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Photo via Bruce McKay/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Zoom lens is so powerful you can see craters on the moon in daytime

This single-shot video is remarkable.

 

Dylan Love

Tech

Posted on Jun 29, 2015   Updated on May 28, 2021, 11:22 am CDT

In this minute-and-a-half-long video, 238,900 miles becomes nothing.

YouTube user Naturbeobachtungen von Lothar Lenz stood on planet Earth and pointed a camera at the moon, recording video that zooms in closer and closer on our nearest astronomical neighbor. The equipment in play was a Nikon Coolpix P900 equipped with a monstrous 83x zoom. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfshAzV0FN4

Here’s what the camera looks like:

Nikon

This arrangement of optics and electronics comes together to show remarkable detail on the surface of the moon in a series of increasingly close video shots—in the middle of the stinkin’ daytime. The video is an awesome reminder of humanity’s place in the universe (and will probably sell some cameras for Nikon as well).When we’re talking about zoom lenses that aren’t available to consumers, it gets even crazier. Canon has a 5200mm lens that’s demoed in the video below—it shows a shot of a cityscape and then slowly zooms in on a specific window of a specific building, where you can see a woman waving inside.

Crazy:

With all this talk of zoom, we can’t help but be reminded of this Mazda commercial:

Zoom zoom.

H/T Reddit | Photo via Bruce McKay/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

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*First Published: Jun 29, 2015, 1:41 pm CDT