Fujifilm LA16X8BRM 4K Lens for Blackmagic URSA Broadcast


The LA16X8BRM 4K Lens from Fujifilm has arrived and it is an incredible lens. This lens is designed specifically for the Blackmagic URSA and is packs an incredible punch in terms of quality picture and operation.

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The LA16X8BRM 4K lens (let's call it the LA16 for short), is an 8mm - 128mm Zoom lens for the URSA Broadcast camera. It comes with manual zoom, manual focus, and manual aperture. The manual aperture alone is a really great feature of a lens as it allows you to gently change exposure rather than clicking through a set of fixed stages that have a noticeable stepping effect. With the LA16, you have smooth control from fully open at f/1.9 right down to fully closed. The lens can be switched to auto where the camera is in control, and for the Blackmagic URSA Broadcast, this means either using the dial on the side of the camera, the touch screen, or indeed, auto exposure. The lens is incredibly sharp and displays no vignetting such as the SD lens I have used before. The LA16 is sharp right to the edges and the resolution at the wide end is so impressive. Below is a video containing a number of shots that I hope will show some of the characteristics of both the lens and of the camera, such as the zoom range, the manual & auto exposure, manual zoom & servo zoom, resolution, and macro lens mode.


URSA Broadcast Demo with Fujifilm LA16X8BRM 4K Lens from MadPanic on Vimeo.



I cannot express how important it is to have full manual control over a lens. It puts the creative control right in your hands. You may be used to having a fixed focal length prime which absolutely have their place, but primes also bring problems of their own such as having to have multiple different focal length lenses which also means you have to carry them, but the real killer I find is the time taken to change lenses which can kill a moment or just burn into the time you have for your shoot.

For live events, you need to be able to react really quickly, so changing lenses is just out of the question. That's what the manual zoom is all about. Sure you can do a crash zoom, very nice effect if used sparingly, but the real purpose is the speed at which you can reframe. Combine this with another absolute killer feature of broadcast lenses, which is the fact they are parfocal, and I believe you have a lens that enables you to work at great speed and efficiency.

You don't generally use a zoom to "zoom" (I did in the video above purely to show the range of the zoom and I did one servo assisted zoom and one fully manual zoom), the real power comes by being able to reframe quickly. For example, you have a wide shot of something and then you want to quickly get an emotional closeup, you crash zoom in to get that shot (the crash zoom will be cut in post), maybe next you find a mid-shot, and again without changing lenses or repositioning the camera, you can get the difference shots which can all be used to help build a sequence, all with one lens.

The parfocal means that you can zoom right in, get tight focus, zoom out and the focal point remains in focus throughout the focal length of the lens. This really does get your focussing very accurate. The URSA Broadcast has a smaller sensor (Super 16 size) than the URSA Mini Pro which means that it has a deeper depth of field. This makes operation again, much faster and more tolerant for focus (as more is in focus). I do find that sometimes, shallow depth of field os way overused. Yes, it's used to focus the viewers attention, but no matter what I do with my eyes in the real world, things just don't go that much out of focus, so for me, a balance of knowing what else is in frame is important otherwise you brain may fall out of a story asking "where are we" or "what's that shape" etc. Much like with sound, although clear intelligible dialogue is king, if you don't have enough ambience or if the perspective is wrong (wide shot using a lapel mic), things just grate because your brain notices something is not right.

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Anyway, that's one of the reasons I like a deeper depth of field camera / lens. Not all the time mind you, sometimes shallow depth of field is required. This can easily be achieved with the LA16 with the combination of focal length and aperture. I specificaly included a shot that shows the depth of field when fully wide and with a fully open aperture (the bench by the road). The purpose of this shot was to focus on a subject close to the lens and note the rest of the scene that is out of focus. The URSA Broadcast's built in ND filters allow you to have the control over the aperture and keep it open for that shallow depth of field. Normally, a wide open lens is not the optimum aperture for a lens, but I have found with the LA16, that it performs really well across various aperture settings. If you zoom in of course, the depth of field also reduces. There is a shot in the film above of a bluebell zooming in to show how the depth of field narrows as the zoom is increased.

So we have established that the lens has fully manual zoom or servo zoom which is easily engaged with a toggle switch, has a manual or automatic aperture, has manual focus, and is parfocal. Characteristics that put this lens head and shoulders above stills lenses used on DSLRs. There is another characteristic of B4 or ENG lenses and that is back focus. This is a separate focal adjustment to ensure that the lens is parfocal, i.e. when you go fully wide, you can adjust the back focus to make sure the lens stays in focus throughout the zoom range.

On most lenses there is a physical screw adjustment and a separate back focus ring which you need to adjust manually. When you tighten up the screw, sometimes it's enough to slightly put out the back focus and it can be a fiddly procedure. Not on the LA16, because it doesn't have such a manual ring! The LA16 has an electronic back focus adjustment system. You press a button on the lens, zoom in and focus normally, press the button again, the lens zooms fully out, you then re-adjust the focus at the wide position, press the button again, then the lens zooms back in and the process is complete. It is so easy and quick to do and it get's it right!

If that wasn't enough, there is another feature of this lens which I briefly mentioned and that is it has a macro function. If you've watched the film above you would have seen from the two bee clips, the macro function. The macro function is engaged by simply pushing the focus ring forward, now you can focus an object right in front of the lens or use the zoom to just zoom a bit further in on a subject and get the framing, them focus with the macro mode engaged. The zoom range is limited though as it's designed for closer subjects, so if you push that too far, you will lose focus, but that is expected. It means you can get macro shots as well as your wide and telephoto shots. It's a really flexible sequence building lens and all this without having to switch lenses. On top of that, if your delivery format is HD, you also have the option of further zooming in the edit without losing quality (if you record in 4K).

The LA16 also has the ability to plug an external focus controller in. Note that the focus in the LA16 is manual and can't be controlled from the URSA Broadcast natively…or can it ? Well yes it can. I have found a way to remotely electronically control the focus, i.e., it can be done from the camera or a LANC controller. If you press the focus buttons on a LANC controller or the buttons on the URSA Broadcast itself, it will appear to alter the focus, but as soon as you take you finger off the button, the focus will return.

Here's where my discovery comes in. If you push the focus ring forward to engage the focus into macro mode, then the remote focus buttons will still alter the focus, but when you take you finger off the button, the focus remains. So now, I've hooked up a LANC controller, mostly for the start / stop function but it could be used for zoom and as described, focus. Personally I prefer manual control of the focus and the zoom, but, if Blackmagic enabled the recording or setting up of macros, an element of camera automation could be achieved that could possibly make some setups easier and more repeatable, but that's for another day.

In conclusion, the LA16 / URSA Broadcast pairing is a formidable combination that compliments each product to produce a sharp high resolution image. I do still use EF lenses for some things, mostly on extreme telephoto and extreme macro, but the LA16 just really does away with all the standard fixed focal length lenses. The manual control really puts you in charge of framing, focus, and exposure and the range of the lens , i.e. wide, telephoto, and macro, really makes it a powerful sequence building lens.

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