Long tele's are my personal favorites and unfortunately the Canon 1200mm has been discontinued. At one time Nikon had an AF 800mm that has also gone into the history books. It was available to anyone who could afford it - B&H would take special pre-paid no-returns allowed orders when it was available.
The pricing on the Canon 1200 was astronomical but so was the performance; I had one for one season but I only purchased it because I found the deal of a lifetime, an older gent back east had retired from shooting and wanted to dump all his equipment. He was so filthy rich he didn't care about the money and I bought a mint 1200mm for $10k. I sold it a year later for a $10 profit - makes you sick, right?
The last time I spoke to my CPS rep they mentioned it being discontinued from the lineup. Out of curiosity I recently called B&H Photo in NYC and they have the same story - discontinued no longer available for special order.
It could be that Canon is only taking orders for the lens for it's CPS members, but I'm only guessing. It's just as curious that the 200mm f/1.8 L is not in the canoneos.com website. What can I say, I don't work for them I just use their stuff.
If you are serious about it, you need to order it directly from Canon (not available to be ordered by dealers). That is probably why none of your retailers have access to it. And the price is really in and around the $75,000-$80,000 US range.
I hope no one thought I was serious about ordering it. Hardly!
It is kind of sad to see that so many "ne plus ultra" lenses have been dropped though.
Nikon:
The 2000mm f 11.0 Reflex
The 6mm f 2.8 fisheye
The 1200-1700mm f5.6-f8.0 IF-ED Zoom
. . . all gone.
Now the EF1200/5.6 too.
Of course few of us ever get to even see these things. I know I never did. In many cases I think they are developed solely to give the company "bragging rights" more than anything else.
my_photography wrote:
Going back to XL1S, why do one want to connect a video camera to a SLR lens? Any advantages?
Same reason why SLR owners change lenses ... to suit a situation. Mostly zoom I guess, because of even more massive crop factor then with DSLRs. The chase at the end of "Bad Boys" (911T v. 427 Cobra) was shot with 1000+something lens.
why do one want to connect a video camera to a SLR lens? Any advantages?
Good optics. Availability. Sharing of resources on photo and video cams, etc.
Relatively cheap extreme tele(zoom)lenses (except for that 1200 of course ). A 100-400 IS on this video cam is for instance a 720-2880 alike telezoomlens view angle. That is a dream for birdwatchers making nature movies! Fast openings are another reason to have this on a video. A 1.2./ 85 becomes like a 1.2/612, and 2.0/135 a 2.0/972. Doesn't sound bad ah? Most video filmer will prefer a zoom though, because the need the zoom effect in their films very often. A 2.8/24-70 as a 2.8/173-504 isn't bad either; Not much need for DO glass on a video camera If tiny sensors didn't have their own problems lots of photographers wished they had a 7.2 crop factor in their digi SLR ... Who needs a 1D v7.2 ...
Peter de Weerdt wrote:
Good optics. Availability. Sharing of resources on photo and video cams, etc.
...
Hmm...since the resolution of a lens is related to the size of the image circle it projects and -- in this case -- the image circle is massively larger then the sensor, I would actually question whether the optics would in fact be very good. Although it is using the sweet spot of the lens, I suspect even a relatively low resolution (NTSC) sensor could easily exceed the lens resolution when the lens is designed for a much larger format. I can't see an HD sensor of this size working out very well at all since the resultion of HD is quite decent.
Don't video cams have here own zoom lens? (it sure sounds to me that the lens for video cams are not as good as the one we have for photographing??) If the technology is there, how come we cannot get this type of 7.2x magnifying for our camera? If there is such a thing then we only need a 180mm lens to achieve the equivalent of the 1200mm.
Pondria wrote:
With the 1200, what would be the size of the Mars now projected on the film plane ?
TINY!!
The 1200/5.6, by itself, would be totally inadequate to photograph Mars. It would be only a spot on the sensor plane . . . putting the EF2X on the 1200/5.6 would STILL not be nearly enough. Planetary photography demands very high magnification. Eyepiece projection through an astronomical telescope is the only way. Furthermore, the high magnification required through the earth's atmosphere makes for pretty terrible images too.
The 1200/5.6, while mighty in its own right, is no Hubble!
I read somewhere that Leica makes an 800mm prime that comes included with a Volkswagen Jetta as a 'carrying case.'
I would consider getting one of these 1200mm 5.6's, but as many here have already said, it's nice to have a slightly wider aperture and IS for something like that. Moreover, the difficulty in finding a circular polarizer for something like that kind of dissuades me at this time.
). A 100-400 IS on this video cam is for instance a 720-2880 alike telezoomlens view angle. That is a dream for birdwatchers making nature movies! Fast openings are another reason to have this on a video. A 1.2./ 85 becomes like a 1.2/612, and 2.0/135 a 2.0/972. Doesn't sound bad ah? Most video filmer will prefer a zoom though, because the need the zoom effect in their films very often. A 2.8/24-70 as a 2.8/173-504 isn't bad either; Not much need for DO glass on a video camera 
Who needs a 1D v7.2 ...
