Nikon has just teased a first look at a brand-new line of cinema lenses. So what should we expect from the final reveal?
I was literally in the process of rigging up my Nikon ZR camera for a shoot with YouTube on for background noise when the algorithm surfaced a new video I wasn't expecting. Simply titled "A New Chapter Begins," the thumbnail gave away the secret. Well, part of the secret.
Nikon has officially announced the coming arrival of its first true cinema lens. As Nikon has grown fond of doing with its products in recent years, the company is playing details of the launch a bit close to the vest. The somewhat cryptic teaser shows us the product category and a handful of carefully silhouetted images of a prototype. If you're the sort to try and comb through videos like this frame-by-frame, there seem to be a handful of things we can gather.
Physically, the lens is built for deployment on a traditional film set. So it has the focus gears necessary to engage with your 1st AC's follow focus. The focus distance markings appear to be in both feet and meters, which is a big plus for global workflows. The T-stop appears to be lockable. I'm assuming it's got T-stops (as opposed to f-stops), which would be appropriate, from the out-of-focus T in the corner of that frame.
One of the more exciting switches is the AF-to-MF toggle. If you work in film professionally, you know that manual focus is the name of the game and the bigger the production, the less you are likely to see autofocus lenses. But times do change, and recent advancements in autofocus along with more small-crew production mean that, going forward, more and more manufacturers are going to be taking advantage of autofocus capabilities being built into their lenses. Even if you choose not to use it, there's no reason for a company like Nikon not to offer it.
This does raise one question for me, however. Presumably, if the lens has autofocus, it has been designed for the Z mount. I'm curious if Nikon is going to release versions of these lenses with a PL mount to serve DPs outside of the Nikon ecosystem. Z lenses can't be adapted to PL mounts, so it would have to be a fully separate line. So I doubt this will be available short term. But I'm curious if Nikon's strategy will be to have these lenses draw people into the Z-mount camera ecosystem or offer the glass itself to a wider audience.
In a sweeping focus rack, there appear to be nine Z cinema lenses in the lineup. There's no indication as of yet about focal distances. You can half see an aperture ring that suggests they'll be at least T2.8 if not T1.4. Don't quote me on either of those numbers since that part of the video is intentionally obscured.
That leads to a second question as to whether the lenses will be released as a set or individually. Traditionally, cinema lenses are released in sets. The reason for this is that you'd ideally want all the lenses in your set to come from the same production batch. This is to ensure consistency across shot sizes. Nikon, being one of the biggest lens manufacturers in the world, I'm guessing, has enough QC of its product line to be able to release them individually and still have them match. But I'll be curious about the release strategy.
I'll also be curious to know how the new lenses will render. Will they be clinical or have more character? For filmmakers, character is often preferred over pure perfection. But that is purely a matter of individual taste. So, it will be interesting to see if Nikon goes for a lens that feels a bit different than its more clinical photo lenses, or if these lenses will aim for optical perfection. I'd guess, just based on its photo lens approach, these lenses will be crafted for optical perfection rather than character. But we'll just have to see once we're finally able to get one in hand.
Ultimate size and weight should also tell us something about Nikon's priorities. Larger, heavier lenses are the exception rather than the rule when it comes to cinema versus photo glass. But Nikon's camera line includes everything from the smaller ZR to the larger RED cameras now. So will this be a lens optimized for smaller Nikon mirrorless cameras or larger RED systems? Obviously, both are Z-mount, but the size of the lenses may tell us something about which end of the market Nikon is going to prioritize.
But those are just a few questions that I still have. What are you anxious to see in a potential Nikon cinema lens?
You can see the teaser trailer here.
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