PopPhoto.com is reporting that specific guidelines for amateur photographers at the London Games have been announced. The maximum permissable lens length is 30 cm (about 11.8 inches), and "large cameras," tripods, and monopods won't be permitted (along with golf umbrellas, clothing emblazened with political statements, and—thank you, Olympic Police—vuvuzelas).
Carl Zeiss made its first 180mm 35mm lens, the once famous and technologically-advanced-for-its-day "Olympia Sonnar," just in time for the 1936 Games. I wonder if one of the Micro 4/3 or mirrorless manufacturers will put out the longest possible telephoto lens with a length just under 11.8 inches in time for these Olympics?
Mike
(Thanks to Richard Tugwell)
P.S. There was a gunstock-mounted version of the Olympia Sonnar. I doubt that would go over today.
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Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.
Featured Comment by Gary Brown: "Here's the official list of prohibited and restricted items at the London 2012 Olympics. The link to that, as well as other info, is on the London 2012 Safety and Security page."
Featured Comment by Phil Maus: "Being the stealthy photog that I am, I'm gonna bring my handheld 8x10 (oops, this is the UK, I mean 10-8) zone plate/pinhole box camera. Technically it is a 'large camera,' but I'm betting I won't be called out at the gate. It's hard enough convincing anyone that this is indeed a 'camera' at all, let alone the officials monitoring such things.... 'So that's your lunchbox then?' I'll have my special, ƒ/11 'Sports & Action' pinhole mounted! I live to flout the rules! Go USA!!!"
Featured Comment by RobG: "Olympics. Meh. Personally, I'm not going to pay any attention to any of it. Londonites, you have my deepeset sympathies. I'll spend every spare moment on the beach, photographing the local kiteboarders instead. I recommend that all of you stay away in droves, and go bother a badger or two.
"But hmm, a Sigma 50–500mm plus Nikon 1 to F-mount converter plus Nikon V1 might make for fun times...."
Minolta|Sony Mirror-type AF 500mm f/8 rocks there!
Also Tokina announced Reflex 300mm F6.3 but without autofocus.
Posted by: Account Deleted | Wednesday, 06 June 2012 at 03:22 AM
It's a bit sad that it's all about making money and not about sport.
Posted by: Thomas | Wednesday, 06 June 2012 at 03:54 AM
The restrictions surrounding product and licence at the London Olympics is indeed labrynthine.
Bearing in mind that the whole of London is going to be brought to a standstill (AT OUR EXPENSE) for three weeks, there should be some sort of payback for those of us that are suffering (and about to suffer some more).
As I understand it, there is just one Olympic Games event that made a profit, and those were in HotLanta, I believe that the Canadians are still paying for the 1968 games.
If it was about sport and taking part, I would be a little bit more circumspect, but this is only about the people that claim to be our government puffing their chests out and beating them.
I feel sick.
Posted by: right_writes | Wednesday, 06 June 2012 at 04:47 AM
I find it strange that us Canadians would be paying for the Mexican Olympics of 1968. :-)
I believe that right_writes is referring to the the 1976 Montreal Olympics and I believe it's correct that we still are paying.
Posted by: Stiphy | Wednesday, 06 June 2012 at 05:24 AM
My favourite among the banned items was "excessive amounts of food", closely followed by "flags of any country not participating in the Games". Damn, and I'd bought that Vatican tee shirt especially.
Posted by: Richard | Wednesday, 06 June 2012 at 06:10 AM
It has nothing or at least little to do with making money but an awful lot to do with people not getting shot or worse!
Posted by: marten | Wednesday, 06 June 2012 at 06:38 AM
In related news, hotel bookings are down 30% on this time last year.
Posted by: patrick | Wednesday, 06 June 2012 at 06:43 AM
A 30cm lens with the hood out, a tele on and a pro-series body is still a very big camera to the person next to you in a small olympic venue seat.
The limit has been known about for some time and is based on bag size, which in turn seems based on the amount of space for bags under seats. It was in place for the test events at the Olympic parks earelier in the year, although I didn't see anyone stopped and some fair size cameras in the venues (no 400/2.8s outside of the pros, though)
http://lensesforhire.blogspot.co.uk/2012_02_01_archive.html shows just how much kit you can fit within the size restrictions if you're determined and don't need padding between items.
Posted by: Adam | Wednesday, 06 June 2012 at 06:46 AM
Its not about sport, its about making money
Posted by: Alex | Wednesday, 06 June 2012 at 06:58 AM
Nice idea, but I think they've left it rather too late.
