How JVC could nail it

B

Barry_S

Moderator
Thinking about the HD100, I think JVC could really boost their sales if they offered a good set of primes. Let's say, something like

3.5mm T1.8 (wide baby!)

5.0mm T1.8

10mm T1.8

20mm T1.8

Sell the whole set of four for $2500-$3000 or single lenses for $800-$1000 each. Single focal length lenses are relatively easy to design and comparatively cheap to produce--especially when they only have to cover such a small image area. Fast zoom lenses with a wide range of focal lengths are much harder to design without optical aberrations (hence the chromatic aberrations we've been seeing) So, JVC would increase sales of the HD100 because of the additional flexibility, overcome the optical limitations of the stock zoom, and squeeze every last bit of quality out of their chips and electronics. Maybe even make some additional profit on the lenses themselves.
 
Now THAT would make the HD100 a lot more appealing for me... especially for narrative filmmaking, where you rarely need a zoom lens. Do you think they (or someone else) might do something like this for real?
 
Eventually, *someone* will do it for some low-mid HD camera, but I don't know about JVC. It seems like JVC and Canon squander the interchangeable lens feature by offering very few lens options. I think it could work economically for the manufacturer, but they'd have to take a leap of faith--that they'd sell enough lenses.
 
I'm sure this will happen. Probably it won't be JVC that manufactures (or sells) them, but these lenses will exist in say, a year or so - perhaps less?
 
This is a stupid question, but just for those who know the answer...

Are the Canon and JVC lenses interchangeable?? Can you put the HD100 lens on the Canon HL1?? Viceversa?? Why??
 
videoteque:

No the lenses have different mounts. On top of that the Canon lenses on the XL1/2 have been "hot shoe" lenses with a contact pin system to power the iris and zoom. I would expect the new Canon HL1 to use the same mounting system as the XL1/2 but do not know this to be true. The Fuji lens on the JVC uses a more common cable connector. if one could change the mounts, one would still have no way to provide power to the lenses except on the original camera they were designed for.

As for the prime lenses- The ones made for 2/3 " by Canon, Fuji, and Zeiss have not been huge sellers. It is possible to make zoom lenses with nearly equal quality and you dont have to fiddle with changing lenses, checking back focus etc.

I can see the appeal of some wide angle lenses, wider than the zoom, but since the quality of a 10mm or 20 mm prime would not be much better (noticeable in the recorded video not merely better in some theoretical test) , I would be supprised if there was sufficient interest to warrant designing and manufacturing them.

Bill Turner
Schneider Optics
Century Division
 
Bill--Thanks for your observations. I'm not surprised that the 2/3" primes don't sell that well. I haven't seen any optical tests of the HD100 stock lens, but even if the longer focal lengths weren't viable, a couple of wide angle primes would go a long way toward making the HD100 a more appealing indie camera. The quality of some zooms is pretty amazing, but those are pretty expensive lenses--like the super expensive (by 1/3" standards) 13X3.5 zoom JVC offers.
 
The Fujinon HD prime lenses are fantastic. I had the opportunity to handle the entire kit plus five HD zoom lenses earlier this year the VariCamp. Unfortunately, the concept of "reasonably affordable" escaped the minds of these developers: The set of primes sold for $175,000. Other than Lucas and Rodriguez, I doubt they have any other customers for the kit. Some users really dig having a single prime for lightweight Steadicam operation, of course. Apparently the zoom lenses being made today are providing superlative enough results to taper off the demand for primes. That's a remarkable achievement!

Back in the hey day of Canon DV, I longed for a set of "XL" primes for the XL1S. Ultimately, all I really needed was a wide angle -- and after trying their wide angle, all I wanted was a DVX100. Funny how that works.
 
Bill__Turner said:
videoteque:

No the lenses have different mounts. On top of that the Canon lenses on the XL1/2 have been "hot shoe" lenses with a contact pin system to power the iris and zoom. I would expect the new Canon HL1 to use the same mounting system as the XL1/2 but do not know this to be true. The Fuji lens on the JVC uses a more common cable connector. if one could change the mounts, one would still have no way to provide power to the lenses except on the original camera they were designed for.

As for the prime lenses- The ones made for 2/3 " by Canon, Fuji, and Zeiss have not been huge sellers. It is possible to make zoom lenses with nearly equal quality and you dont have to fiddle with changing lenses, checking back focus etc.

I can see the appeal of some wide angle lenses, wider than the zoom, but since the quality of a 10mm or 20 mm prime would not be much better (noticeable in the recorded video not merely better in some theoretical test) , I would be supprised if there was sufficient interest to warrant designing and manufacturing them.

Bill Turner
Schneider Optics
Century Division
Click to expand...

All true, but on top of that, don't forget: the Canon-lens doesn't have a grip, because that's built into the main body of the camcorder, whereas the fujinon as all professional lenses has a grip connected to it's body...
 
