High-Power 500mm f/6.3 Telephoto Mirror Lens (SLY50063)

This lens has intrigued me for quite some time. Recently when a friend asked if it was any good for astrophotography, I decided to give it a try.The lens feels solid. It weighs more than either my Canon T3 or SL1, but it is easy to use when mounted on either of these cameras. When used in full manual mode, metering is accurate, and adjusting exposure by changing the shutter speed is simple. Focusing on the other hand is not easy. A tripod or at the least a monopod is essential. Using this, or any non-stabilized long telephoto lens, for handheld photography is prone to motion blurring.I found this lens useful for nature photography. I, however, had miserable results when I attempted to use it for lunar photography. Getting a good sharp focus proved to be terminally difficult.I would recommend this lens for the photo enthusiast only. In the hands of an experienced photographer it can produce some interesting results. The casual point and shoot photographer will find this lens frustrating and may even consider it useless, though in fact useless it is not.

I wanted to try a new lens because my 75-300 with a 2x teleconverter has way too much chromatic aberration, is hard to focus and has too small of an aperture: f/11.2 at max zoom, this one is f\6.3, way better.This is a definite step up over kit lenses and was well worth the money, it is very bright for the cost and is capable of crisp clear shots, but focusing is not easy and the depth of field is very narrow. My camera has a liveview zoom function to aid in focusing but the stiffness of turning the barrel (no focus ring, the whole barrel turns) causes sever tripod shake- you definitely need a good tripod, which mine is not.A welcome addition to my lenses, I absolutely recommend this lens for people needing long focal lengths on a small budget.FYI not all teleconverters will work with this lens, I have a Digital Concepts 2x with autofocus and it causes my camera to say there is a dirty/defective lens connection which doesn't allow photos to be taken.EDIT: If the camera senses a teleconverter then the lense needs to complete the circuit, to avoid this you put tape over the contacts of the converter, this prevents the error.You actually have to turn the camera off to reset the error. Some website suggested Canons teleconverter, there is enough shake and light loss as it is.

This lens has very poor resolution. A standard Canon 55-250 zoom, when digitally magnified to equivalent magnification, provides a MUCH better image (resolution & color).

Very unhappy with the image quality. I'm shooting with a Fuji X-M1 camera (their cheap mirrorless camera), and when I compare it to the Fujinon XC 55-230 lens (their cheap telephoto zoom), I get marginally better quality with the Fuji lens after cropping down to match the same magnification as the Bower. And of course the Fuji lens has other advantages, like auto-focus, image stabilization, greater depth of field, adjustable aperture, better bokeh, and wider field of view.The depth of field is very shallow, making focusing difficult.If shooting with Fuji cameras, I would recommend getting a used Fujinon XC 50-230mm F4.5-6.7 lens instead, for about $167 on Amazon. I suspect other manufacturers (Canon, Nikon, etc.) would be similar.

This lens is the real deal. I have it attached to a sony a35 and the picture quality is stunning. You will have to use a tripod, obviously, and it will be your best friend.I've taken pictures of the moon with it, and I'm working on getting them with less distortion.

I got a Promaster 500mm mirror lens off ebay for $80. Great lens but has very few flaws. With mirror lenses they are fully manual. You have manual focus and the camera needs to be in manual mode for it to work. When focusing in on something the out of focus background may have O's. It happens sometimes not all the time. But to continue mirror lenses have a fixed apperature. Meaning you cannot brighten or darken the lens using apperature. What I recomend is a NDX filter. If its too bright just use the filter to darken. I do not reccomend using rear filters because its a hassle getting the T mount on and off and using filters on front of the lens provides better protection. For those who don't know T mounted lenses are compatible with a large variety of cameras. You buy the lens then the adapter so it goes in place. Do not buy a plastic mount. Some let in light letalone can snap and get stuck in the body. But overall if your OK with manual lenses and settings you should enjoy this.

Given the low price it works quite well, the pictures are decently sharp, the only minus is that any 500mm F6.3 lens is hard to manually focus, the depth of field is quite narrow. Initially I had a lot of photos where the focus was off due to me, after using it for a little bit while photographing bird and small mammals I saw a definite improvement in my focus, now I can easily get harp focused images. It has allowed me to get started in bird and nature photography at a small cost to see if I liked the hobby without spending a great amount of money, also note that due to it's mirror construction the lens is very light, so I can carry it around all day without tiring out. Another plus is that this mirror lens has no chromatic aberration (color fringes) at all.

works OK for my project :)