Olympus might have made some decent money if they'd converted some of their pro glass for micro 4/3rds, and sold a high end Olympics kit for the OM-D.
For instance, the 300mm f2.8 is 11.1 inches in length; the 150mm f2, 6 inches; the 90-250mm f2.8, 10.9 inches.
Might have been a realistic plan twelve months ago.
Posted by: Nigel | Wednesday, 06 June 2012 at 07:15 AM
Wat you really need is Pentax Q with 180mm Voigtlander f4 lens, and you are set.
Posted by: NucularHolyWarrior | Wednesday, 06 June 2012 at 07:35 AM
Does the 30 cm include the lens shade?
Posted by: Robert Roaldi | Wednesday, 06 June 2012 at 07:40 AM
Panasonic Lumix 100-300mm (200-600mm eqiv.) f4.0-5.6 O.I.S. Approximately 7.5 inches when extended fully.
Posted by: M. G. Van Drunen | Wednesday, 06 June 2012 at 07:44 AM
I must admit I always enjoyed watching the Olympics on telly smugly knowing someone else was footing the bill and putting up with the mayhem.
Now I am paying the bill and planning to get as far from London as possible until the darn thing is over. The underground in July is bad enough on a normal day....
Posted by: Steve Jacob | Wednesday, 06 June 2012 at 08:34 AM
Canon shooters could try the EF 70-300 f/3.5-5.6 DO IS USM diffractive optics lens which is just 3.9 inches long. That gives 480mm-e on a crop sensor body like the 7D. Not sure if it's compatible with the 1.4x and 2x extenders.
Posted by: Lynn Burdekin | Wednesday, 06 June 2012 at 09:04 AM
The Canadian games of 76 were paid off a few years ago. 1968 games were in Mexico City.
But I guess the press corps and their Speed Graphics will not be permitted.
Posted by: Roger Botting | Wednesday, 06 June 2012 at 09:19 AM
@right writes, I think the 1984 Los Angeles games were profitable (actually, I think I recall they were wildly profitable).
I used to shoot a Zeiss Jena (East German) 180mm Sonnar on my Contax Aria via a Zoerkendorf (sp?) adapter. I got some nice photos with that combo, but it was unwieldy, to say the least. I wouldn't mind an Olympia Sonnar on my m4/3 camera.
I suppose many of these restriction (lens length, no tripod etc) are for practical, crowd flow reasons and are fair, if not what one would like.
Patrick
Posted by: Patrick Perez | Wednesday, 06 June 2012 at 09:22 AM
Montreal Olympics were in 1976 and the debt was repaid in full in 2006.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2006/12/19/qc-olympicstadium.html
Posted by: Pascal Sauvé | Wednesday, 06 June 2012 at 10:01 AM
Canon SX40 HS or Nikon P510 seem like good choices here, unless they are laughably considered "large."
Posted by: Rob | Wednesday, 06 June 2012 at 10:06 AM
Hosting a large international sporting event in your city/country is actually a lot of fun. What's more, the spirit which it creates is hard to measure in purely financial terms. Looking back at the 2010 World Cup which, despite what a lot of people predicted, wasn't a disaster and didn't bring South Africa to a standstill, there are a lot of positives which came out of it. The only bad taste I still have in my mouth (apart from the "officially sanctioned" beer) really comes from the restrictions imposed by the organisers around things like food stalls. For example Macdonalds were allowed in but the vendors who traditionally serve food at local football matches were chased away. Photography is just another one of the limitations that goes with the commercialisation of big sporting events.
As for the Vuvuzelas. There's nothing to beat a stadium full of them every once in a while. This may be a uniquely South African view. The interesting thing for me is that they are less annoying in real life than they are on a TV broadcast, showing that sport is still best viewed from inside the stadium.
Posted by: Henk Coetzee | Wednesday, 06 June 2012 at 10:10 AM
And these seem mild when compared to Formula One racing's photo policy.
Posted by: The Lazy Aussie | Wednesday, 06 June 2012 at 10:18 AM
I was in LA getting my MFA during the 1984 Olympics and after a year of warnings about how impossibly gridlocked the city was going to be everybody either left town or stayed inside. It was quite plesent being in LA with almost no traffic.
Living in New York , I'm really glad we aren't having it here this year.
Posted by: Hugh Crawford | Wednesday, 06 June 2012 at 10:34 AM
I have always wondered, is that 11.8 inches extended or not extended? My Sigma 150 - 500 is about 10" at 150 mm and probably 14-15" at 500 mm.
