Craig Johnston

Lensemakers strike a balance between features, affordability

Fox Sports uses Sony F65 camera for NFL ‘Super Zoom’

Since the concept of adding mobile channels to broadcast television’s digital signals caught fi re a half dozen years ago, a series of technical milestones to enable that service have been passed.

A fairly recent NAB Show tradition has been to play “Who’da thunk they’d start building cameras?”

Once again, lens makers are faced with the challenge of building lenses that handle increased demands of higher resolution sensors, this time 4K units.

Since digital video images can be only as crisp as the weakest link in the chain, lensmakers are designing PL-mount lenses that outperform the 4K imagers in digital cinematography cameras.

Camera makers will show 4K single sensor imager cameras that chase two different sets of customers: the highest-end digital cinematographers and those with considerably lower budgets.

Those who make camera support equipment work their creative skill to add new ways to aid production values attendees at the 2013 NAB Show will see hundreds of such devices.

When 3D video production was gaining steam several years ago, there was much made of the need for precisely matching zoom lenses for 3D shooting.

Battery makers continued to make strides in Lithium Ion battery development, providing long camera run times in a lightweight battery pack.

Battery makers continued to make strides in Lithium Ion battery development, providing long camera run times in a lightweight battery pack

The growing popularity of portable, IP-based live shot gear that utilizes cell phone network bandwidth, comes as no surprise, because it’s a great equalizer.

Broadcasters scramble to meet September deadline for Web content

Camera support providers introduced a wide range of new products designed for the lightest to the heaviest cameras hitting the market.