News

Canon Adds Auto-Focus to New DIGISUPER 27AF Studio Lens (23/10/2008)

Auto-focus now available on outstanding XJ27x6.5B HD Studio Lens

As the production of HDTV program content accelerates, Canon continues to introduce improvements in HD lens technology, with new and advanced features for enhanced performance and ease-of-use. Now comes the DIGISUPER 27AF - Auto Focus convenience for HDTV studio applications.

Both the DIGISUPER 27 and DIGISUPER 27AF are wider, have a bigger zoom ratio, and feature newly developed multi-layer optical coatings that dramatically reduce ghosting and flaring. The DIGISUPER 27AF, however, takes HD studio lens performance even further with enhanced Auto Focus capabilities for the HDTV studio environment. The DIGISUPER 27AF HD studio lens utilizes Canon's proprietary Auto Focus technology, which will revolutionize HD production on many fronts.

The tremendous picture detail contained in HDTV makes anything in less-than-perfect focus immediately obvious. As a result, shooting HD video poses new challenges for camera operators or robotic systems, whether in the field or the studio. Canon answered that challenge by developing the DIGISUPER 100AF and DIGISUPER 86AF auto-focus long-field HD zoom lenses. Now we have optimized this technology for use in the studio. The new DIGISUPER 27AF HD studio lens is designed to apply the benefits of auto-focus technology to the creation of the highest quality HD video images possible, with particular value for HDTV studio use.

How Canon Auto Focus works

The Canon DIGISUPER 27AF HD studio lens creates an operator-controllable window in the HD camera's viewfinder that targets the object operators want to focus most sharply on in the scene. Camera operators can change the window's position and size by means of a miniature joystick on the camera handle's focus servo control. An additional button provides three modes of operation:
1. Part-Time - actuates the auto-focus system as long as a control button is pressed;
2. Full-Time - actuates the auto-focus continually on selected moving objects;
3. Off - allows for normal, unassisted lens focus.

Further improvements

The DIGISUPER 27 and DIGISUPER 27AF HD studio lenses include a maximum servo-zoom speed of 0.5 seconds and a new optional remote-controllable macro-focus feature that allows the camera operator to perform macro focusing from the pan bar (a helpful tool for focusing on jewelry and other small objects).

As with Canon's other DIGISUPER HD studio lenses, the new DIGISUPER 27 and DIGISUPER 27AF HD studio lenses feature the highest possible optical quality and are the best HD studio lenses available today. All Canon DIGISUPER lenses incorporate the second-generation Digital Servo System, which makes zoom and focus controls precise and repeatable. Canon's Digital Servo System provides microcomputer compensation of lens focus-breathing (the inadvertent alteration of field of view when operating the focus control) as well as a host of other improved digital operational features for focus and zooming control.

The new DIGISUPER 27 and DIGISUPER 27AF HD studio lenses are designed to provide program producers and other video content creators with the industry's most sophisticated tools for television production.

www.canon-europe.com/TV-Products

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