Come on canon, make a production model EF1200mm f/5.6 IS USM L!

Fine, let's say they mass-produce this supposed lens. What's the rent on the warehouse where they grow thousands of 8" fluorite lenses? What's the quality-control rejection rate on such a large lens? What's the amortized cost of the huge polishing machinery, given the amount of time the machine will need to polish such a large element to the proper specifications? How many other lenses could they turn out in the same amount of time if they're manufacturing more mainline lenses?


Enough from me, don't let me discourage you from contacting Canon and asking them to make this lens.

I respect your opinion, you have some verygood points. But it's very possible. All it take is enough people wanta 1200mm lens.

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Originally Posted by Fast Glass

It's something called mass-production. It's very easly done if they mass produce it. The only reason they charged $99,000 for the old1200mm is because they could, not because it cost them $80,000 to make. Flourite is grown, there not paying someone $65 an hour for ayear to make it. When they makeflourite for there other lens they make thousands of them at a time,because they don't grow overnighteither. All they have to do is let some moreFlourite grow for a longer period of time, just more than one at a time.They never did sell anything close to 100 1200mm lenses,theyhad an 18 month turnaround for life of it's production they wouldn't have madenearly 100 lenses. It's not an absurd idea at all to make a lens like that, my guess is that they probablly would sell more 1200mm's lenses than 800mm's lenses for that price.
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Fast Glass,


How do you know how much it cost Canon to make a lens, how much they pay their employees,and theircycle time for this lens?

Canonsaid that its a 18 month turnaround. I was just giving a thipothetical example if they mass-produce it they could reduce the cost. If I have insulted anyone, I opolagize.

I don't think it's unreasonable to say that mass production would make it cheaper. However, it only reduces their cost per unit. That would mean that they could sell it for less and make more money IF that lower cost meant higher sales.


But, if they mass produce it, how much cheaper can they make it, and if they make it that much cheaper, how many more units are they going to sell?


Let's say that they REALLY make a lot of them, and they can get the sales price at the end user side down to $30k. How many people are going to buy a $30k lens that is utterly useless for the majority of photography applications due to it's physical dimensions, weight, and narrow focal length? My guess is, the same people/companies that buy the $90,000, because it's either cost-no-object application-specific purchases, or cost-no-object, affluent novelty collection purchases. It's kind of a neat unit to have, if you've got the space, and the budget, for a sliver of applications, but really, not very practical.


Seriously, i'd invest in a setup that would allow me to attach my camera to a decent telescope before i'd spend the same money on that product. I can't claim to know what others would do, but that's my opinion [:)]