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MillimeterNAB 2006
Mar 5, 2006 12:30 PM, By S. D. Katz, D. W. Leitner, and Dan Ochiva
More for Your Digital Dollar
Carl Zeiss DigiZoom 17mm-112mm T1.9
Lenses
As everyone who shoots HDV knows, wide-angle shots are problematic with these 1/3in. sensor cameras. The widest focal lengths of Sony's Z1 and A1 — 4.5mm and 5.1mm — make you back away several more feet from a subject than you'd like in order to get a comfortably framed head-and-shoulder shot. (Forget about shooting in tight spaces like cars or elevators.) The same is true of the JVC HD100's stock 16X Fujinon lens (5.5mm) and Canon's 20X lens (5.4mm). Even Panasonic's HVX200 with a 4.2mm comes up short in this regard. At NAB, JVC will show its best answer: a $10,000 13X Fujinon zoom with a 3.5mm wide angle. Schneider Optics will introduce a zoom-through Century HD Compact .8X Wide Angle Converter for fixed 72mm zooms like Sony's Z1. Will NAB surprise us with additional solutions?
1/2in. HD camcorders like Sony's new XDCAM HD also pose a lens challenge. There exist decades of SD and HD lenses for 2/3in. bayonet mounts (an NHK standard called B4), but broadcast lenses for Sony's 1/2in. bayonet mount are precious few, particularly HD caliber. (In the past, 1/2in. CCDs were found mostly in small industrial box cameras.)
At January's Sundance Festival, Sony premiered its PDW-F350 XDCAM HD using the argument that 24P, time-lapse interval recording, and slow shutter speeds make the PDW-F350 an Indie filmmaker's dream machine. But what DP wants to face an utter lack of lens choices? (We won't mention additional loss of depth of field, compared to 2/3in. cameras.)
To kickstart Sony's XDCAM HD, Canon will debut at NAB a handheld ENG version of the 6.7mm to 127mm (19X) zoom introduced at last year's NAB for Sony's HDC-X300 1/2in. remote-control HD box camera. Like its industrial cousin, the new 1/2in. ENG zoom brings a radical capability to broadcast HD: auto-focus. Whether or not this heralds the end of professional ENG as we know it, it certainly ratchets digital automation another notch towards prosumer. Expect additional introductions of 1/2in. HD ENG zooms (not autofocus, natch) from Fujinon and Canon at NAB.
Canon YJ13x6B
Another lens solution for 1/2in. HD camcorders is a simple mechanical adapter (no optics) that permits use of existing B4-mount lenses (flange focal depth of 48mm) on 1/2in. mounts (flange focal depth of 35.74mm). Of course, viewed through a 1/2in. camera, horizontal angle will shrink by a third. Sony will show such an adaptor, which will, at the least, enable use of top-shelf, cine-style lenses like Canon's family of HD-EC primes and zooms, or Carl Zeiss' DigiPrimes, particularly the spectacular new 3.9mm Superwide T1.9 at BandPro's booth. Perhaps even a working prototype of the new Zeiss DigiZoom 17mm to 112mm, a remarkably compact T 1.9 HD cine-style zoom, also to be found at Band Pro.
For those wishing to adapt PL-mount or Nikon lenses to 1/3in. HDV camcorders, new adapters joining the ranks of P+S Technik's PRO35 and MINI35 products are Redrock Microsystems' M2 and Kinomatik's Movietube. Perhaps a 1/2in.-compatible version of one of these will appear at NAB by next year.
Arri will display a bounty of new Zeiss 35mm cine lenses, including 12 T 1.3 Master Primes — perhaps the most advanced cine lenses ever made — an amazing wide-angle Arri 8mm Ultra Prime 8R (R for rectilinear, meaning negligible barrel distortion), a 15.5mm-to-45mm T2.6 Lightweight Zoom, and, for Super 16, five newly designed T1.3 Ultra 16 lenses. Arri will also debut a much-needed set of high-quality Master Diopters (+0.5, +1, +3) for close-up work.
The Arri Master Primes, incidentally, feature a built-in Lens Data System showing realtime lens settings and depth of field on a video assist or Arri Lens Data Display. Cooke Optics is taking this concept a step further in a collaboration with The Pixel Farm, a noted high-end U.K. digital compositing and film special effects house, which, in advance of NAB, announced co-development of an effects tracking system to capture and exploit per-frame lens parameter data supplied by Cooke's film lens data system, called /i Technology.
Sadly, a cherished source of innovative lenses and accessories won't be showing at NAB this year. In December, London's OpTex was placed in receivership, the U.K equivalent of bankruptcy in the United States. It will be missed.
— D.W.L.
Lighting
Arri continues to reinvent lighting. Debuting at NAB will be the Arrimax 18/12, which Arri touts as the “most powerful HMI on the planet.” A new single-ended 18KW lamp and novel adjustable reflector provide the efficiency of a giant PAR with the focusability of a Fresnel, minus the lens. On a more modest scale, Arri will showcase newly introduced 250W Arri X Ceramic and Studio Ceramic instruments featuring a new Philips ST 250 HR discharge lamp that produces 3,200-degree-K, tungsten-like light using the low power of an HMI. The Studio Ceramic 250 borrows the housing of an Arri Studio 1K Fresnel, while the open-face Arri X Ceramic 250 provides even light distribution over an amazing 112-degree field. Arri says that adding a specular intensifier and Chimera-type diffusion turns the Arri X into the equivalent of a 2,000W softlight for only 250W (less than 3 amps).
Expect to see Litepanels' much-anticipated 1'×1' LED units lighting up a corner of North Hall.
— D.W.L.
What: KinoFlo ParaZip 400 luminaire
Why: Provides a soft wash of incandescent- or daylight-quality light that can be dimmed down or up without significant shifts in Kelvin temperature.
What: Arri Studio Ceramic 250
Why: At about 250W each, Arri's Ceramic fixtures produce much less heat than tungsten fixtures while delivering a steady 3200 degrees-K. The 7in.-diameter Ceramic 250 uses the housing and all the accessories of Arri's widely deployed Studio 1K Fresnel.
