What did the Watchdog start? EOS 1200mm prime

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

I first learned about Canon's 1200 mm EOS prime monster telephoto lens in the Watchdog's photo gallery (http://www.dvinfo.net/canon/images/images17.php), but in recent months it's been popping up in Canon advertising for the XL1s everywhere--in print and in animated banner ads on the web.

While the article notes that "There are only about ten of these things in existence," I've seen them in person several times since then, at Cannes and at sporting events, so they're probably more numerous than that now. Still--why do you suppose that Canon would make such an unaffordable piece of specialty glass a centerpiece of their XL1s advertising campaign, if it wasn't for this review by the Watchdog that touts the masculine virtues of mating the 1200 mm lens to the XL1s?

[Ken Tanaka]

I think you hit upon it with the phrase, "...touts the masculine virtues of mating the 1200 mm lens to the XL1s."

Remember that young males are the primary market for this stuff. Using this goofy lens is one way to (tastefully) catch their eye in an advertisement.

[Christopher Hughes]

Shame the site doesn't show any photos of images actually taken with the camera and lens...rather than just pictures of the lens itself. So like an image from full zoom on standard 16x and then with the monster! Would be interesting to physically see what that wackachunga lens can do!!!

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

The irony is, it's probably not very useful for video, a medium of motion and tracking. When married to a free-pivoting video camera, a telescopic lens transmits a violently shaky image; when married to a video camera that is immobilized on a tripod, such a lens transmits a static and uninteresting shot that might as well be taken by a still camera.

[Chris Hurd]

The one time in my life when I was fortunate to peer through an XL1S viewfinder with the 1200mm prime (which Robert references above, the 2002 Winter Olympics at Salt Lake City), I can tell you in no uncertain terms that it's definitely for *static* shots only.... no panning or tilting.

I think CUSA saw that page on the Watchdog and decided they needed to leverage that big glass as a marketing tool in their current run of ads. However the lenses you might have seen at Cannes and elsewhere might have been IS-equipped 400's or 600's, which are big in their own right. The older FD-mount 800 looks quite similar to the EF 1200, just smaller in overall dimensions. As far as I know the original text of that page is still correct, there are only a handful of those 1200's in existence.

Thanks for bringing this topic up,

[Jeff Donald]

There was a link to the page on one of the big photo forums recently. I don't remember if it was Fred Miranda or DP Review. But someone linked to our pages and I followed up with a post. It definetly looks like the old 800mm, handle and all. I'll try to find the other posts because they made fun reading. People were claiming that these lenses are all over (Police Departments, numerous private individuals etc.) Mostly urban myth, I suspect. I'd always heard, like Chris, that there are only about a dozen of these in existence. I think SI is rumored to have one and maybe one or two other news agencies. But I don't know for sure.