is fine for that use.
I am confused... the lens you show in the video looks nothing like the one on Amazon. Is there a different version? I love the size of the lens in the video, but the lens on Amazon, not so much. Thanks for another great video on gesr...
@@markwiemels After more research I did find the ef mount on Kase's UK site. On Amazon US they don't show. Based on price I think I will look for a Nikon mount mirror. I have both F and Z mounts. I appreciate your video, it got me thinking about Mirror lenses!
Interesting images from this lens. However, I find the $750 price for the Canon version too steep for a lens that might only be used occasionally, especially since it is missing electronics and aperture. Further, never understood why an aperture blade option cannot be added near the rear lens mount, which would certainly make the lens way more versatile?
Very interesting lens! And as an L-mount user I’m very excited it’s available in the highly adaptable EF mount. I know that it’s complicated to manufacture a lens for every available mount, I’m kinda shocked that new manufacturers of lenses aren’t just making one version of their lenses, and then making all the adapters. I’m sure retailers would LOVE that model.
Another drawback to this sort of lens design is that the central obstruction significantly deteriorates contrast. At f/5.6 the obstruction is very large relative to the entire aperture. At f/8 or f/11 - which is more typical for this design - it's much better, but still quite inferior to a refractive lens. This isn't correctible in firmware or post. The obstruction removes information from the image.
I agree this is not a normal lens, personally the bokeh looks more like a horror movie trip. The size is great plus but I could not think of any reason to use it personally . I would have to get new horror movie commission . The fact there is. New lens maker is far more interesting. But I am into horror and fantasy images I will hold on to see if the lens drops in price and more interesting I would love to see more video than stills cheeers
Nothing like it? The only thing odd about this lens is the relatively short focal length for a mirror lens. Otherwise, most start around 500 mm and I've found the donut specular highlights hideous! Used Nikon mirror lenses came in 500mm, 1,000mm and a behemoth 2,000mm focal length. The prices on them are extremely cheap because of the limitations they have.
Their idea was to make a "modern" mirror lens with significantly better optical performance than the vintage options. I think they have done that, but not everyone is going to like the character.
way too expensive for the quality , £300 would seem to be right , £750 way too expensive ... , perhaps a review of currently available mirror lenses ( aliexpress has several under £200 ) .
I think the idea was to make a premium mirror lens. The sharpness is and detail is there, it's plenty sharp, but the "character" might not be to everyones taste.
It’s an interesting lens but $600+ for an f/5.6 manual focus lens just doesn’t look appealing to me 🤷🏽. I actually own a ton of MF lenses but I can’t get behind that price.
GET THE LENS HERE (affiliate link) - geni.us/MHPD3 or geni.us/QAFq2Br
So can the EF lens fit onto my mark ii m50?
@@ccmooth if you use an EF adapter then yes.
I just purchased the ttartisan 250mm f/5.6 m42 mount and I love it. Can’t wait to do some astrophotography with it!
I made a video about that lens too! Love it!
Did you try it for Astro? How did it go?
Many 3rd party manufacturers used to make mirror lenses from 250mm, on up, in "T" mount, "T" mount allowed you to adapt the lens to any brand camera (even vintage mounts). I appreciated that versatility.
I just picked up a 250mm Minolta Rokkor reflex lens to fly on the Inspire 3 and use on my sony. It's fascinating to shoot with, the bokeh is interesting but the reach in such a small package is amazing.
Interesting that you mention that lens. I’m testing a yet to be released 250mm reflex lens that was inspired by the fact that the vintage Minolta is so sought after. The mirror lens thing is pretty cool.
I have the Rokkor 250mm too, had it a while. Lovely little lens, and I like the images it has given me, but, it’s not so good if you try to use it for stitched panos, that’s it’s weakness.
I was about to mention the Minolta... man I wish they still made camera and lenses
Really love the fact I'm discovering all these unique lenses on your channel!
Wow Mark, stunning street photos with this little gem! Depending on camera, foreground and background distances, the bokeh makes the photos look a little like paintings rather than photos. From all unique look lenses you've shown us, this one has to be my favourite. And 100% the optical flaws here contribute to the look of the images. Congratulations on the manufacturer for their first lens!
Yea, agree with the painterly images, that's what I thought too.
Definitely not a lens that would necessarily fit into my kit, but I think it provides a really interesting and unique look.
Now that is very interesting indeed. The ability to shoot without screaming "look at me!!!!" is gold. really fabulous info Mark.
Yes, I want.
I have the Minolta 500mm AF Reflex lens - it's such a unique lens as it is a mirror lens with autofocus. Definitely a cool piece of history that I don't think any other manufacturer will try again. Would be cool if Tokina tried a modern version.
Nice. If the first glass element is a corrector it seems like a mini Maksutov reflecting telescope. I know the Skywatcher Skymax 127 and 150, cheap, very good long lenses!!!
This looks good. I had a Minolta Rokkor 250mm and 500mm (so heavy) lens from around 1975. When I tried them on my M50m2 they were so shockingly bad, unsharp, low contrast, that I gave them away to a photo equipment collector within days.
