Even if you’ve spent well north of 10 grand on your DSLR kit, with a massive telephoto lens, it still won’t be able to compete with the gear used for professional television broadcasts. Particularly when it comes to sports. In December, Fujifilm will be releasing a new wide angle lens that boasts an impressive 99x zoom capability.
In terms of numbers, the lens has an incredibly wide working range. It’s able to go as wide as 8.4mm and zoom as far as 832mm. So it’s just as capable of following the action on a basketball court as it is of zooming in on a painted faced fan in the nosebleed seats. And when the thousands of fans in the arena get a little too excited, the lens’ upgraded stabilisation hardware keeps the image rock-solid even when zoomed all the way in.
And because no televised sporting event is complete these days without over-the-top virtual enhancements, and advertisements superimposed on every surface imaginable, Fujifilm’s new lens includes a 16-bit encoder to output real-time lens data such as zoom and focus settings. This info can be fed into a graphics system ensuring the overlaid graphics appear as realistic on-screen as possible, no matter where the camera might be pointed. [DigInfo TV]