Canon 300mm f1.8

WOW :canon:
 
This is astonishing. How can such a lens have existed with so little awareness of it? I mean, I knew Nikon used to make a 300mm f/2 - I even got to handle one once, when the camera cafe near the British Museum had one for sale - but I had never even heard of a Canon 300mm f/1.8.
 
StewartR said:
This is astonishing. How can such a lens have existed with so little awareness of it? I mean, I knew Nikon used to make a 300mm f/2 - I even got to handle one once, when the camera cafe near the British Museum had one for sale - but I had never even heard of a Canon 300mm f/1.8.
Click to expand...

Probably because it was made for a purpose, never for sale.

It would be like if I had enough money, I go to Canon and spec a 85/1.0 and use it in my garage taking photo of the dripping tap. It's a lens locked in a room taking photos, nobody thought what it was taken with.
 
Gonna need a wider strap!!
 
The application takes a little thinking about. Shooting at 1/10000th second necessitates the need for the large aperture but this will result in the DoF being less than the width of a horse. It seems likely that there's some tilt involved (around 3 degrees from guesstimates based on the photos) to keep the track width within the required sharp region.
 
Raymond Lin said:
Probably because it was made for a purpose, never for sale.
Click to expand...
But why would Canon go to all the expense of designing and manufacturing this lens, and then not offer it for sale, and and not even mention it anywhere? OK, they might not expect to sell very many of them, but the price would probably be somewhat less than that of the 1200mm f/5.6, so they'd probably expect to sell *some* - if only to other organisations with similar needs. And even if they don't sell any, it's still good for brand promotion as a technology showcase.

The only way I can explain this is if the buyer insisted on both exclusivity and secrecy. But that doesn't make any sense either.
 
Canon Bob said:
The application takes a little thinking about. Shooting at 1/10000th second necessitates the need for the large aperture but this will result in the DoF being less than the width of a horse. It seems likely that there's some tilt involved (around 3 degrees from guesstimates based on the photos) to keep the track width within the required sharp region.
Click to expand...
We are not worthy.
 
StewartR said:
But why would Canon go to all the expense of designing and manufacturing this lens, and then not offer it for sale, and and not even mention it anywhere? OK, they might not expect to sell very many of them, but the price would probably be somewhat less than that of the 1200mm f/5.6, so they'd probably expect to sell *some* - if only to other organisations with similar needs. And even if they don't sell any, it's still good for brand promotion as a technology showcase.

The only way I can explain this is if the buyer insisted on both exclusivity and secrecy. But that doesn't make any sense either.
Click to expand...

It could be the client gave them a brief and Canon made it for them. Being horse racing, their pockets would have been deep so it wasn't like £10,000 each, it could be £100,000 each and it wouldn't be a problem.

Also, like the 1200mm, it was made to order because of the tooling involved, they had to restructure their factor line for that lens when an order was placed, it just wasn't really worth it. May be the same with the 300/1.8. It's just wasn't worth their trouble to disrupt their factory for production over 1 lens.
 
what year did the change over between fd mount and ef mount happen? i thought it was still fd mount in 86, but this is ef i guess i must be wrong
 
niko said:
what year did the change over between fd mount and ef mount happen? i thought it was still fd mount in 86, but this is ef i guess i must be wrong
Click to expand...

I think it was 1987.

They even made a FD to EF mount adaptor but those things are like fairy dust.

There are lots of 3rd party ones now though.
 
Raymond Lin said:
I think it was 1987.

They even made a FD to EF mount adaptor but those things are like fairy dust.

There are lots of 3rd party ones now though.
Click to expand...
i thought it was around then, i guess the camera itself might of been special order with the "new ef" mount
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top