Posted by: KeithB | Wednesday, 06 June 2012 at 10:38 AM
The panasonic 100-300mm is only around 12cm when retracted. A 30cm long prime for micro 4/3 would be a nice telephoto (although you'd need a model with a good grip). A 400mm f5.6 would be a sweet addition to the system.
Posted by: Ben V. | Wednesday, 06 June 2012 at 10:44 AM
" I believe that the Canadians are still paying for the 1968 games."
I hope not, Mexico hosted it then. Montreal hosted the games in 1976.
Agree with you that I don't think London will be a fun place to be for three weeks or so and the restrictions on photographers is dismaying.
Posted by: Andrew Lamb | Wednesday, 06 June 2012 at 11:10 AM
Panasonic has some nice small zooms for Micro Four-Thirds. The 100-300mm is optically quite nice, offers image stabilization, and is 600mm EQ. Not bad for something not much larger than a can of soup.
Posted by: JohnMFlores | Wednesday, 06 June 2012 at 11:12 AM
Here's an excerpt from my twitter stream while I was a semi-spectator at the Vancouver Olympics with an EF 500mm. And a Super Bowl followup:
Don Craig @tripleflash 21-Feb-2010
Waiting for ski-cross to start on cold metal seats, enduring loud electric band - to keep the youth occupied, I suppose.
That's the waiting that's on cold metal seats, not the ski-cross. At least the band suppresses crowd chanting - the swedes are very loud.
Photographer harassment time - "no long lenses allowed in the stands" "what's a long lens?" "that is" "how about 180mm?" "how long is that?"
"ok, I'll allow that black lens. But not the white one. And someone else might still ask you to leave."
In the event, the crowd around me grew thick enough to dissuade attempts at enforcing focal length violations. Now I hope I got something.
Half-way through the Games, the press bus contents stare into space or nap. One maniacal looking photog in a wool cap is culling selects.
I liked the maniac's selects better than mine. Photo used only for personal, private, and non-commercial purposes at http://bit.ly/axPSak
One more ski cross photo used only for personal, private, and non-commercial purposes at http://bit.ly/c4TMMQ
Don Craig @tripleflash 8-Feb-2011
Superbowl XLV had a six inch lens length limit for spectators. It's time to get serious about catadioptrics. 500mm f/6.3 is 4.7 inches long.
Posted by: Don Craig | Wednesday, 06 June 2012 at 11:15 AM
Nothing is more annoying at any sporting event than a photographer with a DSLR who thinks he has a press pass, and we all know DSLR users are annoying on their own. I say ban all cameras and DSLR users, even if they don't have their DSLR with them.
Posted by: Taran | Wednesday, 06 June 2012 at 12:09 PM
Even though I'm nowhere near London and only vaguely interested in sports of any kind, this has me thinking about just how much reach is theoretically possible with lenses shorter than 30cm.
Canon FD 500mm f/8 mirror lens, 14.6cm long according to specs + 2x teleconverter, about 5cm long for the one I own + FD-to-Pentax-Q adapter + Pentax Q.
Assuming my math isn't too shonky, that's somewhere in the region of the same field of view you'd get with a 5,500mm lens on 35mm, give or take a bit. You're going to be hoping for bright sunshine though and even then you'd be well into nosebleed-ISO territory to make the rig hand-holdable. Keeping it lined up on target while manually focusing would be a major problem too, so this is not a very practical combo.
That's an extreme case though. There are lots of other options which would mount to a Q to give you a ton of reach, be entirely hand-holdable even if the clouds are out and still not be so large as to irritate the people seated around you.
Posted by: Paul Glover | Wednesday, 06 June 2012 at 05:13 PM
Oh well, completely irrelevant to most UK residents as ticket allocations are a complete fiasco. Of all my acquaintences, only 1 person got any tickets - and that for an event he wasn't interested in.
Me, I'll be busy shooting events that will get totally ignored during Olympics hysteria (with my oversized Canon 500 f4)
Posted by: Colin Work | Wednesday, 06 June 2012 at 06:02 PM
At the world cup in Germany in 2006 I was told by a stadium worker that my Rebel XT with a 17-85mm lens was too big to take in. I walked to another entrance out of sight of the first where I was let in with no questions asked.
As an American at the world cup in South Africa in 2010 I have to agree with Henk Coetzee - a stadium full of vuvuzelas is an amazing experience. They were everywhere in Cape Town and proved to be photogenic props.
