NAB - High Definition Wide Zoom Lens for XL H1
 

High Definition Wide Zoom Lens for XL H1

- Optical Zoom Mangnification (6x)
- Focal Length: 3.4mm - 20.4mm (35mm equivalent approx. 24.5 - 147mm)
- Independent Aperture Ring
- Availability: November 2006
- Price: TBD

Great news - May 2006 would be even better... Steve Rosen

I would hope they release a regular manual HD lens for the camera sooner. (although I doubt it) I love Wide Angle but a 6x still seems like a specialty lens and not something I would use continuosly. I am glad to hear that they at least gave some kind of information about the future alternate lenses. Maybe they are trying to tell us something new on everyday of NAB

It looks like it is going to be another black AF version like the 20XHD lens (minus IS). I was hoping for a manual zoom or fixed prime with a back-focus adjuster, but I suppose we were all hoping too much. The 3.4mm end is just about right for my needs. Let's just hope the price is nice...although relating to the H1 it is going to be expensive on first release!

If is NOT a servo lens. The pictures you may have seen already are of a prototype which doesn't have the barrel markings. And how about this for full manual...the iris will be manual as well(see point #3 in Rob's post) with more blades to allow getting good focus at different zoom settings. I have video from the Canon booth yesterday that gives a bit of a walk around the lens.

-gb-

Greg,

What's the over/under on the price, according to the oddsmakers in Vegas?
$3000??

Yipee, woohoo go Canon go Canon, umm, well, no, Sorry (End sarcasm, begin vent) How about another camera? Something that doesn't cost my future cat's college tuition? I'm sorry Canon, I own one Canon, my next will probably be a Sony.

[QUOTE=Daniel Epstein] I love Wide Angle but a 6x still seems like a specialty lens

Personally I'm very pleased..

With longer lenses the lack of depth of field can fool the eye into thinking the object focused on is sharper than it is - Because wide angles inherently need to be sharper, it is best that they have as few elements as possible.. a short zoom is perfect for HDV... I'm sure it will not be cheap, but as long as it's good...

Not a servo, Greg? Oh, that is news.

In the Canon manual lens line-up I actually much prefer the 16X Manual Servo version to the non-servo 14 X version. Having a smooth creeping pull-back on the zoom holds its advantage over the completely manual only model. However, this is mainly for a telephoto lens and as I've mentioned before, I prefer to use a wide angle lens in a fixed position and move the complete camera to gain a new frame view, so a non-servo 6X will still be very useful.

As is well known, Canon has no history of announcing new camera's at NAB.
NAB for them is much more Canon Broadcast division.

If there are new Canon camera's coming expect announcements later in the
year.

Hope this helps,

The 6x mock-up under glass here is at best a prototype, or perhaps even better labeled a "concept piece." Definitely not a finished lens that is ready to ship. Beyond what Rob wrote in the first post (directly off the placard by the lens), neither we nor the Canon USA guys I chatted with again today know just exactly what feature set and type of technologies the lens will have.

The buttons on it are identical to the 20x, and they're mentioning the independent aperture (will that mean true manual...I don't know?), so we're fairly well at a dead end until more facts are released, probably not for many months yet. A lot could change, depending on how far into development the engineers in Japan really are with it.

BTW, Canon is producing a full-manual 20x for JVC, so I'm hopeful that we may see an XL mount version of that someday. But again, no official words.

Pete - the buttons would indicate that it is going to be an AF X3HD lens, not MF, and my own gut feeling is that it will hold almost the same functions as the present black 20XHD lens, but with a manual aperture ring on the lens barrel like the MF 14X lens.

We'll just have to wait and see...

"...BTW, Canon is producing a full-manual 20x for JVC..." That is interesting, maybe a true MF is on the cards in the XL mount - it has been long time since the MF 16X was introduced and a HD update is well overdue.

Tony,

Well I may be splitting hairs but the 16X manual is not servo driven either. It has zoom and focus markngs on the barrel and when you press the T/W switch, the zoom ring gets rotated by a motor turning a gear. Disengage the swtich and the zoom becomes manual as well, while the iris is controlled by the camera body.

In the strictest sense, servo driven means you turn the ring and it sends a command to a motor via an error signal telling the motor which way and how fast to turn. The motor stops when the error signal is reduced to zero.

-gb-

Yes, splitting hairs, Greg...the MF 16X lens is well known as - and has for a long time been described as - a "Manual Servo" zoom lens:

http://www.dvinfo.net/canon/articles/article82.php

any indication what the speed of the lens is? the manual aperture ring leads me to believe that it has a consistent aperture through the zoom range.

here's hoping for an f1.2

-Jon