5 replies to this topic

[Tom Kauffman]

Do 500mm mirror lens work for bird photography. Also interested in taking pictures of lunar eclipses and Jupiter when the clouds aren't obscuring it from sight. Would anyone have examples of this sort of thing that they would care to post?

[Afterimage]

There a fairly good discussion on these in this post:

Good lens recommendations? - Nikon Lens Discussion - NikonForums.com

 

The "Cliff Notes" version is that they work but don't give you the same kind of quality most are accustom too.

 

They would be useless for astrophotography for several reasons; the top being that they are either f/6.3 or f/8 ... to get enough light you'd need an equatorial mount with drive gears to track the sky... without that even a 1 second exposure at 500mm (750mm on a crop body!) is going to have everything drifting through the frame. You'll never be able to get a crisp star field and the resulting image quality would more than likely be less than appealing. As for shooting Jupiter, you'll need a lot more than 750mms to see anything more than just a tiny white ball of light.

 

Birds and lunar eclipses would work well with this lens however. My take is that they are cheap and fun lenses despite their serious limitations and mediocre image quality.

[alden]

You'll need an 8" to 10" reflector telescope and an adapter for your camera to fit on to the eyepiece for Jupiter, and even then they will be rather small, depending on the magnification of your eyepiece. 

 

I believe the camera adapters are not too terribly expensive. The telescope can be rather pricey though.

[Tom Kauffman]

Thanks for the good advice everyone.

 

I am planning to upgrade to DSLR from my Nikon P100 26X optical zoom. With it I could see the moons of Jupiter and Jupiter itself was very bright spot. I don't know how the 26X Optical zoom compares to 500mm DSLR lenses. Anyway, I am looking forward to the adventure.

[Afterimage]

The P100 is listed as being "26-678mm Equivalent Nikkor Zoom" ... which means that the 500mm on a 1.5x Crop Sensor body (like the Nikon D3200, 5200, 7100 ect) is actually longer. 678 vs 750mm. 

 

To get an image like this:

 

You need a setup like this:

 

With just a DSLR and any old commercial lens, you end up with an image like this (at best):

[Tom Kauffman]

Great visuals! Yes the last image is what I got. Of coarse the first image is what I hoped for. There is more than enough all around in nature to keep me busy. Thanks for so beautifully satisfying my curiosity.