My old new lens

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Felisek

Senior Member
My old new 1000 mm lens

I bought this lens to take pictures of the 1999 total solar eclipse. Since then, I moved several times, living in student and rented accommodation and moving countries as well. I left the lens behind, but after a while a couldn't find it, so I thought I lost it. However, to my surprise, after 15 years I found it in my Dad's old apartment (very well hidden).

Here it is. Meet the MTO-11CA, a Russian 1000 mm, f/10 Maksutov-type mirror telescope. It's got a M42 mount, so I need to get an adapter, but it should work fine with my D7100. It's use it obviously limited. It is a manual focus lens with fixed aperture. I guess I can use it for astrophotography and take a few pictures of the moon. I don't envisage using it with wildlife ;)

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F

Felisek

Senior Member
Some people use it for wildlife, but bokeh is very nasty, like in this example. This is due to the secondary mirror at the front of the lens. It creates a dip in the middle of the point spread function.
 
M

mikew_RIP

Senior Member
I have seen them used successfully especially in the old film days when it was the only way most of us could get 500mm via the good old Tamron,if you got true dough nut bokeh it was worse than that.
 
J

Jacknet

Senior Member
Wow, how cool is that. I'll bet it's great on the stars. It looks like a miniature telescope. I'd love to try something like that. Have you tried it yet?
 
B

Blacktop

Senior Member
Jacknet said:
Wow, how cool is that. I'll bet it's great on the stars. It looks like a miniature telescope. I'd love to try something like that. Have you tried it yet?
Click to expand...

You can pick up these mirror lenses pretty cheap on e-bay if you have a couple hundred to experiment with.
 
F

Felisek

Senior Member
Jacknet said:
Wow, how cool is that. I'll bet it's great on the stars. It looks like a miniature telescope. I'd love to try something like that. Have you tried it yet?
Click to expand...

Image quality is not so good. First of all, it is very difficult to focus, a tiny turn of the barrel throws it out of focus. Even if you manage to get it focussed, the images come out soft. I took some pictures of the Moon and they look a bit soft. I have actually seen better Moon pictures from the Tamron 150-600.

You get what you pay for. Cheap optics, cheap images :rolleyes:
 
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