Amazing Technology

Wow, a 5200mm Canon Super telephoto EF FD

Thats just insane.. but very cool at the same time..



From youtube video description:
READ!! Canon 5200mm F14 Prime Lens. The world's largest dedicated SLR Super Telephoto lens.
Extremely rare. Made in Japan.

Most probably a government ordered cold war spy tool - it certainly wasn't designed to look at the stairs with the use of it's ND filters...

It uses a mirror & lens combination. The front lens is massive.

Rear drop-in filters can be used.

•Focal Length: 5150mm
•Exposure Control: Light quantity is controlled with the use of built-in ND filters, corresponding to f/14, f/16, f/22, f/32
•Minimum Object Distance: 120 meters (Approx 393 feet!)
•Size: 500mm(wide) x 600mm(high) x 1890mm(deep) [20x24x75.6]
•Weight: 100kg (220 lbs) without stand.

From a Canon Flyer:
"This is the only ultra-telephoto lens in the world capable of taking photographs of objects 18 to 32 miles away (30km to 52kms away). Having a focal length of 5200mm, Canon Mirror Lens 5200mm can obtain one hundred times as large an object image as that of a 50mm lens."
"For focusing this mounted or fixed lens on an extremely distant object, two aiming telescopes are set on the side of the lens barrel, and the entire lens is placed on a rigid stand which rotates smoothly. Minimizing the overall length had been a big problem in designing this lens. However, the Catadioptric system that is applied to the other two Canon mirror lenses (Canon 800mm f3.8 & 2000mm f11) has succeeded in reducing it down to one third of the nominal focal length. In general focal length and optical aberration increase with each other, however, our long and persistent research and development have succeeded in solving this problem. Canon mirror lens 5200mm composed of spherical main and secondary mirrors and a correction lens would assure you of clear images."

The magnification of this lens is truly staggering.
If mounted to a Canon XL HD series video camera for example, a reach of 1000x optical (at least) would be possible (approx 37,500mm).

If it was mounted on a DSLR with a crop factor the magnification would be larger still.

The video is a series of stills I took of the lens when I inspected it last year. I have also included video of the simulated magnification (35mm simulation) - all a bit of fun. In fact the maximum video telephoto simulation still just falls short of 3700mm in 35mm terms. So the 5200mm would be much closer & far sharper & distortion free. The video was shot with a Sony PDW 510 16x9 2/3 SD XDCAM disk camcorder with a TV video lens (18x1) using up to 3 optical (x2) extenders. If the 5200mm was hooked up to a video camera we'd be seeing a close up on an eye...

To make it clear - the video is simulated - not shot with the actual 5200mm lens - since it's a "Prime" - how could it be zooming anyhow??!! lol And of course there would be no CA.