First reflex lens I've ever heard of that has reasonable contrast and sharpness in the results. I hope they make more! Would love a 500+mm that's light enough to walk around with.
Love to see some love for mirror lenses! I shoot deep-sky astro and very long telephoto with a vintage Tamron 500mm f/8 55BB with good results. A lot of mirror lenses were produced with poor quality, which is what gives them their bad reputation, but there are a couple models out there that were produced very well and give great results.
Where can I see some of your Astro shots, I’m looking at reviewing a mirror lens for Astro.
When mirror lenses first came out in the 1960s and 1970s, the prominent donut bokeh was considered undesirable but these lenses were much cheaper than the refractive competitors. My, how things have changed. At $600 and up, the Kase lenses are very pricey but you find the bokeh pleasing. Tastes change over the decades, I guess. I have a Vivitar Series 1 600mm solid cat lens from the 1970s, bought used in the UK nearly 20 years ago. Manual focus, which makes it hard to focus because it's a huge, heavy beast. Maybe 200mm is the right focal length for a mirror, but it's way out of my price range. You got yours for the price of a review. At that price, I'd be happy to have it.
Hey Mark! It would be great to have some budget friendly zoom lenses reviewed by you, I think they are really helpful and not that common
I bought a Tamron 500mm f/8 reflex lens in Adaptal 2 mount. I also have the extenders for it. It makes lovely images of the moon on full frame and crop sensor bodies. I've had it for years and bring it out now and again.
Kase made a "mirror effect" filter before for 24-105mm standard zooms, basically blocking the center portion of light to replica the circular bokeh. It was pretty cool, but results differed from lens to lens. I'm a little bit surprised that they would go this far to make a dedicated mirror lens though.
Mirror lenses tend to be very sensitive to stray light, part of the reason for the low contrast. That hood is probably too small to help much. I've got a Tokina 400mm szx and the hood is the same length as the lens.
Cool video!!
More full frame lenses please.
Yah, at least 1/2 of the upcoming videos are full frame.
Your discovery is 50 years old… it’s very compact and I own the TOKINA 500mm f/8 with near macro. I also own the Tokina 2x extender
I had a mirror lens back in the 90s. I got it with my first SRL camera, a Minolata Maxum something. I was surprised of the focal length and the size of the lens. I don't remember the exact focal lenght but I went to a Dolphins game, was sited all the way up in the grades and still got medium shots of the players. The people who went with me to the game couldn't believe it.
I sold the lens together with the camera some years after and never got another mirror lens. Don't know why. probably because you don't hear bout them much.
This one looks interesting. Love the bokeh and 200mm is a great focal lenght. I may save for a while and give it a try.
Thanks for sharing
My favourite genre of lenses has to be Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes that you can shove on a camera
This is a really interesting lens, shame it’s so expensive but it renders really really interestingly and nicely. I reckon it’d be the perfect fit for some saul leiter esk abstract ish street photos
Great shots of Melbourne there. I was born in Melbourne.
Cool channel too. You have a new subscriber.
📸 💥
That’s surprisingly sharp! 😲
Interesting. How is infinity focus, sharpness across the frame, and star coma (if you have tried it on a star tracker / EQ mount)?
Hi Mark, another great review. How do you think this lens would go at outdoor photography of insects? We are a Canon family currently with a 750D and a M50.
It doesn't double the focal length, it roughly triples it. The ray path is folded up.
Wow! You are right! Thank you!
Good Video! Here is a topic you can discuss, and it would be a good one to keep in reserve if you can't do a video. What is the difference between medium and full frame. It doesn't seem to be the number of pixels. As an example Fuji has a 100 hundred megapixel camera that is medium frame. I have seen full frame as low as 26 megapixels. So what denotes medium and full frame?
Interesting lens, especially 200mm. I have the vintage 500mm and 600mm. I think both are f/8.
I'd love to see a 400 or 500mm lens using the same design.
You can get 1000mm ones on eBay for around 250 - 300 bucks.
This sent me down the rabbit hole of finding a similar lens with an ef-m mount. Is the Tokina SZ 300mm f/7.1 on your list of lenses to review? I would love to see you go into detail on that lens as well!
I have a video coming today that may be of interest, new release.
I'm happy that I still have my good old minolta 5.6/250mm & Tokina 8/500mm mirror lenses and an adapter to my Sony a7iv 😎😀 both are performing great
In one of your videos you suggested the
7 artisans 50mm T1.05 APS-C MF Cinema Lens for Fuji,Sony,M43,Canon RF ,L-mount it’s for my Sony fx30 and I’ve asked for some help if you could help me in setting my camera for a videos so do the lens please thx
So can the EF lens fit onto my mark ii m50?
Learned what these things are the other day in photography class. Really weird lenses, I feel like I wouldn't be able to figure out how to use one creatively.
Do you have recommendations for more of these 'compact'-style telephoto lenses?
I have a similar Optica 500 mm which converts to 1000 mm. with my canon 2x extender. Not a spectacular lens but useful sometimes, Mark.
Nice!!!! Thanks from Brasil!!
