You probably need a better screen with good magnification zoom to properly focus the moon. I've got good results from my YI M1 micro four thirds camera with a Canon FD 70-210/4 lens. This camera can do 10x magnification and it has a more modern display than the Pentax Q one, so I got a better focused moon although lacking such magnification. My next try will be using a FD 100-300/5.6 lens with a teleconverter. This way I'm planning getting a 1200mm equivalent field of view. Not bad considering it's a MFT mount with a 20MP Sony sensor, which allows better cropping than the Pentax Q.
I have PENTAX Q7 and Q-to-K adapter - just 300mm lens will blow you away :-) And it's the smallest mirror-less interchangeable lens camera on the market. Using adapter will only work for wildlife/portrait photos because of the crop factor... 50mm will give 280mm FF equivalent results :-)
Mmmmm! Donuts! But seriously, I bought a 1970's LZOS 500M/F8 Maksutov and it's awesome, so long as it's used sensibly. I love it. Using it with my Nikon D5300 DSLR.
The timelapse effect of your speeded up video was my favourite shot. I think this might have worked better with a sharp 135mm or 200mm and some cropping (provided the shots were just for UA-cam or sharing on social media). I find the longer the lens (x crop factor) is, the more likely it is that even the tiniest movement of the tripod can kill the sharpness of an image. Sometimes, using a shorter focal length, even with heavy cropping, just turns out a lot better. You could even use a cheap consumer x-300mm zoom, like the Tamron 70-300mm - I've managed to get some acceptable shots of the moon my K-mount telezooms mounted to a MFT camera - it might work out on a Q. I've wanted to pick up a Q for YEARS and try it with long lenses though!
Yeah, we found after we shot this that the rear of the lens was loose and sagging on our adapter so it wasn't focusing to infinity. We're going to re-do this video soon with a better lens and the footage and protos should be sharper :)
@@FotodioxInc ah, well that would explain it :D Every time I buy an adapter for vintage lenses I'm always hoping that everything will mesh together well enough to allow full infinity focus. So far, I've been lucky (I have a couple of Fotodiox mounts, as it happens, so you will be thinking "Hey, luck has nothing to do with it!", lol)
I tried to use a mirror lens during the eclipse, biggest regret of the whole experience. It wasn't properly aligned at those ranges. I even bought 3 beforehand and returned the others that were very clearly not focusing correctly, kept the best one, but it apparently still wasn't good enough :( I wish I had just picked up a sigma 150-600 instead :(
Well, that mirror lens doesn't have quality, that's the reason it can cost around $40, but thank you, to show the quality, was exactly what I'm looking to know about this lens, nice video
Mirrors are much cheaper to make. And it can produce wonderful images. In this video, however, the Moon is out of focus. This is a disadvantage of such a lens. Only manual focus. Also, most powerful telescopes use mirrors. Hubble has a mirror. Good images. But only after they corrected manufacturing error with a correction optics.
It's a shame that most mirror lenses on the market are cheaply made, yet mirror optics are more than capable of achieving phenomenal results and even outperforming refractors if made properly. There's a reason why so many of the world's greatest telescopes use mirrors instead of lenses. I wonder what a mirror lens made by Celestron, Orion, Meade, or some other telescope company would be like.
your sharpness would improve by having a much faster shutter speed... remember the old rule... 1/focal length (in EQUIVALENT to 35mm! - so in your case 1/3000)... also that the moon moves its own diameter every 2.5 minutes! cheers!
In retrospect we found that the lens was broken and it was mounted crooked on the camera and adapter, which explains the bad focus. We're going to redo this video soon.
@@ilyasguner2267 Good image quality won't save a terrible composition. Mirror lenses are a great challenge for someone with a lot of patience. Since there aren't many people like that, the demand isn't that high so they're super cheap. Most of the things reviewers complain about when it comes to mirror lenses can be corrected in post-processing. You can get 80% of the quality you get from a $1000 500mm lens. That's a pretty good ratio, considering you can get good mirror lenses for $70-$150. Also the reason the quality in this video looked so terrible is because he's using a tiny, tiny sensor. I use a Newtonian telescope, which has a very similar design and many of the same flaws as a mirror lens (which has a schmidt-cassegrain design) with an 18 megapixel APS-C sensor and I get fantastic results.
@@Tychohuybers thx for reply im not very experienced in post processing so idk about that. But i admit it's price is amazing for the focal length. And i probably would buy it but still when i compare it with a normal lens i can see the trade of quality with price so obvious.
