Solid Catadioptric Lens
Some History
Back in the late '70s Vivitar appeared on the scene with a series of‚ for then‚ exceptional lenses. Today the Vivitar brand has been debased and sits at the lower end of the market. But in the mid-70's to early '80's the brand appeared on some fascinating and high quality lenses. Probably the most famous of these was the first 70~210mm f/3.5 zoom wearing theSeries 1moniker.

This series of lenses was designed by an American company - Opcon Associates, of Stamford Connecticut, whose chief designer,E. Betensky had worked for Perkin-Elmer as a senior optical designer. Perkin-Elmer worked extensively at the time for NASA as well as other U.S. government agencies and is renown as the designers and builders of the Hubble Space Telescope's optical systems (including the near sighted mirror).

The Solid Cats

One of the least known yet most interesting of the Series 1 lenses was the 800mm f/11 Solid Catadioptric lens. It was origina...