UHD-Digisuper 86 and 90 Take Cues from Existing Lens Designs, Extending Optical Performance to UHD Resolution

Canon announced its first 4K field lenses — two new 2/3-inch zooms for broadcast camera systems, with zoom ratios of 86x and 90x that Canon claims make them the longest 4K broadcast lenses available.

Canon's 4K broadcast flagship will be the UHD-Digisuper 86, with a focal range running from 9.3mm at the wide end all the way out to 800mm. The UHD-Digisuper 90 is slightly longer, extending from 9mm all the way out to 810mm, but in a smaller body and not built to the same premium design spec as the 86x. Both lenses include 2x optical extenders engineered to maintain the 4K optical spec, and both are said to conform to "essentially" the same size and weight as Canon's existing HD lenses.

Canon said both lenses include optical image stabilization and high-speed digital servo control to offset the effects of wind and platform vibrations in outdoor shooting situations. Both lenses use standard Canon zoom and focus controllers with 16-bit values and a 20-pin interface.

The UHD-Digisuper 86 is scheduled to ship next month, with the UHD-Digisuper 90 expencted to follow in March 2016.

Science Projects
In other Canon news today, the company said it is developing a Cinema EOS System 8K camera and complementary 8K HDR reference display. The new EF-mount camera will be built around a 120-megapixel CMOS sensor with 13 stops of dynamic range that can capture 8192×4320 footage at up to 60 frames per second.

And if that's not enough resolution for you, Canon is also teasing a newly developed APS-H-sized CMOS sensor with around 247 megapixels of resolution. In a new camera prototype, Canon said, this sensor can read "lettering on the side of an airplane flying at a distance of approximately 11 miles from the shooting location" using a combination of optical and digital zooming. Canon said it expects to deploy the sensor in surveillance and industrial markets.

And last week, Canon said it was working on a networked nighttime surveillance camera with a large-aperture F2.4 zoom lens. Canon hopes the camera will enable color facial recognition from a distance of 100m under only moonlight.

The company didn't set a timeframe for bringing any of these products to market.