For when nothing less will do

Here’s one from the rare equipment file. It’s the biggest* fully autofocus SLR lens ever built and probably the most expensive. I had the opportunity to give it a run a while back and I thought some of you might be interested in hearing about it.

First introduced in a manual focus variant for the 1984 LA Olympics and later updated to an EF model in 1993, Canon’s 1200mm f5.6L USM lens is a $120,000, 16.5kg technological masterpiece. It reportedly takes a year to grow fluorite crystals of a scale necessary to build its grand elements, and it’s completely hand-built, resulting in lead-times of about eighteen months on orders.

Canon’s EF 1200mm f/5.6L USM lens on display at a Canon event.

Sports Illustrated owns two, National Geographic has one and the billionaire founder of Oakley and the RED Camera, James Jannard, has bought himself one as well. Some years ago an Australian buyer put down a deposit but reneged once his was ready for delivery. So Canon Professional Services’ Australian loan-pool inherited what is believed to be one of only a dozen or so such lenses in existence, though Canon has never revealed exact production quantities.

The impact of its proportions aside, the 1200mm f5.6L is a lens apart. Its shear bulk and weight (40kgs with case) mean the novelty factor soon fades, and it becomes the lens you use when no other will do the job. Should a 600mm with a 2x converter suffice, that combination might be a far easier endeavour given that the 1200mm is the only lens in Canon’s catalogue that is truly a two-person proposition.

If they deem you eligible to borrow it, Canon will need you to produce an adequate insurance policy first, and on occasion they’ve insisted on a security guard too.

The full canon arsenal, showing the 1200mm f5.6L at the rear.

Not withstanding the fact that from a distance it might look a lot like some sort of anti-armour weapon, I thought what better place to get a feel for this thing than an airport. After I picked it up from Rick at CPS, and then making my presence known to the control tower, I set myself up next to the north-south runway at Sydney Airport. That put me about 500m from the aircraft during take-off and landing. And at that distance it was possible to read the pilots’ lips.

You can see what was achievable with the 1200mm f5.6L and a 1.4x converter in terms of focal length, but it’s also true that with so much ground and heat-haze between subject and photographer, quality suffers a little.

Over the years that this lens has been available there have been a handful of occasions when it was pivotal to The Herald’s success. For example, when the former Australian Governor General Dr Peter Hollingworth was on the verge of resignation and bunkered down in his Canberra home during 2003, and our Canberra photographers could get no closer than 500m away, several page one photographs were only made possible by this lens, a 2x converter and the cropping potential of the 1Ds files at the time.

Priced at about $100 for each and every millimetre, it’s a very expensive investment and certainly not one you’d be inclined to make while Canon are nice enough to lend one to you on the rare occasion you might need it. But that’s a moot point I guess because it’s also discontinued.

Former Governor General Dr Peter Hollingworth on the verge of resignation in 2003. Former Herald Photographer Andrew Taylor shot this with the biggest lens in Canon’s line-up and it appeared on several front pages.

* Canon describes it as “the world’s largest interchangeable SLR AF lens in terms of both focal length and maximum aperture”.

wade@wadelaube.com

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