SZ SUPER TELE 500mm F8 Reflex MF

Overall Concept

Tokina SZ SUPER TELE 500mm F8 Reflex MF is a 500mm super tele lens that adopts a catadioptric type optical design with a constant F8 aperture. The lens offers a compact alternative to standard tele photo lenses as more and more photographers are looking for easy-to-carry gear. Keeping in mind active travel photographers that seek outdoor landscape, wild nature or birds, the 500mm F8 Reflex MF is designed as a compact and lightweight mirror lens - a type of lens to be rediscovered in this new era of also compact but high-tech mirrorless cameras. The Tokina SZ SUPER TELE 500mm F8 Reflex MF adopts a T-mount standard (pitch 0.75mm, thread 42mm) that allows the lens to be attached to any camera by using mount adapters.

Tokina SZ SUPER TELE 500mm F8 Reflex MF is suitable for travel photography since the lens is compact and lightweight, and yet will help you to capture far objects that cannot be reached by standard zoom lenses. This lens can serve you best in different photographic genres, like landscape, people, street snap, macro, wild nature and even sports!

Tokina SZ Super Tele 500mm F8 Reflex MF adopts catadioptric type of optical design that is basically similar with the design of the most famous astronomical telescope in the world - the Hubble space telescope.

Photo of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope taken during the fifth servicing mission in 2009
Image: Ruffnax (Crew of STS-125) | https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HST-SM4.jpeg

Optical Design

Long 500mm focal length of Tokina SZ SUPER TELE 500mm F8 Reflex MF while being such a compact and lightweight is realized thanks to catadioptric optical design.

LENS CONSTRUCTION

Mirror lenses are tele photo lenses that incorporate a combination of lenses and mirrors to reflect light back and forth between the ends of the lens. This structure folds the light cutting the tube length in half. In this way the construction makes the physical size of the lens around a third of the size of a conventional lens and allows a lightweight body, because the mirrors are much lighter than the optical glass.

Rediscovering Reflex Lens with Mirrorless Cameras

Reflex type of lenses are used to be considered as out of fashion, inconvenient gear due to fixed aperture, manual focusing and absence of image stabilization. We suggest to rediscover all advantages of reflex type lenses again, by using it with contemporary mirrorless cameras.

Easy to focus

Focus assist functions like focus peaking will help to find the sharpest focus point.

Less shaking

In-build multi-axis advanced image stabilization systems of mirrorless cameras will make you forget about blurred images due to hand shaking.

No slow shutter any more

Newest mirrorless cameras featuring advanced wide ISO settings can offer the photographer to choose a faster shutter speed with minimum pixel noises on the image.

Main Features

Compact and lightweight

The outside barrel of the Tokina SZ SUPER TELE 500mm F8 Reflex MF is shaved thinner by using a new processing technology that makes this lens more lightweight compared to the lens with a shorter focal length.

Featuring super tele 500mm focal length and weighting only 310g (without mount adapter) the Tokina SZ SUPER TELE 500mm F8 Reflex MF can be easily carried inside a pocket or small bag. For travel photographers who tend to seek for lightweight gear this feature is highly valuable.

Optics

Lens elements inside the lens are coated with multi-layer anti-reflection coating for effective light intake and as a result, for increased shutter speed in low light conditions.

Mirrored surfaces of the lens elements incorporate a high-reflectivity silvered coating and a protective antioxidant layer on the back side for a longer product lifetime.

Macro shooting

The field of view is 4°8' (by frame diagonal) and min. focusing distance is 1.7m. It gives magnification 1:2.86 to capture an object with size 6x9cm on full frame. These properties help the photographer to avoid shadows or not to scare the insect while shooting close up images.

Specific bokeh

Optical construction of the lens creates specific donut-shaped and super smooth bokeh that finds support among many artistic photographers.

Super compression

Thanks to its long focal length the Tokina SZ SUPER TELE 500mm F8 Reflex MF can create images with super compression effect, showing the background close and enlarged compared to the main object. This effect adds to the image enchanting atmosphere.

Hood and filters

Tokina SZ SUPER TELE 500mm F8 Reflex MF comes with a hood and supports 72mm (front) and 30.5mm (rear) filters. That allows photographers to use any creative filters for artistic purpose.

Versatile mount system

Tokina SZ SUPER TELE 500mm F8 Reflex MF adopts a T-mount standard (pitch 0.75mm, thread 42mm), that allows this lens to be attached to any camera by using mount adapters.

Variety of options