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Mirror lenses were invented in
the 40's and 50's. Then they were
extremely popular, Suddenly it was possible to
take 500mm-shots from hand!, they could be
easiliy taken along, and photographers were less
prominent at the scene. Reporters valued them
for these reasons.
Dimitri Maksutov, a Russian scientist, developed
this new piece of tech. The first one was a
500mm in a wooden box. It is a collectors item
nowadays... The image quality was impeccable,
and was based upon the "Cassegrain-Principle".
The lens made it's way to the
west, and became very popular.
 So the western and japanese
manufacturers started their own developement,
and came up with a cheaper design, the "Catadioptric-Principle".
Soon, a steady range of mirror
lenses rolled into the shops, from very
expensive to extremely El Cheapo's.
Many were sold, and, in the
80's, they suddenly dissapeared... |
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What happened?
A
little tale fron "THE PARANOID TIMES":
Once
upon a time there was a professional photographer who
had a lot of competition. He figured, that to cut out
some of his competitors, he had to make the
equipement-costs very high. So he invented an OPINION..
The
opinion was, that mirror lenses were bad, and useless.
The
photographers loaded with money followed his opinion,
and soon the cheaper equipment was banned for esthetic
reasons. Anyone using mirrors was mocked, until
they upgraded, or left the scene.
Of course, I
made up this tale myself, but some thoughts keep
lingering...
Wat's so bad about
them? Why were they banned really? How come this general
opinion?
It turned out, that
they indeed had some disadvantages and peculiarities. So
to eliminate them, just spend a few thousand bucks for a
PRO-lens. It was just to obvious for me. I had to
examine and evaluate evey argument. And this is the
result of my findings:
First of all, I find
it necessary to point out, that long range tele work is
a very hard and specialized part of photography. Even
wind, high temperature haze, and unclear conditions
can make shooting a crime. The first pics are, even with
the best glasswork, mostly discouraging. Just practice,
practice, and........
CON 1:
small FIXED aperture, F8 or less:
True, but take
a 500 5.6, include a 2x converter, and you get... F10!.
AND, there ARE 5.6 mirrors too! Yes, the aperture is
fixed, but I don't care, because I reckon I need all the
speed I can get, so I would use a normal lens at the
widest aperture anyway. Also the blessings of digital
photograpy come in handy, simply use the ISO settings to
adjust the lighting needs.
It is possible to
shoot from the hand with a 500mm mirror, and I had a
report of someone with a Sony Alpha camera, who got
great pics at 1/60th with his 600mm Sigma mirror, thanks
to the image stabilizer. He sent me a pic, it was great,
but I lost it, sadly. It seems that the combination of a
camera with image stabilizer and a mirror lens is an
almost ideal one!
Every tele with a
range over 300mm should be supported with a sturdy
tripod, by the way. (see update
below)
CON 2: The
Donuts:
In the unsharp part
of the image appear "strange" ligt rings. It is an
effect of the mirrors, it is indeed present, but also
somewhat controllable by the choice of composition.
Avoiding bokeh reflections elininates most of them, and
should there be a desire to eliminate the remains, a
Photo editor, used with knowledge of course, does
wonders! Just see these 1000mm examples:
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Donuts visible, I don't care |
Removed with Photoshop |
What I do, is to make use of masking
with feathering, and the applying more or less
Gaussian blur, also if necessary repeating the
process with a shrunken mask. (or a redefined one).
It is impossible to remove
everything, but adding a bit darkening, if possible
too, makes the problem even smaller.
Also I link to a German site
(ITS-Online, see below), he addresses this too, but
in German...
CON 3: bad
colours:
In film, this is a
problem indeed, but again, the digital age comes to the
rescue! Use, and/or tweak the white balance settings of
the camera, and you're done!
CON 4: Vignetting
problems:
This is a quality
issue! Not a basic design flaw! My Rubinar is supposed
even to fill the negative of a Mid-format Mamiya. So,
not true! Bad mirrors HAVE been made though, so only buy
the best ones! They cost much less than the cheapest
long tele anyway!