I have a 500mm Tamron mirror lens, I used it on my MFT! (1000mm) crazy difficult to focus accurately
Nice, but for stealth Tele street, I'd suggest rather something like a Lumix 35-100mm f4-5.6 and M43 camera. It's a 70-200mm equivalent zoom, with full AF, and much smaller still.
Mark, you review a lot of cool budget lenses, so I wonder if you know of a good budget 20mm full frame lens, at least f1.8, that is low-coma that would be good for astrophotography? Full manual, no AF, is fine for that use.
I can not think of one off the top of my head, but will keep am eye out.
@@markwiemels Thank you!
Never expected them to use Telescope physics and apply them to camera lens
That’s dope
THIS IS GOOD
I have a vivitar 500mm reflex f8. The donuts are interesting.
I am confused... the lens you show in the video looks nothing like the one on Amazon. Is there a different version? I love the size of the lens in the video, but the lens on Amazon, not so much. Thanks for another great video on gesr...
This is the EF versions I use adapter, I cover this in the video.
@@markwiemels After more research I did find the ef mount on Kase's UK site. On Amazon US they don't show. Based on price I think I will look for a Nikon mount mirror. I have both F and Z mounts. I appreciate your video, it got me thinking about Mirror lenses!
Mirrorless cameras will become mirrorful cameras when you put it on them.
Haha.. True!
Ring bokeh is what it is; I personally would keep this lens stopped down. But if it's compelling to you, have fun with it.
Interesting images from this lens. However, I find the $750 price for the Canon version too steep for a lens that might only be used occasionally, especially since it is missing electronics and aperture. Further, never understood why an aperture blade option cannot be added near the rear lens mount, which would certainly make the lens way more versatile?
Lots of 500 & 600mm cat mirror lenses around, not so many at the 200-250mm range.
Is this lens available for X-Mount cameras? Will an adaptor have to be used?
Yes it is available.
@@markwiemels THANK YOU
Not having the name on the title or thumbnail is one thing, but 3 minutes into the video on top of that? What's up?
This is the style of video I make, I chapter marked “what is this lens” for people that don’t like the format and just want the name of a lens.
Like a Schmidt- Cassegrain telescope
Very interesting lens! And as an L-mount user I’m very excited it’s available in the highly adaptable EF mount. I know that it’s complicated to manufacture a lens for every available mount, I’m kinda shocked that new manufacturers of lenses aren’t just making one version of their lenses, and then making all the adapters. I’m sure retailers would LOVE that model.
Another drawback to this sort of lens design is that the central obstruction significantly deteriorates contrast. At f/5.6 the obstruction is very large relative to the entire aperture. At f/8 or f/11 - which is more typical for this design - it's much better, but still quite inferior to a refractive lens. This isn't correctible in firmware or post. The obstruction removes information from the image.
I agree this is not a normal lens, personally the bokeh looks more like a horror movie trip. The size is great plus but I could not think of any reason to use it personally . I would have to get new horror movie commission . The fact there is. New lens maker is far more interesting. But I am into horror and fantasy images I will hold on to see if the lens drops in price and more interesting I would love to see more video than stills cheeers
Like a mini schmidt cassegrain.
Just discovered something that’s been around for over 35+ years! Re inventing the wheel going-on around here! Congratulations!
Smallest 200mm ever made, and possibly the most optically perfect mirror lens ever. I’m not sure what you think you are talking about?
What ever you do do not drop it!
Nothing like it? The only thing odd about this lens is the relatively short focal length for a mirror lens. Otherwise, most start around 500 mm and I've found the donut specular highlights hideous! Used Nikon mirror lenses came in 500mm, 1,000mm and a behemoth 2,000mm focal length. The prices on them are extremely cheap because of the limitations they have.
Their idea was to make a "modern" mirror lens with significantly better optical performance than the vintage options. I think they have done that, but not everyone is going to like the character.
😮
donut bokeh.
boy oh boy - explaining how it works you should have realised it does not double but TRIPPLE the focal length!
The lens you’re showing is a lot smaller than the lens offered for sale.
I cover this in the video, it’s the EF version used with an adapter. So it can be used in any mirrorless camera.
@@markwiemels But, this brings out a follow-up tech question -- why is the EF mount version so much shorter than other mounts?
@@nelson.5Because of the flange distance between DSLRs and MILCs.
way too expensive for the quality , £300 would seem to be right , £750 way too expensive ... , perhaps a review of currently available mirror lenses ( aliexpress has several under £200 ) .
I think the idea was to make a premium mirror lens. The sharpness is and detail is there, it's plenty sharp, but the "character" might not be to everyones taste.
It’s an interesting lens but $600+ for an f/5.6 manual focus lens just doesn’t look appealing to me 🤷🏽. I actually own a ton of MF lenses but I can’t get behind that price.
It's a specialty lens for sure.
You had me excited about this, then I saw the price. No thanks. Too expensive for something that specialized.
looks weird
Bokeh looks terrible imho...
Mounting this on a micro 4/3rds with speed booster you gain a stop of light 🤌