Kowa Prominar 500mm f/5.6 FL

http://www.kowa-prominar.com/new/telep​hoto101103.htm

I saw this on photozone...Looks quite interesting, Definately not the "typical" budget telephoto..it has flourite in it for one....its made by a spotting scope company and it appears to have a lot of spotting scope lineage in it...but yet i dont think its MERELY a spotting scope with a camera mount

Also interesting is what appears to be a telecondenser unit that enables it to turn into a 350mm f/4, and a teleconverter making it into a 850mm f/9.6

Also the dual focusing rings, and the lens hood with included sights, also its weather sealed on top of it

Dunno how much it is but it sounds REALLY cool and i definitely want to keep a little eye on it in case its affordable


I did notice that the date is a bit old...i dunno why it showed up -recently- on Photozone

But heres some samples from it

http://www.kowa-prominar.ne.jp/pro/len​s/gallery.htm

it looks -good-

samples look very good. Interesting concept aswell. Turning your 500mm into a faster 350mm.

Eh, where's the price? There's very very little information about it on the web. I'm also not seeing anything about the prominar 500mm on photozone. Is there a link?

MOkoFOko wrote in post #11774536
Eh, where's the price? There's very very little information about it on the web. I'm also not seeing anything about the prominar 500mm on photozone. Is there a link?

Main page, right side under industry news

http://photozone.de/

Cool... it lacks IS ... and I am not sure what dual focusing rings means... but never the less cool...

wait... WTF... IT HAS RED RINGS?! Now it must be amazing :P

manual focus... and unless google is off, the street price is about $3500... yikes

Kowa spotting scopes are excellent. The long time standard spotting scope for High Power Rifle aka Across the Course shooting was the 821M with a 27x Long Eye Relief eyepiece (now superseded by their newer models).

Flores wrote in post #11779247
manual focus... and unless google is off, the street price is about $3500... yikes

OUCH yeah..not sure its worth it at that price I think you can get an old 500mm f/4.5L for that...