Opteka 500mm f/6.3 Mirror Lens

 This Lens I got two weeks ago on Amazon ($52) and this is what it is and what it's not....

    What it is: Opteka 500mm f/6.3 Mirror Lens. This lens has manual focus only that I found to be very smooth. This lens weighs about as much as my 50mm 1.4 prime and feels well in the hand.

    That's It........that's all there is

Image quality on anything you have to crop is lost and hand holding this beast is near impossible even at speeds of 1/4000.

    Let's take a step back for a moment. I purchased this lens for the focal length shooting wildlife. In my opinion you have to have at a minimum of a 400mm lens to get the image size you want (Or close to). The issue is a prime lens or telephoto lens at these focal lengths become very expensive. It's not uncommon to see a 150-450mm lens at the $2000.00 price and up. So with that said, I have been searching for a solution to this problem and took a try on this long Mirror Lens.

    I wont take anything away from this lens based on It's price and amount of fun I've had shooting with it. But It has a market place and maybe in the hands of the right person for the right situation, It might be ok. I had a blast testing this lens but for what I'm shooting, It fell well short. The below image was shot handheld and the sharpness is the best I could get.