500mm Mirror Lens - 9 Jan 2016

I purchased a cheap mirror lens a several years ago to try and get some extra reach from my Olympus E-510. The in camera stabilization worked alright with it. The biggest problem was manual focus. The increments were so fine I had a great deal of difficulty getting subjects into focus. The small viewfinder on the E-510 didn't help.
It was fun to play with but the results were mostly disappointing.
Here are some of the better results. The Grey Catbird being the best I managed with this lens.
One of the biggest problems I had with the lens was finding birds in bush as I was looking at 500mm if you are off by a few inches it is difficult to find the bird as the lens is full of out of focus foliage and by the time you focus and start hunting many seconds pass. Often the bird would depart before I could locate it.
DOF is very shallow so moving the lens required constant focus adjustments which complicated matters further.

Baltimore Oriole at about 12 feet

Baltimore Oriole at about 7 feet

Baltimore Oriole at about 12 feet

Baltimore Oriole at about 10 feet

Baltimore Oriole at about 10 feet

Baltimore Oriole at about 10 feet

Baltimore Oriole at about 12 feet

Baltimore Oriole at about 12 feet

Chipping Sparrow at about 15 feet

Grey Catbird at about 20 feet. There were 2 side by side facing opposite directions. But I wasn't able to locate them in the viewfinder for probably half a minute or longer due to all the reeds around them. One lost interest in me and departed and I finally got this one. That was one shot I was sorry to have missed.

House Sparrow at about 15 feet