  From theoretical predictions, the introduction of 8-m class telescopes
permits one to extend Surface Brightness Fluctuations measurements from the
ground to ~7000 km/s, with a precision that is comparable to current
space-based measurements. We have measured I--band SBF in IC 4296 in Abell 3565
cz~3630 km/s with the ESO Very Large Telescope. Adopting the Tonry et al.
(2000) calibration for I-band SBF we determined a distance modulus of (I_o,k -
M_I)=33.44 +/- 0.17 mag corresponding to a galaxy distance of 49 +/- 4 Mpc.
This result is consistent with the HST observation from Lauer et al. (1998):
(I_F814 - M_F814) = 33.47 +/- 0.13 mag.
