New Lens for HD100/250 = NICE
 

As mentioned we had been doing some testing of all three lenses 16X, 13X, 18X for both HD100 and the HD250... I WANT THEM ALL NOW. Cruel joke letting a guy test out these fantastic lenses. My Lens of choice came down to the 18X over the 13X due to being an ultra clean lens with great resolution, but more so because of it's additional features... ones that I found I was using a lot.

The 13X got you into tight places, but I didn't like the image nearly as much going that wide, a limitation of the 1/3 CCD here maybe? Near the end of the telephoto on the 18X the image quality was nearly 1/3 better than the stock 16X lens. The images of the 18 are just plain sharper, more detail.

Anyway, off to sleep now. Check out the picks for yourself.
Oooooohhhh look, new features! (18X against the 16X)

http://www.danielpatton.com/JVCLensForHD100-250/

In one of the photos I noticed a connector on the bottom for "Focus". Is this an electronic connection or a mechanical connection?

I'm going to guess that based on the position of the connector it's an electronic connection to some kind of focus servo. I've seen it before in high-end ENG lenses, but never used it because servo focus sucks. I'm sure some indie film guy will figure out a way to hook up a follow focus to it, even though it's not really necessary on a camera with 1/3" chips.

Servo focus is necessary for proper aerials. If you're on a Tyler or Wescam mount, how else can you focus the shot?

A Preston FIZ rig, which is not so out of the question if you're already paying for the Tyler and associated aerial shooting costs.

Forgot about wireless - touché, Nate. Never used one before - what does something like that rent for?

I don't know which one to choose!
I have the 13x at the moment for testing and it's a great lens! But I really like the additional features on the 18x. The difference in wide angle isn't that much.

Are you still happy with the choice you made?

NO one's looked at the 17x? I received one about 2 weeks ago and I'm quite happy with it. At its cost point, it's probably not a competitor against the 18x, but, it's MUCH better than the 16x and MUCH cheaper than the 18x.

I did look but the wide-angle isn't enough for me.

Hd-250 17x5 BRM Optional lens
 

Hi:
I am an Hd-250U user with the standard 16x lens and wonder if you (Mr. Ravens) could be more specific in terms of the areas of improvment in which the 17x excels as compared to the 16x (i.e. resolution, apparent sharpness, color rendition, etc.)?

Thank you in advance,
Ron

pls do a search for fujinon 17x5. i've posted a lot of my experience with this lens