There have been reports of Sony developing a 400mm f/2.8 E-mount lens for the a9 mirrorless camera, and now the once-mythical lens has just been spotted in the wild. A taped up version of the monstrous white lens was seen this week at the 2018 Winter Olympics.
sonyalpharumors reports that this lens is designed for professional sports photographers and should stack up well against the telephoto primes offered by market leaders Canon and Nikon. The Sony a9 has been praised as a formidable sports photography camera, but Sony’s high-end lens offerings on the telephoto end have been sparse. This 400mm will help fix that.
“It’s really hard to determine the exact size of the new Sony 400mm f/2.8 FE lens based on the leaked image,” SAR writes “But we can safely assume it’s pretty much close to the size of the current Canon 400mm lens.”
The Canon 400mm f/2.8L IS II weighs 8.47lbs (3.85kg) and is 13.5in long (34.3cm). Another similarity to the Canon 400mm, which costs $9,999, will likely be the hefty price tag.
“The lens will be priced at $10,000+ just like the Canon and Nikon versions,” sonyalpharumors writes. B&H has a placeholder page that lists the expected availability of this lens as September 2018.
