Over centuries, the humble chessboard has allowed artisans and designers to set free their creativity. In recent months, we have seen a number of brilliantly designed chessboards and chess pieces. A case in point is the ultra-minimalist Naef Bahaus chess set, where each chess piece is a reflection of its own particular move. Thus, the Knight has an L-shaped topping to represent the L formation in which it moves. There is also the chess and backgammon set by Alfred Dunhill, which is handcrafted out of carbon fibre. And who can forget the classic style of the Paul Smith chess set with black and purple pieces and his signature color bars.
But none of these can compare to the new game of chess being battled out by Nikon and Canon lenses in the offices of LensRentals. The LensRentals people have arranged a chess set of Nikon and Canon lenses in an epic battle. As it is, the camera world is divided into people who adore Nikon and hate Canon and vice versa. So shutterbugs should be excited by this unlikely chess set.
The Pawns are 70-200 f/2.8 lenses, the Kings are 600mm f/4 and the Queens are 500mm f4. In addition, there are 400mm f/2.8 Bishops, 300mm f/2.8 Knights, and 200mm f/2.0 Rooks. The black lenses are Nikon, and the white ones are Canon. If you are willing to spend $10,000 a week for this uncommon chess set, make sure you add $1,000 extra as shipping charges. The pieces have image stablisation, and LensRentals will gladly send you sufficient black and white vinyl square tiles so you can create a large enough chessboard for this epic battle.