What about this? A camera with a four lens turret in the front that the operator could rack when ever he or she wanted. No need for a zoom lens. That gets old anyway.
 
I would be supprised if there was sufficient interest to warrant designing and manufacturing them.

Bill Turner
Schneider Optics
Century Division
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

you're certainly entitled to an opinion--but on the other hand your company manufactures lens accessories--like wide angle adaptors. with the greatest respect, there's a bit of a conflict here.
 
Dear brianluce:

I guess it is the nature of today's world that everyone assumes everyone else has an agenda and distrusts manufacturer's in general.

My statement was my personal opinion, pure and simple (based on my knowledge of development costs etc). The Century Division has historically manufactured specialty lenses for film cameras (primarily 16mm) , wide angle and telephoto- complete lenses not accessories. We moved into the accessory lens business for video based on opportunity and demand starting around 1980.

Our parent company Schneider Kreuznach in Germany has been manufacturing lenses since 1913 and produced sophisticated zoom lenses for video cameras until the non - Japanese companies (RCA, Marconi, Bosch , Phillips etc) got out of the camera business.

We would seriously consider manufacturing prime lenses for this type of application if we felt it was warranted. We will continue to monitor the market ( a big part of the reason I am here) .

Schneider already produces some "c" mount lenses for 1/3" 3 ccd industrial cameras. Whether or not any of these would lend them selves to adaption to this JVC or similar cameras is something I plan to look into.

Best Regards

Bill Turner
Century Division
Schneider Optics
 
One or two wide angle primes from Century would be a pretty nice option for the HD100. Maybe they could be sold for the Canon XL H1 as well. The industrial lenses sounds like a long shot, but it would certainly be a faster route to having some lenses available.


Bill__Turner said:
...We would seriously consider manufacturing prime lenses for this type of application if we felt it was warranted. We will continue to monitor the market ( a big part of the reason I am here) .

Schneider already produces some "c" mount lenses for 1/3" 3 ccd industrial cameras. Whether or not any of these would lend them selves to adaption to this JVC or similar cameras is something I plan to look into./QUOTE]
Click to expand...
 
Having just finished a week's shoot with the HD100, I really wanted a wide prime, partly for the width, but also for the length. When you are in tight querilla style locations (lifts, cars, bathrooms) the length of the camera + lens plays against you.
I agree with a previous point that generally with video cameras no-one would be interested as zooms can do most of the job, but in this instance it just seems to be crying out for it. Also lens reflections etc in the standard zoom mean there's more call for improvement than there might normally be.
 
Regarding a market for prime lenses, also consider that a large contingent of people moving to the digital video realm these days are intrinsically filmmakers, often people coming from 16mm or 35mm backgrounds.

It makes sense that people working in traditional "video" applications would have little interest in prime lenses -- too much fussing around. But folks working in traditional "film" applications certainly would be interested if it's not too prohibitive. There may not have been much interest YET, but these people are slowly coming around and making the switch, especially now that the HD gear is so affordable and takes such good images.
 
I thought this was interesting:
http://xl1solutions.com/ADAPTERS.htm
Its for XLs but a JVC version should be just as easy to make.
Apparently 16mm lenses only have a multiplier of 2x on 1/3" chips.
Looked around on ebay and saw some nice Ziess primes selling relatively cheap.
I'm wondering if a 9.5mm Ziess on a Canon or HD100 would be similar to a 20mm on an SLR? Seems a little more practical than mounting 35mm lenses on video cameras.
 
Steve Roark said:
I'm wondering if a 9.5mm Ziess on a Canon or HD100 would be similar to a 20mm on an SLR?
Click to expand...

No, it would be more telephoto that that. I can't remember the exact multiple (it depends on the actual chip size) but I guessing more like 85mm. Please correct me with an actual figure if anyone knows it.
 
MMM, looks like you're describing the 7x effect of a 35mm lens, I'm talking about 16mm film camera lenses, which apparently are only twice the surface area of the video chip. The site claims a 2x effect, which sounds logical to me.
 
You are comparing it to an SLR though (I presume 35mm stills) which has a far larger area than 16mm film. This means it may only be a 2x magnification to 16mm, but 20mm lenses when using 16mm film do not equal 20mm lens in 35mm stills photography.

A 20mm SLR lens is very wide angle, even fish-eye. A 9.5mm lens focusing on a 1/3" CCD is not very wide at all. For example a DVX lens goes to 4.5mm, which still doesn't give a very wide angle of view, I am guessing similar to a 40-50mm SLR lens...?
 
Rewrite: okay, I finally think I get it...

A 20mm lens on a 16mm camera is roughly a short telephoto, not the wide-angle lens I was imagining from a 35mm camera. I hope I finally typed it write.

Thanks for the walk through, mmm
 
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