Micro 35 for HD

[goober542]

I wonder if the lens diamater will be 72mm on the new HD cam or if they will go with a different size. I would be nice if it is the same so that the micro 35 can be made use of in that situation then.

Nothing could mess with that setup. Unless of course your shooting film.

[Barry_Green]

I think we're all hoping for compatibility, but I'm hoping even more for extended zoom range. If I could get a 16x zoom, but that meant a bigger filter diameter, I'd take the longer zoom reach, no question. Now, if we get longer zoom and the same filter size, of course that's the best of both worlds.

Right now nobody knows...

[Flintstone]

Why would the diameter have to be bigger? *The XL2 has 72mm thread, does it not? *And it has a 20x reach.

Edit: Changed ZL2 to XL2. And yes! It's an obvious typo!

[Barry_Green]

By ZL2 you meant XL2, right?

I don't know the diameter offhand, but the XL2 doesn't have the same wide angle. I'm no lens designer, perhaps Bill Turner can weigh in here, but it's my understanding that the wider-angle the lens, the bigger diameter you need, especially as longer focal lengths are taken into consideration. The PD150 had a 58mm lens diameter, 12x lens with a 6mm wide-angle, but when they went to the FX1 they also built a 12x lens, but moved the wide-angle to 4.5mm. And they increased the diameter of the filter threads to 72mm.

I believe they're linked, the wider you go the bigger the filter diameter. I'd love to see smaller threads, heck, that just makes accessories cost less. But I don't know if they can do it, I believe it has to go bigger. And I certainly don't want to give up the wide-angle, and I would rather have more telephoto than accessory compatibility, but that's just my own preferences, others may have other priorities.

[Shaw]

I don't think it has too much of an impact. I think it may be easier to manufacture and design a wide angle lens with a wider diameter but small diameter wide angle lenses are made all the time. For instance there is a 10mm 35mm lens in the other room right now and it isn't wider than 72mm (in fact it's smaller I believe - going from memory here).

[Barry_Green]

But does it zoom to 12x or 16x? That's the issue, as I understand it. Are there any narrow-diameter zoom lenses that have a nice wide-angle field of view?

[Shaw]

It's a prime lens actually. So no, I don't have anything to compare in that respect. It would be interesting to find out! I honestly don't know.

[Pascal_Parvex]

It is possible. Again, I can compare it with digital still cameras: The Canon S70 has a wide angle of 28mm (100mm zoom end), the Nikon 8400 even 24mm (85mm zoom end), and they have a seven and eight Megapixel sensor. Or take the Dimage 7 series from Minolta, they have a five Megapixel sensor and a zoom range of 28-200mm.

So, as I understand it, it depends on how close you position the same objective/lens near the sensor or film. Closer means more wide angle, farer more tele/zoom range. And: Smaller sensor, less wide angle and vice versa. The still camera CCD's are small, but the modell from Nikon has reached 24mm right out of the box.

What we need here would be a specialist for optics.

[Bill__Turner]

It is not possible to say for sure without running a design study but as a generalization, Barry's comments are correct. If you extend the zoom range from the current 10x and maintain the current wide angle FOV on would expect the diameter of the front element to increase.

The designer could choose to try and maintain the 72mm filter size, but the question would become what other trade-offs in performance and lens speed (F number) would be necessary to do that.

The lens of the Sony HDV camera is a 12x and maintained the 72mm filter size--- but going to an even greater range might not be practical without increasing the size-- all other things being equal.

The longer the range, the wider the angle, the more complex and therefore expensive the lens becomes to manufacture, looking at the much higher price of the wide angle zooms for 2/3 " cameras vs the standard lens shows the problem-- on the order of $20K vs $12 (depending on exact model, features etc).

Bill Turner
Century Division
Schneider Optics