Canon expands lens range for HDTV imaging

1 May 2009

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Canon's range of products expanded considerably with an eye towards high-end HDTV imaging. The HJ14ex4.3B wide-angle portable HDTV lens led the pack with its new and unique design. The HJ14ex4.3B is the product of Canon's latest development tools, newly developed glass elements, and highly advanced optical coatings.
It combines an extended 14 times zoom range and unprecedented 4.3mm wide angle while also improving on the exceptional optical performance of its predecessor HJ11ex4.7B. In addition, the HJ14ex4.3B's newly developed Digital Drive unit provides improved operability and ergonomic advances for user comfort and precision control of lens functions.
The new KJ17ex7.7B lens is the first within a second generation HDgc line of lenses intended as a cost-effective HDTV solution for HDTV ENG and lower-budget HD productions. After nearly a decade of advances in Canon's world-renowned optical R&D –
and ongoing dialogue with hands-on users worldwide – the new design employs refinements in glass materials and optical coatings with advances in lens element designs, including the use of aspherical elements.
The combination of these optical technologies has contributed to improvements in monochromatic defocusing distortions, curvature of field, and comatic aberration, and to a further lowering of longitudinal and lateral chromatic aberrations.
Collectively they enhance the sharpness of the images, especially at the longer focal lengths. The new optical coatings have further reduced flare and consequently enhanced lens contrast. They have also introduced important improvements to the minimisation of ghosting artifacts that can be stimulated by strong light sources in the scene. This augments nighttime shooting, which can be very important in ENG.
A follow-up to Canon's BU-45H remote-control outdoor robotic pan-tilt-zoom HD 16:9 camera system, the new BU-50H remote-control robotic indoor pan-tilt HD camera system is engineered for a wide range of indoor applications. It provides exceptional HD video imagery and versatile performance in such locations as houses of worship, legislative chambers, studio POV camera positions, indoor security areas, and many other environments.
The BU-50H embodies an extremely quiet Pan-Tilt mechanism featuring a maximum noise level of NC30. It is well suited for operation in very quiet environments, including studios, conferences, lectures, and classical music concerts.
Wildlife HD cinematographers and other camera operators doing a wide range of outdoor shooting over long distances have been greatly empowered in recent years by the introduction of the HJ40x14B and HJ40x10B long-zoom portable HD lenses from Canon. Now, Canon technology extends that lens family with the Day/Night DJ40x14B HD zoom lens, which includes special optical coatings that extend the spectral transmittance of the lens into the near-IR region.
Over 60 per cent transmittance is achieved at 900nm wavelength. Such long-zoom lenses typically exhibit an unavoidable focal-plane shift due to the difference in light wavelengths when day/night video camera filters are switched from shooting in daylight to shooting in nighttime IR illuminated environments.
The Canon Day/Night DJ40x14B HD zoom lens incorporates Canon's proprietary "back-focus shift correction and control mechanism," which synchronizes the lens' back-focus position-correction relative to the camera when the camera is switched between day and night modes. This automatically maintains a sharp focus under all shooting conditions.

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