Un zoom 200-500mm/2.8, ça vous tente?

[Mistral75]

Kazuto Yamaki, PDG de Sigma, a expliqué la genèse du 200-500 mm f/2,8 EX DG APO et son surnom au Japon :

DE: You have the 200-500mm f/2.8 EX DG APO. It's fascinating not just for its immense size, but for the optical complexity and the staggering US$26,000 price. Can you shed any light on who has purchased that lens; what types of photographers or for what uses? Who buys those?

KY: Actually, the number of the sales is quite small. I know [of] one person who [uses it to] take a very long shot. He puts a lens on the hill on the coast, then he takes a picture of the surfers. [And another] photographer takes astrophotography pictures.

DE: Astrophotography, ah! So he uses it like a telescope, basically. Huh! I was wondering, does government buy any of those?

KY: Yeah, [relatively speaking] for this lens, we have lots of enquiries. Maybe they [want to] use for some defense [purposes].

DE: It's interesting, it's such a monster lens. How did you end up deciding to do that? You knew you weren't going to sell thousands of these. Was it just a statement, or it was fun, or... <laughs>

KY: It was my father's decision, so I don't know! <laughs>

DE: You don't know why he did it. <laughs>

KY: Everybody was wondering why we make such a big [lens], but my father seriously believed it's a little bit of a "brochure lens". [Ed. Note: Basically, it's an aspirational product which most users will never buy, but which shows what Sigma is capable of, and which can appear on the front of brochures as a reminder of the company's strengths.] My father truly believed we can sell good numbers, but I think we can't sell good numbers [for] that lens. But every time we put it on the show...

DE: It's PR, yeah, yeah.

KY: ...everybody looks at this, and talks about our lenses.

DE: Yeah, yeah. It was probably worth the cost of development just for that.

KY: Do you know the Japanese food called ebi furai? It's a deep-fried shrimp. It's like a tempura shrimp. And the nickname of that lens in Japan is ebi furai, because it looks like a deep-fried [shrimp].

DE: <laughs> Oh, that's funny. I'll have to try that!

Source : Sigma Q&A  [at]  CP+ 2017: Global Vision and Sony FE-mount lens plans, and the epic 200-500mm's connection to... sushi??

[luistappa]

Le Canon comme le Nikon 1200-1700m sont des optiques développées pour des besoins bien spécifiques. Dans ce cas pour les photos de baseball.
Cet usage seul n'aurait probablement pas déclenché la fabrication, il est clair que la vitrine techno joue aussi.