Posted by: James Hengst | Wednesday, 06 June 2012 at 06:24 PM
Other people have noted the resurgent possibilities of a market for oft derided 500mm mirror lenses. Time to sell my Zuiko 500mm f8? I have even used it with the 2x adapter (not to be recommended, but it works). So, (having a bit of harmless fun) on an OM-D with it's vaunted high ISO performance, we could have the "equivalent" of lets see, at ISO 3200, a 1000mm f2.8 at ISO 400, or crikey, a 2000mm f4 at ISO 200 with the tele converter. All at the size of a can of beans, which couldn't even be banned on the basis of excessive amounts of food. Of course, you can't actually see anything through it to focus.
Posted by: Richard Tugwell | Thursday, 07 June 2012 at 01:01 AM
A few years ago I tried going to a Seattle Mariners game with an Olympus E-3 and an old used Tamron SP 300mm f2.8 lens that I just bought on eBay. They would not let me in with the lens saying that it was to big and too long. They said that the professional photographers were complaining about us amateur's competing with them. I had walked from the ferry dock so I could not put the lens in my car. I used to take my Tamron Sp350mm mirror lens with no problems. This was news to me.
So what did I do after getting very discussed with this? I gave the tickets away and left. They lost a loyal fan that day and I have not been back. I have not watched them on TV either. I finally realized It was not about the fans anymore. We (the public) helped pay for that stadium but we had no rights. A private concern had all the rights. We were just pawns in the game, so it did not matter that I supported the team. All "Professional" sports are about one thing, money. With their "high priced whiners" (ball players) they can take it elsewhere for all I care.
One thing I like about the m43rd's gear is that it is small. It is a lot more stealth than my old Canon gear. I have never gotten permission or a permit to shoot so I was not about to start now.
I could now show up with my m43rd's outfit and probably get past the goons at the gate. But Why?
Posted by: Alan Halfhill | Thursday, 07 June 2012 at 01:10 AM
"We (the public) helped pay for that stadium but we had no rights. "
Sounds remarkably like the Olympics. The last straw for me was the special traffic lanes being laid on for 'officials' and 'dignitaries', with priority at traffic lights. I realize this was a condition of getting the games, but it's a bit too much like the practices of the old communist regimes for my taste.
Call me curmudgeonly, but I have no intention of going anywhere near London that month.
Back on topic, I note that Samsung and Panasonic are among the official sponsors. I guess we ought to be grateful that the use of other camera brands isn't forbidden in the venues. Yet.
Posted by: Nigel | Thursday, 07 June 2012 at 11:33 AM
30cm is perfect!
My 420mm to 800mm f8-16 telescope lens is T-mount and sits in at just 25.5 cm with the adapters and hood! So on M4/3rds you have about 1600mm to work with. Also the image quality is not that bad at all, some say better than the Sigma 50-500mm.
Posted by: David Bateman | Thursday, 07 June 2012 at 12:41 PM
For me a big sporting event in a big stadium is not the opportunity to get great sport photographs. The angles are wrong, the space is wrong and that's not why everyone around you is attending the game. If you must take photographs, never underestimate the possibilities with wide angles.
Have a look at
http://www.gilesridley.com/shop/product_info.php?cPath=121_64_105&products_id=366&osCsid=e6633d639b96b0a18d8fb749368f11a2
and
http://www.gilesridley.com/shop/product_info.php?cPath=121_64_105&products_id=388
although these are not the work of a slightly drunk fan in the crowd with a P&S :-).
Posted by: Henk Coetzee | Thursday, 07 June 2012 at 12:52 PM
Dear folks,
I'll second Richard's suggestion. I bought a real beater of a Sigma 600 mm f/8 on eBay for $49 to photograph the annular eclipse (lenses in good to excellent condition can be bought for a little more than twice that). On a micro four thirds camera, it's a great deal. The off-axis image quality and curvature of field deteriorated rapidly with lenses of this ilk the further you got from the center of the field, which made them pretty poor performers in 35mm format. But when you're only using the central half of the field, the image quality is much more uniform and quite acceptable. Contrast tends to be rather low, which was a problem for film photographers, but we digiterati can easily tweak it up later.
Further benefit of using such a lens on micro four thirds is that you don't have to be able to see through it to focus; you're looking atan on-screen image which the camera amplifies as needed, not a direct optical image. Note, though, that the focus is insanely finicky, and I'm not sure I could hand-hold this steady, even with in body stabilization.
pax \ Ctein
[ Please excuse any word-salad. MacSpeech in training! ]
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Posted by: ctein | Friday, 08 June 2012 at 12:50 AM