Small sensor and F8 500mm lens is going to be pretty slow. I'd try it on a Nikon v1 which is a 10mp 1 inch sensor interchangeable lens camera, you'll get a 2.7 crop, so about 1300mm equivalent, about the same you'd get with 50/60x optical zoom on a super zoom bridge camera. Other alternative is to try it on a lumix gx 80 being a 2x crop larger sensor, that'd give a 1000mm, more light plus that camera has inbody I.s, unfortunately most mirror lenses aren't that sharp, but the trade off is they're lightweight
Try to remember the nikon p1000. Don't underestimate it. 6000mm on the moon is crazy with that camera. I only had the p900, so I could only work with 3000mm
In lunar and solar photography, the actual focal length counts, the longer delivers more details, forget about focal length equivalent. For example, if you shoot moon using 500mm lens on a full frame camera and a M43 camera, respectively, the details of the moon from two systems are almost similar, except need to crop more for the photo from full frame camera. In order to get decent photo of the Moon, stacking of multiple frame is required.
No, the "doughnuts" are bokeh that are doughnut shaped because of the shape of this lens. Since to moon is such a large source of light, it's not going to create bokeh the way a smaller source of light would when thrown out of focus.
This lens just happened to have the Nikon ring on when we shot, so we used our Nikon to Pentax Q adapter, but you're right, there are lots of combinations we could have gone with.
What is 2800mm in multiples? For example my canon SX700hx has 30x optical zoom and I can get cropped moonshots with it. So is 2800mm equivalent to 30x optical zoom.
Hi Dream Diction, 30x means the biggest number divided by the small one: so 30x means the longest focal length on your camera's lens is 30 times longer than the shortest, so I wouldn't be able to tell you for sure what the mm of the lens was.
Hi, I usually go to dpreview to search for camera specs. The SX700 HS seems to have an equivalent of 25-750mm optical zoom and 4x digital zoom, so 3000mm lens at maximum reach. www.dpreview.com/products/canon/compacts/canon_sx700/specifications
guys i wanna do the same on a vintage Pentax k1000 do you have an idea? it could be my first time. I thought to a double converter pentax +adapter+500mm lens... i can't find vivitar 500
Yes, and a lens that's working properly. We found out later that this lens was damaged and because of that, it was sagging on the adapter, so we couldn't focus it to infinity. That's why the moon is out of focus. We're going to make a new version of this video with the lens now that it's repaired.
I'm sorry but the quality looks very bad, all the photos seem out of focus. I have the Pentax Q and I was thinking of experimenting with FF lenses but at least in this video the results disappoint me.
We realized after we made this video that the lens was sagging on the adapter, the adapter had an issue that need to be fixed. We will make an updated version of this video to show how the focus is much sharper when the lens isn't sagging.
Thanks for the feedback. We found later that the lens was damaged and sagging, which explains the focus issues. We have a new and better 500mm T-mount lens and we're going to remake this video soon.
You probably need a better screen with good magnification zoom to properly focus the moon. I've got good results from my YI M1 micro four thirds camera with a Canon FD 70-210/4 lens. This camera can do 10x magnification and it has a more modern display than the Pentax Q one, so I got a better focused moon although lacking such magnification. My next try will be using a FD 100-300/5.6 lens with a teleconverter. This way I'm planning getting a 1200mm equivalent field of view. Not bad considering it's a MFT mount with a 20MP Sony sensor, which allows better cropping than the Pentax Q.
Sounds cool! I definitely want to remake this video with a better setup and prep.
I have PENTAX Q7 and Q-to-K adapter - just 300mm lens will blow you away :-) And it's the smallest mirror-less interchangeable lens camera on the market. Using adapter will only work for wildlife/portrait photos because of the crop factor... 50mm will give 280mm FF equivalent results :-)
Yeah, we love ours! We're probably going to do another video like this soon.
Mmmmm! Donuts! But seriously, I bought a 1970's LZOS 500M/F8 Maksutov and it's awesome, so long as it's used sensibly. I love it. Using it with my Nikon D5300 DSLR.
These lenses can make some nice images! We did another video with this lens here: ua-cam.com/video/7ZKppUSKptE/v-deo.html
Cool. It makes me want to go out and buy that camera set up and try it myself.
Have fun!
The timelapse effect of your speeded up video was my favourite shot.
I think this might have worked better with a sharp 135mm or 200mm and some cropping (provided the shots were just for UA-cam or sharing on social media). I find the longer the lens (x crop factor) is, the more likely it is that even the tiniest movement of the tripod can kill the sharpness of an image. Sometimes, using a shorter focal length, even with heavy cropping, just turns out a lot better.
