World's Most Expensive Lens

Dear Santa

http://www.popphoto.co​m …lens-unsurprisingly-leica

that's a big piece of glass.

As my dearly departed dad always used to joke, if I had four million, I'd buy two.

Whats this used for, being able to spot E.T?!

I guess it is used to study air turbulence - that's pretty much all you can see with such super-long FL when shooting terrestrial objects, especially in hot countries like Qatar where this lens is used. If you go to the mountains and shoot celestial objects, that's a different thing, but you can get a nice telescope of this size for much less than 2 million $ (for celestial objects, reflectors are perfectly fine; a 12" one would cost you ~3000$ without a mount).

So in my opinion this lens is purely a status thing, to brag about.

pulsar123 wrote in post #14947169
I guess it is used to study air turbulence - that's pretty much all you can see with such super-long FL when shooting terrestrial objects, especially in hot countries like Qatar where this lens is used. If you go to the mountains and shoot celestial objects, that's a different thing, but you can get a nice telescope of this size for much less than 2 million $ (for celestial objects, reflectors are perfectly fine; a 12" one would cost you ~3000$ without a mount).

So in my opinion this lens is purely a status thing, to brag about.

I concur.
Same guy ordered/purchased the APO Sonar Zeiss 1700/4.
I think he wanted to have them both in order to test them against the famous brick wall

Yowza -- that's some glass!

Bryan

The M9 and 1600mm would make a great street photography combo!

You might have some problems getting it into a stadium!

Its probably for bragging rights but I would still love to see some pictures with it.

I want to see it mounted on the vehicle he commissioned for it...

If you buy one do they throw in a M9 for free? Even if I could I don't know if I would, glass is not that expensive.

You're paying solely for the paint to make the red dot; the 800 5.6 with the 1.4 or 2x TC can be had for far less and maybe even retain AF on a 1DX or the 1200 5.6 with a 1.4 or 2x combo if you can find one still comes in at a lower cost. So how bad do you need that 5.6 and that extra 400mm?

Thanks for the link, I just ordered one

At what point does a lens become a telescope?