Sue Lawson talks with Tom Fletcher, Director of Sales, Fujifilm/Fujinon about the new MK50-135mm lens & MK18-55mm lens at NAB.
True Cinema lens
The two lenses make a great pair. Both are similar in weight and design. Both offer T2.9 aperture.
But most importantly, it’s what people want out of true cinema lens. They want the lens to stay in focus when you zoom. From wide to close up and from close up back to wide. It’s something that people aren’t used to when working with DSL lenses. Because DSLR lenses were designed to shoot still photography.
The new MK lenses don’t “breath”. When you change your focus with a lens that is designed for stills, it would zoom in and out a little bit.
Small and Lightweight
The MK lenses have an E mount. The E mount camera format allowed Fujinon to make a lens that is small and lightweight. To make a lens with an adjustable mount would make that lens longer and heavier. But they market wants smaller and lightweight.
But the bigger reason for the E mount is that the Sony FS7, Sony FS5 and the Alpha Series from Sony have been extremely popular. In 2016, Sony sold 40,000 FS7s and there have not been much of a choice of lenses made specifically for E-mount. So that market is excited that Fujinon is supporting Sony and their supporting E-mount.
Fujinon Quality
One of the biggest surprises about the MK lens series is the price. When Tom Fletcher was revealing the new lenses to customers earlier this year. He asked customer, knowing the Fujinon quality, how much the lens should cost. People were surprised when they heard the price. The MK50-135mm lens is $3999 and the companion MK18-55mm lens is $3799. The combination of the two gives you a nice range for under $8000.
Another thing for those that don’t come out of the broadcast business, the 2/3” camera sensor, in the broadcast lens business, you always had a macro feature to focus on items a few inches in front of the lens. The macro feature is built into the MK50-135mm and MK18-55mm lenses. Also, like a broadcast lens, it has a back focus. So that if you flange depth is right, you can adjust it very easily.
When Tom and his colleagues first got the lenses, they set them up on a projector to see what optical quality of them were. They were amazed at seeing 200 line pairs at the center and seeing nearly 200 line pairs at the edge. But it was sharp from edge to edge.
The other big question that they got at the NAB Show was what lens are coming in the future for the series. They’ve got a lot of comments and Fuji would like your feedback on their social media channels. Feel free to contact them through Twitter (www.twtter.com/fujifilmoptical) , Instagram (www.instagram.com/fujifilmopticalsusa) or Facebook (www.facebook.com/FujifilmOpticalUSA/).
Feedback
Through the feedback that they’ve gotten, they’ve discovered that the documentary filmmakers are looking for a longer lens, they want to have more reach and possibly an extender. Another group have asked for a wider lens, such as 11-25mm. The dream lens that people have asked for is an 11-200mm lens. The problem with such a lens would be the physics. It would be too heavy. too big and too expensive to make. But the current selection of Fujinon lenses have made the right compromises and are looking forward to doing more in the future.
For more information on the MK50-135mm and MK18-50mm lenses, visit www.fujinon.com or look for updates and event announcements on www.facebook.com/FujifilmNorthAmerica
Producer: Bruce Himmelblau
Host: Sue Lawson
Guest: Tom Fletcher, Fujinon