Did it ever happen to you to try to shoot something and then at your max zoom the framing was not ok? Or the subject was still too small and distant? Well, that would not happen if you had this “little” zoom lens in your bag (I wonder how you would do it…).
The development of this little monster lens started back in late 80’s and early 90’s, when Nikon had to run after Canon’s 1200mm extra-mega-zoom lens that had turned many sport photographers and newspapers towards its cameras. According to Japanese needs at the time, the ideal focal lengths to shoot baseball from at the Koshier Stadium “… from the home plate, which is over 130 meters away it requires a focal length of 1200mm to capture the pitcher, the catcher, and the batter in frame, and a focal length of 1700mm to shoot a full-frame vertical photograph of the batter”. The result was the 1200-1700mm Nikon lens with its 23,7cm X 88,8cm and whooping 16kg!
Want to see how amazing this would be? The pictures below were taken 180m away from subjects using 50mm, 1200mm and 1700mm.
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| 180m @50mm |
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| 180m @1200mm |
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| 180m @1700mm |
Did this solve your zoom problems? Just put one in your backpack and you are all set when you try your next bird shots… on the moon!
Via the always excellent PetaPixel.
