While I was roaming the floor of Inter Bee 2014, a high-end broadcast trade show in Japan, I spotted a demo camera equipped with Canon’s latest monster 50-1000mm lens which was announced a little less than one month ago under the “Canon CINE-SERVO 50-1000mm T5.0-8.9 Ultra-Telephoto Zoom” name. Although it also exists in Canon EOS EF mount (as well as PL), this is a lens primarily designed to shoot movies instead of still photos. It is marketed under the CINE SERVO line, and you will probably not order it from Amazon.
This rather “elite” lens with a price tag of $78,000 is used by broadcast or movie crews which needs to have a very long zoom (20X) capability, which can further be extended to 1500mm with the built-in 1.5X extender. This is a dream lens for people who want to shoot 4K movies while staying at a good distance from the subject. Sports, racing or wildlife movie capture are obvious examples, but the possibilities are endless.
It would typically be mounted on a Canon C-Series “cinema” camera, but some users also use it on a $10,000 EOS 1D DSLR camera. In theory, it could mount on a more modest model, but if you can afford the lens, we’ll just assume that you don’t have a EOS 60D… I won’t own one anytime soon, but it was a beauty look look at and play with on the show floor.
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