You could even use a cheap consumer x-300mm zoom, like the Tamron 70-300mm - I've managed to get some acceptable shots of the moon my K-mount telezooms mounted to a MFT camera - it might work out on a Q.
I've wanted to pick up a Q for YEARS and try it with long lenses though!
Yeah, we found after we shot this that the rear of the lens was loose and sagging on our adapter so it wasn't focusing to infinity. We're going to re-do this video soon with a better lens and the footage and protos should be sharper :)
@@FotodioxInc ah, well that would explain it :D Every time I buy an adapter for vintage lenses I'm always hoping that everything will mesh together well enough to allow full infinity focus. So far, I've been lucky (I have a couple of Fotodiox mounts, as it happens, so you will be thinking "Hey, luck has nothing to do with it!", lol)
@@AndrewSowerby :)
I tried to use a mirror lens during the eclipse, biggest regret of the whole experience. It wasn't properly aligned at those ranges. I even bought 3 beforehand and returned the others that were very clearly not focusing correctly, kept the best one, but it apparently still wasn't good enough :( I wish I had just picked up a sigma 150-600 instead :(
Yeah, they can be finicky.
I guess you need faster aperture for eclipses? I normally shoot the moon at F8-11, but with clear moon.
You would get better results with a vintage telephoto lens like the Pentax 300 or 400mm, I think
Most likely!
Well, that mirror lens doesn't have quality, that's the reason it can cost around $40, but thank you, to show the quality, was exactly what I'm looking to know about this lens, nice video
$145 to be more precise
@@galernasalvaje you can find it used for $40 😅
Mirrors are much cheaper to make. And it can produce wonderful images. In this video, however, the Moon is out of focus. This is a disadvantage of such a lens. Only manual focus. Also, most powerful telescopes use mirrors. Hubble has a mirror. Good images. But only after they corrected manufacturing error with a correction optics.
@@phadeezz really? Are you comparing the Hubble with a $40 lens? Materials must be better... just to say something
It's a shame that most mirror lenses on the market are cheaply made, yet mirror optics are more than capable of achieving phenomenal results and even outperforming refractors if made properly. There's a reason why so many of the world's greatest telescopes use mirrors instead of lenses. I wonder what a mirror lens made by Celestron, Orion, Meade, or some other telescope company would be like.
Great idea! Would love to see some higher-end mirror lenses on the market!
Cool vedeo, thanks.
your sharpness would improve by having a much faster shutter speed... remember the old rule... 1/focal length (in EQUIVALENT to 35mm! - so in your case 1/3000)... also that the moon moves its own diameter every 2.5 minutes! cheers!
In retrospect we found that the lens was broken and it was mounted crooked on the camera and adapter, which explains the bad focus. We're going to redo this video soon.
Pretty cool, was thinking of getting a mirror lens
Image quality is shit
@@ilyasguner2267 Good image quality won't save a terrible composition. Mirror lenses are a great challenge for someone with a lot of patience. Since there aren't many people like that, the demand isn't that high so they're super cheap.
Most of the things reviewers complain about when it comes to mirror lenses can be corrected in post-processing. You can get 80% of the quality you get from a $1000 500mm lens. That's a pretty good ratio, considering you can get good mirror lenses for $70-$150.
Also the reason the quality in this video looked so terrible is because he's using a tiny, tiny sensor. I use a Newtonian telescope, which has a very similar design and many of the same flaws as a mirror lens (which has a schmidt-cassegrain design) with an 18 megapixel APS-C sensor and I get fantastic results.
@@Tychohuybers thx for reply im not very experienced in post processing so idk about that. But i admit it's price is amazing for the focal length. And i probably would buy it but still when i compare it with a normal lens i can see the trade of quality with price so obvious.
Small sensor and F8 500mm lens is going to be pretty slow.
I'd try it on a Nikon v1 which is a 10mp 1 inch sensor interchangeable lens camera, you'll get a 2.7 crop, so about 1300mm equivalent, about the same you'd get with 50/60x optical zoom on a super zoom bridge camera.
Other alternative is to try it on a lumix gx 80 being a 2x crop larger sensor, that'd give a 1000mm, more light plus that camera has inbody I.s, unfortunately most mirror lenses aren't that sharp, but the trade off is they're lightweight
Some good ideas! We've got a slightly better quality 500mm lens now so we may do a part 2 of this video.
