Which lens to make me look like a Pro?

[bajasurf]

I have ruled out the bungee cord and tape to make a lighting system. Maybe if I spend a few dollars on a nice lens that could help. Have to impress any potential clients. I have narrowed it down to 3. Two Canons and one Leica. The cheap Canon: 800mm f5.6 can be had for $12,500. Maybe the not so cheap Canon 1200mm f5.6 at $100,000. However the Leica should put me right up there with the pros. Leica-APO-TELYT-R 1:56 1600mm at the very reasonable price of $2,000,000. Now we are talking!!!! But I will still have the problem of taking a decent photo. Think I will stick with the Konica FT-1 and the 40mm 1.8 lens and some Fuji 400 film.

 

[Scott Brady]

And who says Leica doesn't make a decent telephoto

 

[HumphreyBear]

Phew, you almost gave in to the Pro Phenomenon - but if someone still wants the pro experience without the cost they could make these lenses themselves. I'm sure that on the Internet - the home of all good things that are tried and true - there is a design using cardboard tubing from clingwrap rolls, some carefully cut glass discs (out of an old window from when you were renovating the house) and a disc sander to get the right convex shape on the 'lens elements'. Throw in some duct tape to bond the lens tube to the camera body, some super glue to hold the lens elements in place, and some super fine P2500 wet'n'dry to polish the suckers up to a nice finish (with the elbow grease supplied free) then you could put the $1,999,998 savings towards something else - maybe the new over-the-top Unicat Unimog rig to get to nice places to take photos of. Of course you'd still come back to the problem of taking a decent image, so we seem to have come full circle.