I Don’t Typically Do This

by Martin Gordon

Hands-on with the Canon EF 1200 f/5.6L lens

The Canon EF 1200mm f/5.6L is a 36 lbs, $120,000 lens.

More from The Digital Picture:

The new EF 1200 was then marketed by Canon in July, 1993 with an annual production volume of around 2 (that’s right - “two”) lenses. The EF 1200 L was available by special order with lead times running about 18 months.

Why such a long lead time? For one reason, it takes nearly a year to grow fluorite crystals large enough to be ground and polished for use in this lens. In addition, the lens is “virtually hand-made”.

Link

Fine, Fine, I Agree that Apple is Doing a Tablet

Some quotes from Steve Jobs in 2003:

M: Do you have plans for movies on the iPod?

J: I’m not convinced people want to watch movies on a tiny little screen. To paraphrase Bill Clinton, “It’s the music, stupid, it’s the music!” Music’s been around for a long time, will continue to be, it’s huge. Not speculative, a real tangible market.

and

M [Walt Mossberg]: A lot of people think given the success you’ve had with portable devices, you should be making a tablet or a PDA.

J [Steve Jobs]: We didn’t think we’d do well in the cell phone business. What we’ve done instead is we’ve written what we think is some of the best software in the world to start syncing information between devices. We believe that mode is what cell phones need to get to. We chose to do the iPod instead of a PDA.

What’s even funnier, though, is the “Mac Observer Spin” on the interview:

You can stop putting off that Palm and/or cell phone purchase. If you have been waiting for Apple to deliver either device, despite all the hints and suggestions to the contrary, it would seem that it is time to bury that hope.

(via minimalmac)