Try to remember the nikon p1000. Don't underestimate it. 6000mm on the moon is crazy with that camera. I only had the p900, so I could only work with 3000mm
In lunar and solar photography, the actual focal length counts, the longer delivers more details, forget about focal length equivalent. For example, if you shoot moon using 500mm lens on a full frame camera and a M43 camera, respectively, the details of the moon from two systems are almost similar, except need to crop more for the photo from full frame camera. In order to get decent photo of the Moon, stacking of multiple frame is required.
Thank you for this video
You're welcome!
Did you get the donuts on moon photos? Without any foreground but only the moon
No, the "doughnuts" are bokeh that are doughnut shaped because of the shape of this lens. Since to moon is such a large source of light, it's not going to create bokeh the way a smaller source of light would when thrown out of focus.
I wish your future adapters have aperture control rings for Pentax k mount to q
Thanks for the suggestion
As you said you did not take the images due to equipment, then I would delete this video
Why didn't you just get a pentax fit t2 mount then a pentax to pentax q adaptor?
This lens just happened to have the Nikon ring on when we shot, so we used our Nikon to Pentax Q adapter, but you're right, there are lots of combinations we could have gone with.
Awesome brother nice zabardast story
Thanks!
I have a mirror lens but I bought one with a screw mount. With adapters I can mount it on more than one camera.
You'll need a different adapter for each kind of camera mount you use.
What is 2800mm in multiples? For example my canon SX700hx has 30x optical zoom and I can get cropped moonshots with it. So is 2800mm equivalent to 30x optical zoom.
Hi Dream Diction, 30x means the biggest number divided by the small one: so 30x means the longest focal length on your camera's lens is 30 times longer than the shortest, so I wouldn't be able to tell you for sure what the mm of the lens was.
Hi, I usually go to dpreview to search for camera specs.
The SX700 HS seems to have an equivalent of 25-750mm optical zoom and 4x digital zoom, so 3000mm lens at maximum reach.
www.dpreview.com/products/canon/compacts/canon_sx700/specifications
Nicholas Ordenes
Thanks.
Why couldn’t you get an area where there was no tree in front of you?
I guess I'm too artsy :P
guys i wanna do the same on a vintage Pentax k1000 do you have an idea? it could be my first time.
I thought to a double converter pentax +adapter+500mm lens... i can't find vivitar 500
Yeah, you'll need our T-mount to PK adapter. Here's the link: fotodioxpro.com/products/t2-pk
You need a strong tripod for that kind of magnification
Yes, and a lens that's working properly. We found out later that this lens was damaged and because of that, it was sagging on the adapter, so we couldn't focus it to infinity. That's why the moon is out of focus. We're going to make a new version of this video with the lens now that it's repaired.
you will not need to that "hard" anymore! Nikon P1000 is coming!
Yeah, just saw that! Crazy cool camera!
I didn't know Luke Skywalker does photography
Fat Luke Skywalker :)
hello….. sr. is it adaptable for Nikon d3400?
Yes, you'll need our T-mount to Nikon adapter. Here's the link: fotodioxpro.com/products/t2-nikf
is it adaptable for canon 80D?
Yes, most of these mirror lenses come in multiple mount versions, including Canon EOS.
Hi!
I would purchase that lens for my Sony.
Could be posible that you send me some moon photos taken with that lens?
Thanks!
We don't have any photos but here's some footage shot with this lens and a Sony A7R II: ua-cam.com/video/8KPv44bI_-M/v-deo.htmlm34s
If you have Sony cameras, you could also get the Minolta 500mm reflex lens.
Now imagine a cheap 2x zoom adapter in there 👀
Okay, we have to try this now :)
put a 3x tc on there with a 1000mm lmao man that would be like 16000
Oh wow! :)
I'm sorry but the quality looks very bad, all the photos seem out of focus. I have the Pentax Q and I was thinking of experimenting with FF lenses but at least in this video the results disappoint me.
We realized after we made this video that the lens was sagging on the adapter, the adapter had an issue that need to be fixed. We will make an updated version of this video to show how the focus is much sharper when the lens isn't sagging.
That's not "doughnut" bokeh, those are dust motes. Thanks for the video, but either you're out of focus or that lens is as sharp as a nerf ball.
Thats a bad quality "lens"....
Yep :)
Sorry but the photos and video are horrible, out of focus and blurry !
We're going to do a version two of this video. We found out later that the lens was damaged and sagging, throwing off the focus.
This is such poor quality
Thanks for the feedback. We found later that the lens was damaged and sagging, which explains the focus issues. We have a new and better 500mm T-mount lens and we're going to remake this video soon.