canon-300mm f1.8, Exotic or what

[LonelyBoy]

Or maybe a 10-1000 f/1.0. ;D

I knew they were just holding out on us all this time.

 

[Luds34]

Oooooh!!

I gotta put an alert for myself on cannon watch......and try to grab one of these bad boys on a refurb sale!!!




cayenne

Haha, yes good call. I'd be right behind you but 300mm isn't my top focal length.

 

[Lurker]

That's why it is marked "PE". I wonder what PE stands for.

Bronica ETRSi PE mount?

 

[Antono Refa]

I'm wondering what use 6" of DOF would be in a photofinish.

The fast aperture could have been made for other reasons, say to shorten the exposure time in order to get a sharp photo (the horses are running fast at the finish line), or due to the low light, e.g. evening or overcast weather.

 

[hne]

I'm wondering what use 6" of DOF would be in a photofinish.

The fast aperture could have been made for other reasons, say to shorten the exposure time in order to get a sharp photo (the horses are running fast at the finish line), or due to the low light, e.g. evening or overcast weather.

From the petapixel page, you can read they used it to expose 10000 strips of film per second, effectively meaning they'd need to use ISO800 at f/1.8 at LV12 (heavily overcast). ISO100 for sunny weather. Sounds reasonable.

At 100 meter distance you wouldn't be able to frame a 20m wide race track on a 24mm long strip of film but still have 250lp/ph resolution at the image extremes at f/1.8 looking down at a plane at a 30° angle, so unless the cameras were mounted way lower than it looks from the picture or ran 120 film using a slightly larger than average imaging circle for an EF mount lens (there might be a bit of margin left at f/1.8), I doubt the aperture would be the limiting factor for deciding who won. I'm more inclined to say the very speedy development and sometimes high sensitivity film needed would be the limiting factors.

 

[Cochese]

Great balance when mount it to an A9 ;D

My guess it's an autofocus lens. If not, than I cannot for the life of me figure out why they'd have a focus limit switch on the body. Style? Looks? Took the body from another lens, but was too lazy to just cover that area up with a blank plate?

 

[Jopa]

Great balance when mount it to an A9 ;D

My guess it's an autofocus lens. If not, than I cannot for the life of me figure out why they'd have a focus limit switch on the body. Style? Looks? Took the body from another lens, but was too lazy to just cover that area up with a blank plate?

Most likely they simply pre-focuse it on the mid of the finish line.

 

[Antono Refa]

I'm wondering what use 6" of DOF would be in a photofinish.

The fast aperture could have been made for other reasons, say to shorten the exposure time in order to get a sharp photo (the horses are running fast at the finish line), or due to the low light, e.g. evening or overcast weather.

From the petapixel page, you can read they used it to expose 10000 strips of film per second, effectively meaning they'd need to use ISO800 at f/1.8 at LV12 (heavily overcast). ISO100 for sunny weather. Sounds reasonable.

At 100 meter distance you wouldn't be able to frame a 20m wide race track on a 24mm long strip of film but still have 250lp/ph resolution at the image extremes at f/1.8 looking down at a plane at a 30° angle

By the end of the race, all the horses have converged on the inner tracks, same as runners do in the Olympics when running more than 400m, so they might need to frame 10m, or even less.

 

[retroreflection]

The slit in slit scan photography is an aperture. I'm not an expert on the optics, but it seems the f1.8 is needed to use most of the light that makes it through the slit, not to create a pleasing bokeh.

 

[Mancubus]

This is amazing, and I thought the Nikon 300mm F/2 was already pushing the optics to the limit.

I'm pretty sure this lens sucks for everything else than gathering lots of light, image quality must be abysmal, but it served it's purpose of getting the most light to allow them to identify the winning horse.

I wonder what the technology limit is for these lenses. Could they do a 400mm f/2 if they wanted? I think so, it just wouldn't be practical (too expensive, to heavy, too large). But could they do a 400mm f/1.4?

 

[LDS]

But could they do a 400mm f/1.4?

Sure, but can you also afford the self-propelled vehicle to carry it around, and the electric-driven turret to aim it?

 

[privatebydesign]

But could they do a 400mm f/1.4?

