Let’s take a tour of what it might look like to peer through some of the world’s most powerful and expensive camera lenses, shall we?

To set a baseline, here’s a photo of Long Island City’s Citibank building taken with a regular ‘ol Canon 17-40mm zoom lens at 22mm. You can see the full photo on the top left, and a 100%, 1:1 zoom in the center of the screen. Click it to view it at actual size. Go on, click it.

22mm lens:

And here’s a shot with my most powerful zoom lens - a Canon 70-200mm 2.8L.

200mm lens:

Now the fun begins. Let’s see how much closer we can get by shooting through a 20-60x Nikon spotting scope.

40mm lens + spotting scope @ 20x (~800mm lens):

The photo above is pretty much as close as you’d get with an 800mm lens (although, obviously, the 800mm lens would have better image quality and the edges wouldn’t be completely darkened). Canon makes an 800mm lens and you can pick one up for a cool $11,000 at Adorama.

So let’s move on to 1200mm territory.

40mm lens + spotting scope @ 30x (~1200mm lens):

If you wanted to take the above photo without the black edges and degraded image quality, you could pick up Canon’s 1200mm, $120,000 lens from B&H. It’s the largest lens Canon makes and you can read more about it here.

Let’s get closer…

40mm lens + spotting scope @ 42.5x (~1700mm lens):

The photo above approximates the focal length of the world’s largest telephoto lens, made by Carl Zeiss. Badass.

100mm lens + spotting scope @ 20x (~2000mm lens):

Now we’re at 2000mm. Nikon made a 2000mm lens using mirrors a while back.

200mm lens + spotting scope @ 20x (~4000mm lens):

Somewhere between these two focal lengths is Canon’s insane 5200mm lens. You can read more about it here, here, and here.

100mm lens + spotting scope @ 60x (~6000mm lens):

To get any closer, someone once took Canon’s 1200mm lens and paired it with a 7.2x crop factor video camera to create a 8640mm focal length.

200mm lens + spotting scope @ 60x (~12000mm lens):

And there you have it - an example of how close you’d get with a 12000mm lens. Judging from the focal-length-to-price ratio of Canon’s 1200mm lens, getting a crystal clear full-frame shot of the Citibank building this close would run you $1,200,000. And that’s all I have to say about that.

I snapped this out of the back window of Snooth’s new offices in midtown. I highly recommend checking out the full resolution version.

In related news, our proximity to the Empire State Building is what made our (former) insurance company refuse to insure us. If you ask me, it sounds like the terrorists won.

They’re not supposed to admit this, right???

I don’t always do impersonations, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis.

Have a listen.

So now Google thinks I’m a malicious website and is blocking some visitors. I may be guilty of posting unfunny things and letting the site languish for weeks on end, but I’m no spammer or spyware hosting-person. Anywho, I’m taking steps to resolve this. Thanks for your support, my minions…

Proof positive why I should start carrying my Flip video camera around more often. I have no idea who this guy is, but Susan Boyle should be trembling in her big fat shoes. Brief cameo and camerawork by the one and only Todd Suchotliff. He’s my savior. He’s your savior.

Check out my design for the first ever Snooth Cycling Jersey. If you work for a winery or wine merchant, speak up on the Snooth Forums and we just might include your logo for free.

Photoshop jockeys might appreciate how I simulated the stretching fabric on the back. All I needed was an iPhone, a t-shirt, a bottle of wine, and a dream. Which is coincidentally how most of my weekends begin.

Apparently this video is actually shown to teach people about workplace safety. Who in their right mind would actually want to work at this place? Seems a little dangerous. (NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH!)

I just finished making an interactive version of the “Boys and Girls” installation mentioned in my previous post. Click the image to get started. Enjoy!

For your viewing pleasure, here are some photos I took of artist Michael Sanzone’s current exhibition at M55 Art in Long Island City. The exhibition features his wood sculptures, many of which were made during his two month artist’s residency at the Glenfiddich distillery in Scotland from whiskey barrels.

The highlight of the show is an installation called Boys and Girls - a collaboration with artist Earl Holloway consisting of 105 wood panels, each with a depiction of childhood.

If you’re in the New York City area you should check it out. It’ll knock you on your ass.

View more of this here.

File this under “would someone please invent this for me?”

I already have a few of these types of “squid” power strips and they’re fantastic. But imagine if each one had a wi-fi chip so you could control the flow of power to each plug from an iPhone (or computer) app? That’s right - total mindfuck.

This way you could tag each individual outlet in your home (presumably you’d have a few of these babies scattered around) letting you turn anything on or off (or dim it) while either not getting off your ass or from another location. You could also program the iPhone app’s acceleratometer (assuming Apple lets us run background apps eventually) to detect if you’re out and about, turning off a specified set of lights and electronics in your home. …Or if the software hooked into the iPhone’s microphone you could make it a modern overpriced version of “The Clapper.” …Or you could have it automatically adjust the lighting based on the mood of the music it hears. …Or you could just talk to the damn thing. “Turn off the goddamn coffee machine.”

There are tons of other cool things you could do with this (many of which are marginally, if at all useful), but the possibilities are so endless that to me it just seems like a good fit.

I’m sure similar things exist already, but my hunch is that if someone came along and presented a polished, cheap, turn-key system they’d make a killing. Just not in this economy.

As seen in SoHo on my way to work two days ago.

As a bizarre complement to this photograph, the orange sticker in the window of the SUV was a remnant from a funeral procession, as you can see from this crop of another (ie, suckier) photo I took.

This is absolutely amazing. The best way I can think of to honor one of the world’s most epic rock songs.

I had a great time on Saturday night at Snooth’s Open That Bottle Night. I got to schmooze with some interesting people, drink some fancy-ass wine, and bust out the prime lenses. I had to underexpose and push the photos in Lightroom to get workable results, but I’m pretty happy with the way things turned out. You can download some of my Lightroom presets below, then check out the rest of the gallery at Flickr. (Fellow photo geeks may want to cringe/marvel at some of the exposure values in the EXIF data…)

Amazingly hilarious video. But epic fail on the illegible font in the end.

One of the benefits of using a tripod and a manual camera setting for photographing wine bottles (which I often do before one of Greg’s blind tastings at Snooth) is that it makes processing all the photos a breeze. But I’ve also found an added benefit - it lets me make some pretty kick-ass (albeit useless) animated gifs.