80mm aperture?

[OGSteve]

Hi, is there any word on the aperture of the forthcoming 80mm xcd lens? I can't seem to find any info about it.

[siddhaarta]

Still nothing out yet !!

[vsbhk]

Does it really make sense to have a new 80 mm when there is already a XCD 90 mm and a HC 80 mm ? A 65 mm (with macro) to fill the gap between 45 and 90 would be more logical IMO.

[tcdeveau]

The press release states it will be the fastest lens they've ever made, which to me means faster than f2 since the fastest HB lens I'm aware of is the 110mm f2.

[OGSteve]

Here's hoping, that would be truly fun to play with with this camera system.

[jwillson]

Well, the raison d'etre for the lens is its speed.  Presumably, an aperture in the f/1.8 range.  That's really hard to do with a leaf shutter unless you are willing to let the maximum shutter speed drop substantially.  I suspect the thinking went something like this:

1) "We need a fast lens"
2) Really fast lenses are generally most useful at longer focal lengths, especially for portraits, since that's where gaining extreme depth of field control is most helfpul
3) The faster the lens and the longer the focal length the larger the leaf shutter needs to be (generalization, but still reasonably true)
4) As leaf shutters get larger, it becomes harder to keep them quick
5) If the maximum shutter speed drops below, say, 1/1,000s the lens is going to become less useful outdoors and/or require neutral density filters

Result?  They picked the focal length that was the best compromise among competing requirements.  It's still long enough for portrait work (barely),  Hasselblad might be able to make due with their existing leaf shutters, and they might be able to keep the max shutter speed reasonable.  If the focal length were much shorter few people would want it for portrait work or anything else requiring shallow depth of field.  Much longer and they probably would have struggled with the physical size of the leaf shutter without maximum speeds dropping down to 1/500s or even worse.  So even though it is awfully close in focal length to the 90mm, it's probably needed to be pretty close to this value.  Fuji's fast lens is a 110mm which would have been a good choice, but the leaf shutter probably made that a "bridge too far."

[sog1927]

Well, the 300mm HC lens is f/4.5 - so that would imply a shutter opening of 300/4.5 mm = 66.7 mm, so we know they can build a shutter that big and keep the 1/2000 top speed. That's equivalent to an 80mm f/1.2 lens, so I don't think the shutter diameter is going to be the limiting factor for the 80mm.

Actually, I think the lenses for the A6d aerial camera go up to 1/4000 (even the 300 f/4.5, apparently), so they probably have even more wiggle room than that.

[OGSteve]

Man, an 80mm at f/1.8 would be SWEET. Here's hoping...

[fotophil]

Mamiya made a manual focus 80mm f/1.9 for their M645 film camera that is pretty inexpensive on the used market but no leaf shutter!