It's that time again! Time to fawn over some crazy piece of glass that is both questionable and absolutely unattainable. The internet is full of these treasures, but this week's ridiculous lens of the day is one big mamajama...again from Nikon corporation. Behold the Zoom-Nikkor 1200-1700mm f/5.6-8P IF-ED lens. Quite the mouthful. The prototype for this extremely long lens started out in the 80's as a lens arms race against a rival lens manufacturer. Naturally, Nikon decided to surpass their 1200mm lens and by 1990 they would unveil this monstrosity at the Koshien Stadium where the photojournalists could really test out it's extreme range. This lens is so heavy that it can't rotate by means of a typical tripod collar, instead it's rear rotates separately from the front element. The newspaper photographers were reported to have basked in its sheer size and then proceeded to complain that it was "slow" with a maximum aperture of f5.6...well it can't be all about size. Although it's fallen into disuse, similar technology used to build this lens has been passed down to it's digital super-telephoto grandchildren.
Here's an example of this beast at work from 130 meters (~426.5ft.)
Taken with a 50mm Lens
Taken at 1700mm Focal Length