Photographer tried shooting portraits with Leica 1600mm for 2 million USD

That there are cameras and lenses Leica quite expensive, we kind of already know that. But unique models can have prices in the millions of EUR or USD. Recently, a rare Leica 0-Series was auctioned for EUR 3.5 million, but some more modern lenses, such as Leica Apo-Telyt-R 1600mm f/5.6 from 2006. It was sold for over 2 million USD, i.e. in many tens of millions of CZK. It is a unique lens in the true sense of the word, as it is the only one in the world (prototypes aside). It was a custom lens for Sheikh Saud Bin Mohammed Al-Thani, former Minister of Culture and Arts in Qatar. He was a great photography enthusiast (in 2000 he founded, for example, the Al-Thani Awards photography competition), but he died at the age of only 48. The lens thus headed for auctions.

It is a huge piece of glass, 1.2 meters long (1.55 meters with the sun visor) and weighs around 60 kg. It is not surprising that the Sheikh had a specific “tripod” for taking pictures, a special SUV that drove him. Now some photographers, e.g. from Silvergrain Classics magazine, could try it out. Not surprisingly, at the given focal length, the model had to be very far from the lens, and since the lens and body were basically immovable, she was on an office chair that could easily be moved sideways and up to be in the frame . We can look at the footage from this photo shoot.