Smallest-ever studio box lens from Canon stars at IBC

The Canon stand at IBC, centred around HD lenses, aroused a lot of interest at IBC 2004.
The new range of HD primes, and the anamorphic converter - which makes video CinemaScope a real option - attracted many visitors, but the undoubted star was the new DigiSuper XJ 22xs – the smallest-ever HD studio box lens – which had many cameramen and studio heads flocking to the stand.
Normal box lenses are extremely cumbersome. They can take two men to lift, require complex and awkward tripod supports – but, until now, were necessary to achieve the highest optical performance. Weighing in at around 6kg, the DigiSuper XJ 22xs does away with all the heavy lifting – and is designed to be used with portable cameras.
Portable cameras can bring speed, flexibility and economy to studio shoots - as well as opportunities for personal expression. They allow producers to use up to five cameras if need be on a shoot: but full spec studio HD quality has up to now been beyond portable lenses. Now, the DigiSuper XJ 22xs gives that quality. It offers the very high optical performance needed to meet exacting HD standards for HDTV or SDTV. But it does that in an elegantly compact box-style design – just 336mm long - that far exceeds the optical and servo performances of any current portable HD lens.
The DigiSuper also has a built in rotary decoder, a Canon exclusive, which is vital in virtual reality applications to ensure that the real and virtual pictures are perfectly aligned - to give the seamless finish that convinces. It also ensures that zoom, focus and iris controls are more precise – and more precisely repeatable when that is necessary.
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