Mirrorless lenses allow you to experience the fun of supertelephoto focal lengths without the often stratospheric prices, but they generally come with a few compromises as well. Nonetheless, depending on your needs and budget, they can be a decent alternative. One such option is the Tokina SZ SUPER TELE 500mm f/8 Reflex, and this excellent video review takes a look at the lens and the sort of performance and image quality you can expect from it in practice.
Coming to you from Christopher Frost, this great video review takes a look at the Tokina SZ SUPER TELE 500mm f/8 Reflex lens. Mirror lenses are rather peculiar devices. By using a mirror located centrally in the construction, they can extend the focal length of the lens without adding significant size or weight. On the other hand, because of that mirror that is in the middle of the lens, all the bokeh takes on a distinctive donut shape that can be rather distracting or even off-putting, though if you are careful about your composition, you can avoid this. The other drawback is that mirror lenses are almost always manual focus only, including this one. That being said, if you are not photographing fast action and want a way to experience very long focal lengths, this Tokina produces fairly decent images at an affordable price. Check out the video above for Frost's full thoughts on the lens.
500mm reflex lens....hell no.
The 33 year old Minolta 500mm reflex is a better lens with auto focus....You would think Tokina would have at least provided comparable function...