When will Elicar release that lens?
Image courtesy: Photoscala.de
Ok Zeiss, Schneider and Cosina will make Micro Four Thirds lenses but there is also one more small company that will join the group. At photokina 2010 the japanese company Elicar showed that 4,5-6,3/300-600 Micr Four Thirds lens prototype. So what happened since then? Did you got some news about when the lens will be available?
Elicar already made lenses for Olympus OM, Canon FL and Minolta mount. You can see a list of lenses at eBay (Click here).
Duarte Bruno
3 years ago |Where do the batteries go?
panasonic
3 years ago |why all optic lens for tele lens must be in this sizes? can it manufacture differenly to reduce its size…
GreyOwl
3 years ago |A reduction in the zoom range and/or maximum aperture of this lens would give a smaller physical size.
gregg
3 years ago |Elicar is just a brand, not a manufacturer. They just rebrand lenses and sell them. Elicar 90/2.5 and 105/2,8 are Kiron made, some others are Tokina etc etc.
Ulli
3 years ago |I would welcome a reasonable fast supertele, please no slow supertele (zooms) anymore. compactness is no priority here.
TheVoiceoverman
3 years ago |It’s pocket-sized apparently, but you have to wear the special trousers.
snowflake
3 years ago |I saw a posting that Elicar is an OEM, not a re-brander.
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=57514
The link also contains a comment that a specific lens is re-branded from another manufacture.
I get a feeling that the company does both, ie re-brand and manufacture, probably because it is involved in at least some part of the manufacturing.
In this case I am inclined to believe it is the primary OEM. In a few years, after the market cools down for new micro 4/3 lenses, OEM’s may start to look for increased marketing opportunities. Right now the demand is high enough that manufactures can sell direct and realize extra profits.
zizi
3 years ago |Nathan
3 years ago |If you’re using a micro four thirds camera and a 600mm focal length, you’re doing photography wrong.
Jeez, with the IQ and speed of this thing, you’d be better off with a 300mm and just cropping.
Especially if you have a Panasonic, since you’ll have no stabilization.
One exception: The GH2 has good enough performance to manage this lens acceptably at high enough ISO to make it work.
Mr. Reeee
3 years ago |Huh?
If you’re cropping, there’s something wrong!
This might take the place of a spotting scope!
Or mount it on a rifle stock for “shooting” wildlife.
Christian
3 years ago |Interesting. Hopefully this lens will have AF, because otherwise it would be useless.
I suppose that for most people such a lens is not overly attractive, however with decent IQ, it might find some buyers. For wildlife photographers it might be interesting as 300 mm is not overly long.
@Nathan: Image stabilization is not such a big matter, as you would use such a monster from a tripod.
snowflake
3 years ago |Distance stetting on lens and Auto Focus
As a person that likes to take wildlife nature photographs, Id say that, Rather than AF, or in addition to AF, I prefer a distance scale on the lens to initially set the lens. Long telephotos like this usually always need manual focus. A wolf at 20 meters with an f5.6 300 (600mm on m4/3) lens will challenge the photographer to choose which end of the wolf is to be in focus. Even objects at 100 meters can present focusing issues. Auto focus may latch on something 5 meters closer or further away.
Image stabilization
I am a fan of image stabilization and a gain of at least 4 f stops is meaningful since it often negates the use of a tripod.
For example, using the rough rule of thumb, shutter speed should be about 1/f. (Which takes an extremely steady hand to pull off at longer focal lengths). If one is using a 300 mm equivalent lens, (and high resolution sensor), the shutter speed should be preferably be greater than 1/300 to of a second.
Using realistic settings, if one sets the asa to 800, and f stop to f8, with a 300 mm lens, on an overcast day, the shutter speed would be about 1/20 th of a second.
This is more than 10 times too slow for hand held. 4 f stops of image stabilization would allow an equivalent increase of the shutter speed to 1/320, which is now ok, marginally.
If this new lens extends to 600 mm (1200mm m4/3) shutter speeds are going to be about 1/1500 of a second with out IS. If there is no image stabilization, this is a tough shutter speed to keep for hand held photos; it will require pushing the cameras to the limit confined to use on only the brightest of days, at the very highest ASA setting.
Before, on an overcast day, we got away with a shutter speed of 1/20th of a second with a lens with 4 f stops of stabilization, with an ASA of 800 on the 300 mm lens, at f 8.
Now with a focal length 4 times longer, the shutter speed needs to be 4 times faster. (Assuming the same lighting conditions and the same amount of image stabilization.)
This new lens has a minimum f of 6.4 at 600mm. which is not an f stop gain by dropping the previous examples f stop of 8. (5.6 f) so only about a 1/2 f stop is gained.
If the lens does not have image stabilization, on an overcast day, My Gh1 would not be able to take a hand held shot since at least 6 f stops would be required and the max possible to gain is about 2 1/2.
If the lens has at least 4 f stops of image stabilization, I would be able to take a hand held shot on an overcast day. Boost the ASA to 3200 (the very limit of the camera) and we are back in business with a somewhat grainy picture. (If I used a monopod I might get away with an ASA of 1600 at f6.3).
Image stabilization dramatically increases the number of possible hand held shots and is a real advantage for telephotos lenses.
RW
3 years ago |Thank goodness that the m43 promise of pocket size camera / lens combinations with high IQ is being realized at last…
Mark
3 years ago |“In Japan, camera goes on lens”
“I’ve got a pancake for you.. IN MY PANTS!”
“I can’t believe they let me in with my library card!”
“Wanna see something really crazy? I’ve got grasshoppers taped to my back!”
snowflake
3 years ago |Weight and Money Savings
It seems that every time a large lens is presented someone always makes the complaint that it seems to be defeating the purpose of the m4/3 format. ie smaller and lighter lenses.
This is still the case, in fact the weight savings and cost savings are dramatic.
Compare the cost and weight of a full frame 300mm and 600 mm lens from Canon
EF300 f4 IS USM Cost $1399 weight 1190gm
EF600 f4 IS USM Cost $9169 weight 5360 gm
Since m4/3 has a crop factor of two, instead of carrying a 600 mm lens all one needs to do is carry a 300mm lens for a 600mm equivalent image.
The cost savings to take the same image is almost $8000 and the weight saved is almost the weight of carrying not one 300mm lens, but 5 full frame- 300mm lenses.
Also, using a 300mm full format lens for m4/3 is wasteful, projected image is 4 times too big for the sensor. A dedicated lens would have a smaller primary lens, with an additional savings in cost and weight of at least 30 percent. (1/2 the size, 1/8the weight, but the barrel and fixed components of the lens dramatically reduces this rough rule of thumb)
Brod1er
3 years ago |RW It’s all relative! Interesting they chose to put it on the smallest m43 camera!! I would prefer to lug this up a mountain than the FF equivalent This is much smaller than the 600mm FF lenses and there isn’t a 1200mm equivalent. I think Sigma did a crazy 500-800mm zoom or something for a cool $30k and I think it was supposed to be pretty crap. The Elicar people are pretty smart exploiting this niche- it will sell if it is stabilised. I don’t think IBIS. Will work well with this magnification.
GreyOwl
3 years ago |Have a look at this monster: wwwcamera-catalog.com/lens/manufactures/pos/elicar-800-1000-f10-20
Camaman
3 years ago |question to ask is not When will they release it but Why did they think of it in the first place…
Greg
9 months ago |Some news on this lens are out. They continued to alter specs and will show an updated production sample at Photokina 2012. Production sample is exactly their words, so it might be available soon. Check out Canon EOS Technoclopedia at http://canon-eos.serveblog.net for details.