Originally produced by

Minolta was a Japanese manufacturer of cameras, camera accessories, photocopiers, fax machines, and laser printers. Minolta Co., Ltd., which is also known simply as Minolta, was founded in Osaka, Japan, in 1928 as . It made the first integrated autofocu ...

, then by

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

, the AF Reflex 500mm f/8 was a

catadioptric A catadioptric optical system is one where refraction and reflection are combined in an optical system, usually via lenses ( dioptrics) and curved mirrors ( catoptrics). Catadioptric combinations are used in focusing systems such as searchlights ...

photographic lens A camera lens (also known as photographic lens or photographic objective) is an optical lens or assembly of lenses used in conjunction with a camera body and mechanism to make images of objects either on photographic film or on other media capa ...

compatible with cameras using the

Minolta A-mount was a Japanese manufacturer of cameras, camera accessories, photocopiers, fax machines, and laser printers. Minolta Co., Ltd., which is also known simply as Minolta, was founded in Osaka, Japan, in 1928 as . It made the first integrated autofocu ...

and

Sony A-mount , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

lens mounts. The Minolta/Sony Reflex 500mm lens was the only production mirror lens designed to

auto focus ''Auto Focus'' is a 2002 American biographical drama film directed by Paul Schrader and starring Greg Kinnear and Willem Dafoe. The screenplay by Michael Gerbosi is based on Robert Graysmith's book ''The Murder of Bob Crane'' (1993). ''Auto F ...

with an SLR camera. There are other mirror lenses that can mount onto current mounts such as

Canon EF-mount The EF lens mount is the standard lens mount on the Canon EOS family of SLR film and digital cameras. EF stands for "Electro-Focus": automatic focusing on EF lenses is handled by a dedicated electric motor built into the lens. Mechanically, it i ...

and

Nikon F-mount The Nikon F-mount is a type of interchangeable lens mount developed by Nikon for its 35mm format single-lens reflex cameras. The F-mount was first introduced on the Nikon F camera in 1959, and features a three-lug bayonet mount with a 44mm thro ...

, but all of these mirror lenses are

manual focus In the field of photography, a manual focus camera is one in which the user has to adjust the focus of the lens by hand. Before the advent of autofocus, all cameras had manually adjusted focusing; thus, the term is a retronym. The focus itself m ...

only. Only this lens can have its focus controlled by the camera's

autofocus An autofocus (or AF) optical system uses a sensor, a control system and a motor to focus on an automatically or manually selected point or area. An electronic rangefinder has a display instead of the motor; the adjustment of the optical syste ...

motor in conjunction with

TTL TTL may refer to: Photography * Through-the-lens metering, a camera feature * Zenit TTL, an SLR film camera named for its TTL metering capability Technology * Time to live, a computer data lifespan-limiting mechanism * Transistor–transistor lo ...

autofocus sensing. In terms of the Minolta AF and subsequent Sony α SLR systems, this lens is an anomaly, being the only lens guaranteed to auto focus at 8. Minolta also produced a V-mount 400 mm f/8 Reflex lens that can autofocus at 8, but only the Minolta Vectis S-1,

Minolta Vectis S-100 The Minolta Vectis S-series comprises two APS system models of film SLR cameras made by Minolta, the flagship model Vectis S-1 and the Vectis S-100. The cameras feature a compact design, owing to the use of mirrors instead of prisms in the viewf ...

and

Minolta Dimâge RD 3000 List of products manufactured by electronics company Minolta. Cameras 16 mm film cameras * Minolta 16 series 110 film cameras * Minolta 110 Zoom SLR * Minolta Autopak pocket camera * Minolta Weathermatic A (bright yellow waterproof case) 126 ...

can use it. The mirror design does not utilize aperture blades, and thus the

aperture In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. More specifically, the aperture and focal length of an optical system determine the cone angle of a bundle of rays that come to a focus in the image plane. An ...

of the lens is fixed at 8. Exposure may only be controlled by shutter speed, film or sensor sensitivity, or a rear-mounted

neutral density filter In photography and optics, a neutral-density filter, or ND filter, is a filter that reduces or modifies the intensity of all wavelengths, or colors, of light equally, giving no changes in hue of color rendition. It can be a colorless (clear) o ...

. By using a mirror design similar to that of a

telescope A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, absorption, or reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally meaning only an optical instrument using lenses, curved mirrors, or a combination of both to obse ...

, this lens uses very little glass compared to traditional

telephoto lens A telephoto lens, in photography and cinematography, is a specific type of a long-focus lens in which the physical length of the lens is shorter than the focal length. This is achieved by incorporating a special lens group known as a ''telephoto ...

es and is thus much smaller, lighter, and far less expensive than traditional lenses in the same

focal length The focal length of an optical system is a measure of how strongly the system converges or diverges light; it is the inverse of the system's optical power. A positive focal length indicates that a system converges light, while a negative foca ...

. However, this and all other mirror lenses, can produce a donut-shaped

bokeh In photography, bokeh ( or ; ) is the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in out-of-focus parts of an image. Bokeh has also been defined as "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light". Differences in lens aberrations and ...

in the image it produces, which is usually undesirable.

Adapters for Sony E-Mount

Using this lens on a Sony E-mount camera requires the Sony LA-EA2 or LA-EA4 adapter. Autofocus is disabled with the LA-EA1, LA-EA3 and LA-EA5 adapters, i.e., the lens will be manual focus only.

RF ROKKOR-X manual focus version

Minolta also made a manual focus, SR-mount version of this lens. That version was designated RF ROKKOR-X. Adapters are available for Sony E-mount cameras. Image:Minolta-500mm-Reflex-01.jpg, Minolta Reflex 500mm Hood off Image:Minolta-500mm-Reflex-02.jpg, Minolta Reflex 500mm Front design Image:Minolta-500mm-Reflex-03.jpg, Minolta Reflex 500mm Rear filter out Image:Minolta-500mm-Reflex-04.jpg, Minolta Reflex 500mm Hood on, cap on Image:Minolta-500mm-Reflex-05.jpg, Minolta Reflex 500mm Mirror assembly Image:Minolta-500mm-Reflex-06.jpg, Minolta Reflex 500mm Kit American Robin taken with the Minolta AF Reflex 500mm F8 showing the Donut Bokeh

American Robin taken with the Minolta AF Reflex 500mm F8 showing the Donut Bokeh

References

Technical data and user reviews (Minolta Version)
on dyxum.com
Technical data and user reviews (Sony Version)
on dyxum.com

Sources

Dyxum lens data
{{DEFAULTSORT:Minolta Af 500mm f 8 Reflex

500 500 may refer to: * 500 (number) * 500 BC * AD 500 Buildings and places * 500 Boylston Street of Boston * 500 Brickell in Miami * 500 Capitol Mall in Sacramento * 500 Fifth Avenue * 500 Renaissance Center, one of seven buildings in the GM Rena ...

Mirror lenses Camera lenses introduced in 1989

Adapters for Sony E-Mount

RF ROKKOR-X manual focus version

See also

References

Sources