C I NEMA ZOOMS | TECHNOLOGY
BELOW The wide-angle 19-45mm T2.9 is the most recent update to the Fujinon Premista series, adding to the 28-100mm T2.9 and the 80-250mm T2.9-3.5
Fujinon seems fully cognisant of the reasons that productions lean toward lenses like these
The Leitz name, from the same red-dotted stable as Leica cameras, has been powerfully associated with rare and expensive lenses, such as the celebrated Summilux and Summicron series, for decades. It’s only recently, though, that the company has added zooms to the range. The Leitz Primes emerged at the end of 2018 and comprise of 12 focal lengths between 18mm and 180mm, maintaining full-frame coverage and T1.8 except on the 180mm, which slips fractionally to T2. Leitz describes the Leitz Zooms as “colour matched” to the primes, raising hopes that they’ll prove another way to shoot fast with minimum compromise. There are currently two Leitz Zooms, the 25-75mm and 55-125mm, both at T2.8, and available in both LPL and PL mounts. Their electronics are compatible with Cooke’s /i and Arri’s LDS-2. The image circle is a generous 46.5mm, matching that of the Leitz Primes. So, going by the specification, the zooms are only a stop slower than the primes, identical in coverage, matched in colour, and are not even that big or heavy. Leitz’s web presence only dates the new zooms to 24 June this year, and it’s a sufficiently new venture – new cinema zooms, from a company that previously didn’t make them – that lots of interest will doubtless be piqued.
budget, but perhaps the genesis of Fujinon’s current success in big cinema zooms begins with the Cabrio lenses. With their removable servo grips, they introduced a level of speed and convenience that had been rare in Super 35 zooms. In doing that, they created a lot of expectation. Bringing that sort of convenience into the large format world, and competing more directly with the likes of Arri’s large format zooms, is the Fujinon Premista series, available to test at CVP Newman House. The most recent update is the wide-angle 19-45mm T2.9. The new lens joins an existing pair, the 28-100mm T2.9 and 80-250mm T2.9-3.5, to create a range capable of handling more or less anything a large format production might reasonably demand. Fujinon seems fully cognisant of the reasons productions lean toward lenses like these, alluding to the practicality of “saving time and cost caused by changing lenses frequently”. It has published blind comparisons of the Premista zooms and what it describes as “high-end, large format primes” with the understanding that it’s not the purpose of Fujinon zooms to have bags of personality of their own. The video is on YouTube – look for Premista Zooms & High- End Large Format Primes – so anyone can take the time to figure out if the differences in rendering matter for the job at hand.
NOVEMBER 2020 | DEF I N I T ION 37
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