Mirror lenses are a dying breed. They have less contrast and sharpness compared with normal refractive glass, and their advantages (namely compactness and expense) have been deemed unequal to their image quality. They are almost exclusively manual focus, and have a fixed aperture which limits flexibility. They also have a unique trait - doughnut bokeh. Hated by some and sought-after by others, this is probably the single issue that decides people on mirrors.
I've been after a mirror for a long time, mainly just because I was intrigued. I looked at them back when I had my Pentax DSLR, but somehow never got around to forking out for one. I looked at them again when I got my GM5, but again - I couldn't justify the cost for the experiment, so I simply moved on. It is a niche-use lens.
Then, in the middle of a night shift, I spotted one on eBay for £110. Tokina (for some reason that I do not comprehend - I don't imagine it's a big market) made a brand-new 300mm micro-four-thirds mirror lens back in 2012. Kudos to them for bucking the trend and making something a little different! The Tokina mirror has electronic contacts (so it tells the camera what it is for IS and EXIF purposes) but is otherwise fully manual. In this case, fully manual means manual focus, as the aperture is fixed at f6.3.
BUILD QUALITY AND HANDLING
The 300mm f6.3 is solidly built. The manual focus ring is large and smooth, with a significant amount of throw - it takes time to get the focus from short to long. It is also designated as a 'macro' lens - this is probably a little optimistic but the closest focus is relatively short for such a long lens - a shade under 80cm.
As my copy came off eBay, it didn't come with any of the mod cons like a lens hood (or indeed a lens cap). I stuck the 55mm lens cap from my Konica Hexanon (which now takes a 28mm cap) on it which works a treat. I haven't yet enountered any issues with flare without a hood.
Also a fairly irrelevant point, but it looks cool. Catadioptric lenses are funky, with their great big plastic secondary mirror mount in the front - be prepared for people to ask you about it.
IMAGERY
This is really the key issue with this lens - can you produce sharp images with it? Well, the short answer is: sort of. There are two main problems with this lens in day-to-day use (discounting the bokeh, which I will come on to). The first is that mirror lenses are low-contrast compared to their glass counterparts. This means that focusing them is harder, especially combind with the relatively dark (and completely fixed!) f6.3 aperture. Pictures from this lens need more work in post to make them 'pop'. I found that the less-effective focus peaking (and lack of in-body stabilisation) on my GM5 rendered this lens extremely difficult to use, but my EM5 MkII fared rather better and rendered it much easier to actually focus. First hurdle sorted.
The second issue is that the depth of field is very slim, and combined with the focus issue above that makes for a greater percentage of missed shots than you might be used to. Even with focus peaking on a stationary subject it is certainly possible to miss the focus, and therefore walk away empty-handed. I took about six of the shot below, and one of them came good. Even then, the low contrast prompted a B&W conversion rather than pushing the colour version.
BOKEH
Another contentious thing for people to consider! Rather than the traditional 'bokeh balls' most lenses produce, mirror lenses such as the Tokina 300mm produce 'doughnuts' in the background. With busy backdrops this can result in fairly unpleasant, distracting backgrounds which is another reason these lenses have fallen by the wayside.
That being said, this is not always a problem. It is certainly possible either to mitigate the bokeh entirely, or even to use it as a feature in the photo:
CONCLUSION
This is a very mixed bag. On the one hand, you have a manual-focus, aperture limited, low-contrast lens that is appreciably difficult to use. The bokeh is bad more often than not, and it is a generally awkward customer. You can't use it in low light and you might as well give up if you're planning on using it without image stabilisation or a heavy tripod in all but the brightest of sunny days.
That being said, it can produce good images under the right circumstances, and is especially easy to use as a pseudo-macro for close-ups of stationary things. More crucially, despite its foibles this is a 600mm equivalent telephoto lens that weighs under 300g. The nearest competitor is probably the Lumix 100-300mm f4.5-5.6, which comes in at 520g and is literally twice the size.
The bokeh really is a matter of personal taste. Overall, I think it is a strike against the lens more often than for it, despite the fact that you can use it creatively if you think about it enough.
Lastly, this is a lens you can pick up relatively cheaply, probably because of the above difficulties. If you aren't sure if extreme-telephoto photography is for you, then this is a way into it without emptying your bank account and remortgaging your home. Overall, this all comes across as very negative, but there is something about this lens. It feels like a real 'skill' lens - you can't just pick this up and expect results. If you take a perfectly adequate photo but it's been taken with this, you are disproportionately proud of it just because you know how much practice you need with this thing to make it work. I think I'll probably keep it, and I might even take it on honeymoon with me to see if I can get to know it a little better and produce cleaner images. Looking at the flickr group for this lens does suggest that I could be getting better results...so maybe that's what I need to be doing. Watch this space!
Build quality: 4.5/5 (solid metal build, smooth focus ring)
Image quality: 2/5 (low-contrast and peculiar bokeh, although capable of sharpness if focused well)
Portability: 5/5 (for the focal length - unparallelled)
Worth having with you? If you want creative bokeh, a trial of long lenses without the financial investment or a very lightweight but not-that-great telephoto, then yes. Otherwise probably worth trying one of the telephoto zoom offerings (Lumix 100-300mm or even 40-200mm).
I've been after a mirror for a long time, mainly just because I was intrigued. I looked at them back when I had my Pentax DSLR, but somehow never got around to forking out for one. I looked at them again when I got my GM5, but again - I couldn't justify the cost for the experiment, so I simply moved on. It is a niche-use lens.
