Russian Optical Company Shvabe Unveils Four New Mirror Lenses

Russian optics company Shvabe Holding, which is known as the owner of the Zenitar brand, has announced four new mirror lenses: the MC Rubinar 1000mm f/10, 500mm f/8 Macro, 500mm f/5.6 Macro, and 400mm f/4.5 Macro. Redesigns of older lenses, these feature”improved technical characteristics.”

These four lenses are listed under the “Rubinar” line and made from milled metal cylinders (rather than a “pipe” of metal) for what the company says is a higher manufacturing accuracy and stability during operation.

While the company has provided scant few details, it does note that the design of these lenses is “more modern” and that photographers will likely appreciate the ring-like look of the bokeh and the macro capabilities of two of the designs. In addition to exterior changes, the new versions have redesigned hoods, improved matte inner surfaces, and an anti-reflective coating.

“The use of multilayer antireflection coatings on optical parts significantly increases light transmission, reduces light scattering, increases the contrast of the image on a photographic film or a camera matrix,” Shvabe writes.

Shvabe equipped the four new lenses with the M42 mounting thread, which is a screw thread mounting standard for attaching optics to 35mm cameras, primarily SLRs. Though sometimes referred to as a Pentax M42 screw mount (“>an adapter for Sony E-mount can be found here), it was not actually invented by Pentax. Using a Fotoxiox M42 to Sony E-Mount adapter, a photographer Radozhiv uploaded samples of images shot using a Sony camera and the 300mm f/4.5 Rubinar lens to Russian social media site VK.

“For astrophotography lovers, the LZOS developers offer an additional service for adjusting the lens MC Rubinar 10/1000 Macro,” the company writes, translated from Russian. “This model is suitable for photographing the surface of the moon, stars, and planets of the solar system.”

Mirror lenses are very uncommon in modern lens design due to the fixed focal lengths and apertures and are also generally regarded as less sharp than traditional optics. The advantage of the lens design found mainly on telescopes is that they tend to be extremely compact for how much zoom they can provide. Looking at the sample images linked above, however, sharpness seems more than acceptable and the bokeh is very interesting and unique.

At the time of publication, only the MC Rubinar 1000mm f/10 macro lens was listed on Shvabe’s site for 58,800 rubles, which is about $800.