Canon 500 / 8 Mirror Lens.

[Lloydy]

I thought I'd add to the mirror lens topics, with the Canon 500 / 8. I've had this lens over 35 years and had some good pictures from it, even hand held from a boat getting shots of seabirds on a cliff using a Canon A1.
Sadly, I stored it in a steel locker and it now has a bit of fungus on the optics and mirror, but not enough to render the lens useless.
After seeing some of the excellent shots with the Tamron 500 in different topicsI took the Canon out yesterday in bright afternoon sunshine to try it at close range in the graveyard, long shots were pointless as there was still fog across the valley.

I have darkened the plastic flowers picture slightly, and colour corrected the daffodil picture. Other than that they are untouched or sharpened. ISO 800 and on a NEX5.

I'm not sure that I like the bokeh from this lens, I know that the donuts are something that mirror lenses create and they are unavoidable. But I'm not sure about the ghosting on thin out of focus objects such as grass and sticks, the bokeh is a strange double effect, and it's very messy. Perhaps it's down to these shots all being close to the 4 meter close focusing distance? The two crops show it clearly.









This is horrible bokeh, the donuts are expected - it's the shadow / double effect that I don't like.




The daffodils were in the bright sun but directly behind them it was deep shade, no donuts or crazy bokeh.


Scanned from 'Lens Work' Canon's excellent book of lenses.

[drjs]

Just lovely. I think these mirror lens are were ahead of its time. If we had focus peaking, auto iso, and excellent low light performance sensor in the 80s, these would have sold like hot cakes!