Need a 20x superzoom lens for your next video production? Canon’s new 50-1000mm cine zoom has you covered

 

 

In the world of superzoom lenses for DSLRs, we thought that Tamron's 16-300mm f/3.5-6.3 APS-C lens with its 18.8x zoom factor was about as good as it gets, but we were apparently wrong. If you need even more zoom and an even longer reach, Canon now has you covered with a new 50-1000mm monster. Sort of.

This is not an ordinary lens though, mind you. It's actually part of Canon's Cinema EOS cine lens lineup and comes with a motorized zoom, hence the official designation CINE-SERVO 50-1000mm T5.0-8.9. As you can see from its name, it's also T-rated instead of f/stop-rated, which is a necessity for cine and broadcasting productions where the absolute brightness of a lens is more important than the ratio between its focal length and aperture size.

The CINE-SERVO 50-1000mm is meant to be used with one of Canon's Cinema EOS cameras, but in theory it can be fitted to any Canon DSLR featuring the EF-mount. As it was designed for cameras that use a Super 35mm-sized sensor, which is similar in size to the APS-C format, we have our doubts though that it'll fully work on full-frame cameras.

The lens is fully 4K-compatible, and it can be ordered in either an EF-mount or a PL-mount version so that it can be used with basically any cine camera sporting either mount. For those that need even more reach than the maximum 1000mm, the lens also sports a built-in 1.5x teleconverter, which transforms it into a 75-1500mm monster. This should make it attractive not only for cine productions and broadcasting, but also potentially for press, sports, and wildlife videographers.

You might've suspected it already -- there is a catch, though. Unlike the aforementioned Tamron lens, Canon's new cine monsterzoom isn't exactly meant to be a consumer product, and its price starkly reflects that. If you really need or want the lens though for your next video project, be ready to splash out around $70,000. 

(via Photography Bay)