Fujinon launches a new Large Format Zoom lens at NAB. Fujinon Premista 28-100 mm T2.9.

The name is derived from Fujinon’s top-of-the line zooms, “Premier” and “Vista,” as in VistaVision. Premista.

A companion to the Fujinon Premista 28-100 will arrive later this year: a nice long 80-250. This one is under development – specifications may change.

Some additional Fujifilm Cine Lens Background

So, ROMA was shot with Prime 65 lenses, and ARRI Prime 65 lenses began life as Hasselblad HC lenses. These were made by Fujinon for the Hasselblad H5D (image circle 61.9 mm and larger). They had an XPL mount (60mm FFD, 72 mm ID) which has been replaced by LPL (44mm FFD, 62mm ID). . Let’s look back at an article we wrote in September 2014.

Klaus Eckerl, Managing Director of IB/E Optics, explained:

“The ARRI guys came to us with a very special, very exciting idea: create a set of lenses for the big camera sensor of the new ALEXA 65. It started with a call from Manfred Jahn of ARRI Rental. They had a choice of several The well-known contenders in medium format lenses. Together, we tested lenses, did MTF tests and comparisons. We liked the Hasselblad/Fujinon lenses. When we looked at the MTF values, they were really great lenses.

“It sounds quite simple to just rehouse some existing lenses, but the Hasselblad/Fujinon lenses, of course, are fully auto-focus. They have a completely different mechanical setup with motors inside that drive the shutter, iris and the focus movement parts. The new Hasselblad lenses are designed as still lenses, but optically they are very good lenses. We removed all the mechanical parts of the original lenses. Only the optical elements and some of lens barrels were used.

“The challenge was to combine the opto-mechanical needs of the cine world with the good optical elements of the Hasselblad/Fujinon optics. We did a feasibility study with Manfred Jahn. We disassembled the lenses and did a CAD redesign. We also designed and manufactured new linear irises. We developed a focus mechanism with full 300 degree rotation that camera assistants are familiar with. We needed all the focus and iris barrels to be in the same relative position. This turned out to be more difficult with the zooms. One of the biggest challenges was to get our new iris and its mechanical carrier between the complex zoom mechanism.

“Another difficult job was to get good ergonomics for the feel of the focus. The main thing Manfred Jahn told us was that the focus barrel should feel like a Master Prime to a camera assistant. That may seem to be a quite short specification for mechanical issues, but it was quite a challenging one.

“Focus is managed by a smooth cam mechanism. We do it in-house, along with all the other key parts. We have very special software and hardware tools that to do it, because we are milling in a special way. You can’t do it without this unique tooling and we actually created two hardware systems in case one machine breaks down. It’s especially critical to pay attention to the small details, choosing the components, assembling hundreds of parts, checking and doing quality control.” Clearly, Fujinon has a Large Format optical heritage in primes and zooms that is especially appealing.