Finally a compact HD zoom lens!

By Steffan Hewitt, director, Polecam
There are a great number of situations in our industry where the requirement for a small low profile broadcast quality HD camera is needed, whether it be for documentaries, natural history, in car, on board, covert, news, drama, underwater, on a jib arm or small remote head – the list goes on, and expands from there to include the many industrial applications, defence, medical, security, avionics, marine, research and so on.
It is no problem finding a good HD camera to fulfil those requirements from respected camera manufacturers like Toshiba, Sony and Panasonic.
If you go to a small camera specialist, you can find good HD prime lenses to match, but up until now, finding a compact HD zoom lens to complement your HD camera has been a non-starter – very frustrating for the many small HD camera users.
The big lens manufacturers have not entered this market because the potential numbers for them don’t justify the investment of design, tooling up and manufacturing cost.
Enter the UK Chesham based lens company Resolve Optics. The company has shown itself to have the proven and rare capability to produce small quantities of high performance, mounted lens systems with the look, feel and quality equivalent to the best professional photographic and broadcast TV lenses.
They have been receiving requests for such an HD zoom lens ever since small HD cameras became available, but these requests were for various sensor sizes. Mark Pontin, MD of Resolve, made the decision to design a lens that was compact, with a sensible focal length and zoom range, which should produce a high quality HD image, which should be as adaptable as possible to embrace different cameras and sensor sizes, and, equally important, to be reliable.
It took two years to achieve this goal, but now the Z10-HDcf Compact HD Zoom lens has been launched and is globally distributed exclusively by Polecam Systems in the UK.
The lens design
Floating cell technology has been used which allows the moving cells to be compact and light, and that in turn allows smaller motors to be utilised to drive the movements. Low dispersion glass has been used to ensure that the length of the lens remains compact and yet provides a quality HD image.
The design produces an impressive f/1.8 aperture maintained throughout 4/5th of the zoom travel, with a minimum aperture of f/2.8 over the final 1/5th of the zoom.
Interchangeable adaptors
Furthermore, to make the Z10 as adaptable as possible the zoom module was designed with three interchangeable rear cells for 1/3” 3chip, 1/3” single chip and 2/3” single chip sensors, and these are customer changeable. There is also a standard M37 filter thread on the front of the lens for wide angle adapters such as Resolve's 287 0.5X adapter. At 45mm square and 100 mm (2/3” version) long the Z10-HDCF is truly compact yet has the optical performance of a much larger lens.
The potential
This lens offers a broad potential not only in the broadcast arena but in all the parallel industries using AV, none more so than the medical market. The need to train surgeons, surgical staff as well as medical sales personnel in operative techniques is essential but the demand for higher quality is always ever present. Medical 1/3” minicams from the likes of Iconix, Toshiba, Hitachi, & Sony are now offered new opportunities. The newer 2/3” cameras such as Indiecam, Flare, Modula, Cunima, LMP and the Antelope Pico Hi-Speed camera have now also got the opportunity for further market penetration.
For more information on the new Resolve Optics compact Zoom lens please take a look at www.polecam.com/cameras/lenses.