Vivitar Series 1 Perkin-Elmer Solid Catadioptric 600mm f8 lens

**Bytemrk** · 27th February 2016, 04:34 PM

So one of the cool things about having an 80 something year old father that's been playing with Nikon stuff since before I was 2, is that now and again unusual objects appear.

Today was one such day.....

Dad says to me, " I've got this lens, and I cant see me ever using it... it's just too heavy for me.... maybe you can find a use for it"

Out of the cupboard comes an old looking plastic case containing one of these;

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/F...mm_f8_lens.jpg

Certainly an interesting object, mainly as it only has one solid piece of glass in it about 75mm thick

Compared to most mirror lenses I have played with this thing seems reasonably shape. The below image was taken on my D7200 looking at the top of a power pole that was about 40 meters or so away.

My crap eye sight make manual focus a real challenge, but this looks like a fun thing to play with.

Not sure how reliable the information is, but Dad reckons the FBI used to use these things for surveillance in the 70's as they are so clear and so rugged, being a single lump of glass.

**p38arover** · 27th February 2016, 05:05 PM

You can't complain about the focus, Mark.

Look, that lens comes with an M42 thread mount - perfect for us Pentax owners. I'll PM my address.

There have been a few discussions about that lens on the Pentax forum.

**Bytemrk** · 27th February 2016, 05:15 PM

I'm going to be interested to work out what sorts of things it's best for.

It's fixed f/8 I can get effective f/16 by adding an ND filter that comes with it to screw on the back.

But you are right Ron, the focus seems pretty good.

I took these to compare field of view between the FX D750 and the DX D7200

If I pixel peap on those at 1 to 1, its not super sharp, but it is a 40 year old manual focus lens and the camera operator is likely to be the weakness anyway..

**werdan** · 28th February 2016, 03:54 PM

Have you tried shooting something with out of focus highlights in the background? Apparently they become doughnuts.

**Bytemrk** · 28th February 2016, 04:14 PM

Originally Posted by werdan

Have you tried shooting something with out of focus highlights in the background? Apparently they become doughnuts.

COOL!.... challenge accepted..... give me a few days.

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