In Broadcast - September 2019 - 68

68

www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 9 - Issue 8 | September 2019

InFocus

Lenses and Accessories
Contributing Editor Andy Stout examines the state-of-play in the
ever-changing sphere of broadcast spec camera systems and a few
of the recent accessories...

C

ameras have, as ever, stolen a
lot of headlines over the summer
months. It's a field remarkable within
the industry for the sheer consistency
of progress as manufacturers strive to
drive resolutions up and costs down.
The result is that cameras such as the
Blackmagic Design Pocket Cinema
Camera 6K now exist out in the wild (if
you can get hold of stock) with a spec
that would have been undreamt of at
that price point not so long ago.
Accessories
The sheer speed of progress in the
field is dragging an entire subsidiary
industry along in its slipstream, and
as a result the camera accessories
market is equally fecund. Partly it
has ever been thus and partly it is a
result of the drive for value displacing
a fair few of what would once have
been standard features into the third
party market. The upshot is that a new
camera drops and so do a bunch of
accessories for it. Wooden Camera's
list alone for the Blackmagic Design
Pocket Cinema Camera 6K includes
power plates, cages, baseplates, and
a forthcoming and potentially very
handy EF to PL modification. Bezamod
is currently running a Kickstarter along
then same EF/PL lines. On the creative
side of things, there's an interesting
looking filter system for in-camera
effects from Lensbaby. What makes its
Omni Creative Filter System stand out
from the crowd a bit is the filter ring it
uses to keep things simple and hands
free, the various effects wands it uses
simply mounting onto it with magnets.

The Lensbaby Omni
Creative Filter System

Gimbals have, of course, really taken
off over recent years and it's not a
subsection of the accessories market
that is showing any sign of slowing
down just yet. DJI's latest is the Ronin
SC, a compact version of the three-axis
Ronin S designed for single-handed
operation with mirrorless cameras
that weighs only 1.1kg. Alongside
a host of new design features such
as axis locks on all three axes and a
new position lock system, one of the
standouts of the new gimbal is the
way it interacts with a smartphone
mounted above a camera. ActiveTrack
3.0 lets users specify an object to be
tracked and the gimbal combines the
phone's field of view data with the
Ronin app for an impressively smooth
and consistently composed shot.
Inevitably, its competitors are not
taking this lying down. Zhiyun Tech
has been teasing a new Gimbal S for
a month or so now that at 888g and
boasting the same payload capacity

as the Ronin SC is going to make for
an even more lightweight solution.
It could break cover for the first time
at IBC and promises object tracking,
image transmission, motionsensor control, and more.
Benro
has
recently
entered the market with
no less than five models
catering for everything from
the smartphone shooting market all
the way up to the dual-handle and
3.7kg payload 3XD Pro. And Tilta looks
like it is cueing something interesting
up too, slashing the price of its Gravity
GSX Compact, possibly to make way for
yet another competitor.
Rain Deflection
As a reminder though that not
everything is about repurposing
microelectronics into ever-cheaper
and more capable tech, it's worth
a brief consideration of Bright
Tangerine's Prodigy Rain Deflector.
Rain can be a huge problem on
high end shoots, and this uses a
special compressor that blows
air at 300mph across a piece of
glass mounted in front of the lens
and making sure water, snow or
even dirt doesn't ruin the shot.
But while microprocessors are cheap,
engineering like this isn't and you can
expect to pay a four-figure sum for the
system.

Lenses
Which brings us to lenses.
There might be an everincreasing amount of electronics
involved in modern lenses,
Controlling Motion
but cheap has never been a
Syrp has upgraded its Genie Mini
word particularly associated
panning motion system into the Genie
with glass and it still isn't. That
Mini II. Several new features have been
The Syrp Genie II has a range of new features said, there are an increasing
but a lower battery life as a result amount of options available for
added such as the ability to create
keyframed movement and multiwhat can be euphemistically termed
row panoramas, and more are to
the prosumer end of the spectrum.
be added in the near future via
Driven by companies such as Sigma,
firmware updates such as auto
lenses such as its new Global Vision
exposure ramping and camera
Line have been developed to suit full
control. There is a penalty to all
frame mirrorless cameras and both
that though in that battery life
still and video shooting environments.
has taken a hit, constraining
Top of the range of the first three in
timelapse shoots to 15 hours from
what is expected to be a fairly large
the previous 24.
series is the Sigma 35mm F1.2 DG DN
DJI's impressive new Ronin SC

A Blackmagic Design Pocket Cinema
Camera 6K fully tricked out with Wooden
Camera accessories

Art, Sigma's first wide-angle lens with
F1.2 maximum aperture for either
E-mount or L-mount. The lens features
three SLD glass elements and three
aspherical lenses, and the aperture
ring has been mounted with a de-click
function which will come in handy for
any video shooting.

A 300mph air blast keep the lens clean
- Bright Tangerine

Arguably this is a feature that should
be more commonplace. Manufacturers
are playing catch up though, Canon
for example offering a service that
lets users of its RF lens range have
their lenses de-clicked, enabling both
smooth and soundless operation
of the control ring. The company is
busy building out its large diameter
RF range too. Six lenses are due to
launch this year, and it's a case of four
down two to go, with both the highlyanticipated RF 70-200mm F2.8L IS
USM and the RF 85mm F1.2L USM DS
still to come by the end of the year.

The much-anticipated Canon RF 70200mm F2.8 L IS USM
http://www.inbroadcast.com https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagicpocketcinemacamera https://lensbaby.com/ https://lensbaby.com/ https://lensbaby.com/ https://lensbaby.com/ https://lensbaby.com/ https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagicpocketcinemacamera https://www.brighttangerine.com/ https://syrp.co/ https://www.canon.co.uk/cameras/eos-r-lens-announcement/ https://www.dji.com/uk
In Broadcast - September 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of In Broadcast - September 2019