CON 5: Poor
contrast:
I am starting to
repeat myself, but again the digital workflow makes the
day! And after the contrast adjustment has been
completed, it turns out that mirror lenses can yield
high resolution images!
CON 6: No auto
focus:
Not entirely true, I
know of a Minolta that has!. Furthermore we used to do
without it, remember it, you geriatrics? I do, and have
re-learned it in the digital age. On my Nikon D70,
I have no metering either, so I have to re-learn how to
adjust shutter speeds by examening my motive more
seriousely. The histogram function tells me if I had it
right, so some pre-tweaking is in order.
I find this connects
me very well to my images, It makes me take a shot with
great care and concentration, just like in the old days.
IT's great FUN! I shoot in RAW, this gives me
total image control.
A german commercial
photographer, Stefan Krause, shares my opinions. You can
read it (in German) here:
Also
MIRROLENS.BLOGSPOT.COM is interesting.
As
with everything, some have been crafted with great care,
and others are not even worth mentioning.
These
3 are in my opinion one of the best....
Nikon 500mm |
Sigma 600mm |
Maksutov 1000mm |
....Also I heard good things from
the Tamron SP...
Sadly, many fine Mirror lenses are
being used as dust collectors, or even as door
stoppers!!
The digital age has made a revival of the
mirror lens possible!
Especially recommended for those
on a tight budget, and with time to spare. I can
understand, that professionals can't afford to lose
a shooting opportunity, and therefore are bound to
speed, and thus fast, expensive lenses, but the
results made with a good mirror lens are very fine
as well!
In spring 2006 I was shooting
birds on the muddy beaches of the Waddenzee, and,
lying in the mud on my belly, I realised, that, if I
had a pro lens, I would not even have considered
going there!
I HAD GREAT FUN THERE, I 'll tell
you that!!!!!!
Update!!
I had some troubles
getting sharp images from the 1000mm Maksutov under poor
lighting conditions (below 1/125th). So I bought a
Manfrotto Lens Support 293, and, later, a Manfrotto 359
too.
I found myself laying
heavy bags and so on top of the lens-camera combination,
but nothing helped.
I have a friend and
colleauge photographer,
Gerard
Kingma, (click on his name to enter his site), He
borrowed me his super sturdy PRO-Gitzo tripod hardware,
and even that was just not enough, although it helped a
little......
Imagine someone getting
desperate! By then I had made my setup almost unmovable.
In nature photography flexibility is essential, so this
was not going to cut it.
And then I discovered,
maybe less is more, looking at the photographers using a
monopod.
This thought saved the
day, my setup is the following: I mount the
Maksutov directly onto the manfrotto 141RC head,
but I DO NOT FASTEN the TILTING and PANNING grips.
This way I must stabilize the movement with my hands and
thus part of my body weight. Use of a tripod instead of
a monopod gives me a reference point, and so, now all
problems are solved!!!!
DISMANTLING
PROCEDURE for MTO-11-CA
:
A pretty straightforward task really, not
difficult at all. By unscrewing the front "optic ring"
you can take the front glass out for cleaning.
The back opens up, by unscrewing the whole rear part (which
also holds the lens mount), turning counter-clockwise,
after taking out the (in my case 1) locking mini-screw.
The thread is pretty long, so keep turning!
To remove the main mirror, the silver ring (which holds
the pressure ring) must be unscrewed, also counter
clockwise. also locked by 1mini-screw.
Cleaning is done with warm water, dish washing soap, and
then rinsed with warm water and dish-washer liquid (for
shining). CAREFUL, make no scratches!!!!
The lens elements are in the long black center tube.
This also can be unscrewed.
The only real catch here, is to use screwdrivers that
fit excellently. The quality of the screws itself are
mediocre, and the can break if you are rough... |