Then, in the middle of a night shift, I spotted one on eBay for £110. Tokina (for some reason that I do not comprehend - I don't imagine it's a big market) made a brand-new 300mm micro-four-thirds mirror lens back in 2012. Kudos to them for bucking the trend and making something a little different! The Tokina mirror has electronic contacts (so it tells the camera what it is for IS and EXIF purposes) but is otherwise fully manual. In this case, fully manual means manual focus, as the aperture is fixed at f6.3.
BUILD QUALITY AND HANDLING
The 300mm f6.3 is solidly built. The manual focus ring is large and smooth, with a significant amount of throw - it takes time to get the focus from short to long. It is also designated as a 'macro' lens - this is probably a little optimistic but the closest focus is relatively short for such a long lens - a shade under 80cm.
As my copy came off eBay, it didn't come with any of the mod cons like a lens hood (or indeed a lens cap). I stuck the 55mm lens cap from my Konica Hexanon (which now takes a 28mm cap) on it which works a treat. I haven't yet enountered any issues with flare without a hood.
 |
| Excuse the eccentricity of this shot. I couldn't be bothered to get another shot done. Same reason the quality is bad - took it with the Jupiter-8 wide open. Oops. |
Also a fairly irrelevant point, but it looks cool. Catadioptric lenses are funky, with their great big plastic secondary mirror mount in the front - be prepared for people to ask you about it.
IMAGERY
This is really the key issue with this lens - can you produce sharp images with it? Well, the short answer is: sort of. There are two main problems with this lens in day-to-day use (discounting the bokeh, which I will come on to). The first is that mirror lenses are low-contrast compared to their glass counterparts. This means that focusing them is harder, especially combind with the relatively dark (and completely fixed!) f6.3 aperture. Pictures from this lens need more work in post to make them 'pop'. I found that the less-effective focus peaking (and lack of in-body stabilisation) on my GM5 rendered this lens extremely difficult to use, but my EM5 MkII fared rather better and rendered it much easier to actually focus. First hurdle sorted.
 | |
| A shot showcasing both the doughnut bokeh and that this lens can produce sharp images, although you can see that the 'pop' factor is missing. |
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| It is much easier to take photos relatively close. This was taken at a distance of about 3 metres (roughly 10ft) and has not been cropped. |
The second issue is that the depth of field is very slim, and combined with the focus issue above that makes for a greater percentage of missed shots than you might be used to. Even with focus peaking on a stationary subject it is certainly possible to miss the focus, and therefore walk away empty-handed. I took about six of the shot below, and one of them came good. Even then, the low contrast prompted a B&W conversion rather than pushing the colour version.
 |
| Swans, with a minimum of distracting bokeh. |
BOKEH
Another contentious thing for people to consider! Rather than the traditional 'bokeh balls' most lenses produce, mirror lenses such as the Tokina 300mm produce 'doughnuts' in the background. With busy backdrops this can result in fairly unpleasant, distracting backgrounds which is another reason these lenses have fallen by the wayside.
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| Busy, distracting backgrounds area feature. |
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| The Bubble Factory |
This is a very mixed bag. On the one hand, you have a manual-focus, aperture limited, low-contrast lens that is appreciably difficult to use. The bokeh is bad more often than not, and it is a generally awkward customer. You can't use it in low light and you might as well give up if you're planning on using it without image stabilisation or a heavy tripod in all but the brightest of sunny days.
 |
| Macro-style shots (although obviously not true macro) are fairly straightforward provided you've enough light. |
That being said, it can produce good images under the right circumstances, and is especially easy to use as a pseudo-macro for close-ups of stationary things. More crucially, despite its foibles this is a 600mm equivalent telephoto lens that weighs under 300g. The nearest competitor is probably the Lumix 100-300mm f4.5-5.6, which comes in at 520g and is literally twice the size.
The bokeh really is a matter of personal taste. Overall, I think it is a strike against the lens more often than for it, despite the fact that you can use it creatively if you think about it enough.
Lastly, this is a lens you can pick up relatively cheaply, probably because of the above difficulties. If you aren't sure if extreme-telephoto photography is for you, then this is a way into it without emptying your bank account and remortgaging your home. Overall, this all comes across as very negative, but there is something about this lens. It feels like a real 'skill' lens - you can't just pick this up and expect results. If you take a perfectly adequate photo but it's been taken with this, you are disproportionately proud of it just because you know how much practice you need with this thing to make it work. I think I'll probably keep it, and I might even take it on honeymoon with me to see if I can get to know it a little better and produce cleaner images. Looking at the flickr group for this lens does suggest that I could be getting better results...so maybe that's what I need to be doing. Watch this space!
Build quality: 4.5/5 (solid metal build, smooth focus ring)
Image quality: 2/5 (low-contrast and peculiar bokeh, although capable of sharpness if focused well)
Portability: 5/5 (for the focal length - unparallelled)
Worth having with you? If you want creative bokeh, a trial of long lenses without the financial investment or a very lightweight but not-that-great telephoto, then yes. Otherwise probably worth trying one of the telephoto zoom offerings (Lumix 100-300mm or even 40-200mm).
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| And, of course, you can use it as a telescope which is kind of cool. Shot handheld, unstabilised, from someone's back garden. |
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