Sure, but can you also afford the self-propelled vehicle to carry it around, and the electric-driven turret to aim it?

You laugh, Leica made a 1700mm f4 as a custom order for a Middle Eastern customer, along with the lens came a custom Mercedes G Wagon with a fixed mount for it in the back.

 

[LDS]

You laugh, Leica made a 1700mm f4 as a custom order for a Middle Eastern customer, along with the lens came a custom Mercedes G Wagon with a fixed mount for it in the back.

AFAIK there have been a Zeiss Apo Sonnar T* 1700mm f/4 (with an Hasselblad mount), and a Leica 1600mm f/5.6, both made for Middle-East customers.

I didn't know about the car, but it looks to me a welcome accessory to put in the box, together the shade, though. While Canon doesn't add the shade of tripod mount with some lenses...

 

[Cochese]

Great balance when mount it to an A9 ;D

My guess it's an autofocus lens. If not, than I cannot for the life of me figure out why they'd have a focus limit switch on the body. Style? Looks? Took the body from another lens, but was too lazy to just cover that area up with a blank plate?

Most likely they simply pre-focuse it on the mid of the finish line.

Weird it had me quote the wrong reply.
But if they prefocused it, there'd be no need for a focus distance limit switch on a manual focus lens.

 

[100]

But could they do a 400mm f/1.4?

Sure, but can you also afford the self-propelled vehicle to carry it around, and the electric-driven turret to aim it?

There is a Zeiss Jena 400 f/1.5 but it’s kind of slow compared to a Super Schmidt telescope 510mm f/0.96 ;-)

https://patricelaborda.jimdo.com/2015/03/17/extreme-lenses-for-extreme-pictures/

 

[Buck]

I'm wondering what use 6" of DOF would be in a photofinish.

The fast aperture could have been made for other reasons, say to shorten the exposure time in order to get a sharp photo (the horses are running fast at the finish line), or due to the low light, e.g. evening or overcast weather.

From the petapixel page, you can read they used it to expose 10000 strips of film per second, effectively meaning they'd need to use ISO800 at f/1.8 at LV12 (heavily overcast). ISO100 for sunny weather. Sounds reasonable.

At 100 meter distance you wouldn't be able to frame a 20m wide race track on a 24mm long strip of film but still have 250lp/ph resolution at the image extremes at f/1.8 looking down at a plane at a 30° angle

By the end of the race, all the horses have converged on the inner tracks, same as runners do in the Olympics when running more than 400m, so they might need to frame 10m, or even less.

not if were being used in quarter horse racing, you could have up to 8 wide from the inner or out part of the track

 

[rs]

Great balance when mount it to an A9 ;D

My guess it's an autofocus lens. If not, than I cannot for the life of me figure out why they'd have a focus limit switch on the body. Style? Looks? Took the body from another lens, but was too lazy to just cover that area up with a blank plate?

Yes, it autofocus. More photos at PetaPixel now, including this one:

 

[fentiger]

I believe NASA are building a 134 meter focal length f20 right now! 8)
Wonder if my 1DX11 will work on it

 

[LDS]

There is a Zeiss Jena 400 f/1.5 but it’s kind of slow compared to a Super Schmidt telescope 510mm f/0.96 ;-)

https://patricelaborda.jimdo.com/2015/03/17/extreme-lenses-for-extreme-pictures/

Yes, but let's stick to photo lenses, telescopes are usually designed differently for a different use, and designs using mirrors usually means a fixed aperture.

Also lenses designed for visual use (especially wartime ones designed for spotting and aiming) may not need to be apochromatic, nor usually need a large corrected field of view, greatly simplifying the design.

 

[jolyonralph]

My observations, for what they're worth.

I think there are probably significantly more than 4 of these around. But the vast majority are in the hand of agencies that would generally not invite PetaPixel in to see them.

We know that Canon does custom work for intelligence agencies, etc. I would be very surprised if this was not one of those projects. I'd also expect at least the 95 part of the serial number to be accurate.

This would explain the secrecy behind the lens. I would also not be surprised if this is the case that this particular lens is still at least on paper owned by Canon and that these lenses are rented out whilst remaining the property of Canon to prevent resale. Or at least that may have been the case in the past.