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A War Is Brewing

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Which lens mount will win the large sensor camcorder war?

In the past, there have been many industry wars, both in hardware and formats. Think film vs. digital, CMOS vs. CCD, Blu-ray vs. HD DVD, etc. Right now, another war is brewing and this involves indie filmmakers who want to step up to one of the latest large sensor video cameras that are currently out or about to hit the market. The battle would pit two camera giants—Sony and Panasonic—against each other with their two different lens mounts.

In This Corner – Micro Four Thirds

With the announcement of Panasonic’s AG-AF100 Micro Four Thirds camcorder, filmmakers have been salivating with the hopes of ditching the workarounds of their HD DSLRs and returning to the comforts of video cameras with their single system sound, real viewfinders, vectorscopes, waveforms monitors, etc. With the AF100 now available (good luck in finding one), this week we saw two announcements from Schneider Kreuznach and Carl Zeiss AG who have both joined a consortium of companies with the goal of releasing higher quality lenses that will be compliant with the Micro Four Thirds system. Regarding Zeiss, whose popular CP.2 lenses already exist for Nikon’s F-mount, Canon’s EF mount and the cinema lens standard PL mount, I’m betting the Micro Four Thirds CP.2s will be the ideal prime lens set for the AF100. Because of their cinema-style body construction, a focus puller is able to hit critical focus marks unlike the short focus throw of auto focus enabled DSLR lenses. The only problem is that Zeiss will have to produce a very wide angle CP.2 since the AF100 has a 2.0x lens crop, which means a 25mm lens would now be a 50mm. The widest current CP.2 in the set is an 18mm, which might be sufficient but not as ideal as say a 14mm.

Panasonic's AG-AF100 contains a Micro Four Thirds lens mount

In The Other Corner – E-mount

With the purchase of Konica Minolta back in 2006, Sony has developed its own set of lenses for their growing line of α (alpha) DSLRs. In the past year, they have released a number of cameras that use Translucent Mirror Technology, which offers greater speed because the cameras do not contain reflex mirrors. Their popular NEX consumer cameras like the NEX-5 and the NEX VG10 camcorder employ an E-mount and contains an APS-C sized sensor (23.4 x 15.6mm), which is almost the size of Super 35mm film. At NAB in April, Sony will release its PMW-F3, which employs a PL mount, a Super35 imager and can output uncompressed video.The only issue is cost, which at $16,000 for the body, the camera might be more geared towards the rental market (or very wealthy filmmakers). The bigger news for indie filmmakers who want to own their own gear is that Sony is currently developing an NXCAM version of the F3, which will contain an E-mount and capture AVCHD, which is more of a consumer/prosumer codec. The rumor is that the large format CMOS sensor NXCAM will be priced a little higher than that of the AF100 but way below the F3. Sony has announced that they are releasing the specs of its E-mount lens system for free so lens manufacturers outside of Sony can develop lenses for cameras and camcorders with E-mounts. So far, Carl Zeiss AG, Cosina, Sigma and Tamron have signed on with the E-mount consortium, but Zeiss is the only company with cinema style lens experience.

Sony is developing a Super35-sized sensor with an E-mount for an NXCAM camcorder

Perhaps the biggest factor of the two systems is that Sony’s sensor is 24% larger than the AF100’s 4/3-type MOS Fixed sensor. Although I haven’t seen images produced from either camera yet, this could be the deal breaker. With the release of the NXCAM in mid 2011, the outcome of this battle will really depend on the lens options for both systems. Although both systems will no doubt offer lens adaptors, it’s best to stick with your proprietary format due to the unique electronic lens points such as auto focus, auto exposure, etc.

Zeiss' CP.2 lenses could be the big winner after all is said and done

So who do you think will be victorious? Or will both of these systems live together in harmony as just another empowering tool for filmmakers? I welcome your thoughts.


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