Nikon 1200-1700mm Zoom

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Interesting article about this lens. It puts the Sigma Sport 150-600 to shame, and it can be adapted for Canon with a cheap adapter . Since its manual focus anyway, it should work well.

Its going to be tough to find one, and even tougher to pay for it. I'm not sure that any have actually sold on the open market, they are likely all owned by news organizations or very wealthy collectors.

http://www.nikon.com/about/feelnikon/recollections/r16_e/index.htm

 

[privatebydesign]

I've seen that before, love the "In 1980s, a rival company was making a 1200mm f/5.6 super telephoto lens" comment that drove Nikon to make this, years after Canon's 1200 f5.6.........

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

I've seen that before, love the "In 1980s, a rival company was making a 1200mm f/5.6 super telephoto lens" comment that drove Nikon to make this, years after Canon's 1200 f5.6.........

The part I find interesting is that they were built to photograph High School Baseball. I knew that baseball was very popular in Japan, but I did not realize that competition to build lenses capable of photographing it in a specific stadium had happened.

 

[privatebydesign]

Yes, it very much came across as a mini space race! Amazing what a perceived competition will drive a company to pursue.

Mind you both Nikon and Canon had a long history with the 1200mm focal length going back to the 70's, now that was an interesting solution for long tele lenses, same focusing unit just different attachments for the front. However they were both lowly 1200mm f11's so the FD 1200 f5.6 brought a huge quality upgrade and started that ball rolling, and, as the article points out, we have benefited from the advanced tech used and developed in that race in todays super teles.