The two Canon Compact Cine Zoom lenses, 15.5mm-47mm and 30mm-105mm, offer high performance with great flexibility. They each cover an extended range in a small, lightweight package. Both lenses focus very closely and do not distort the image throughout their range. Even with fast T2.8 apertures, they offer high resolving power with excellent contrast.

Zeiss has begun deliveries of their first Compact Zoom, the CZ.2 70-200 T2.9. This lightweight lens is a sister to the Compact Prime lens family, which means that it shares versatile traits such as Full Frame 35mm coverage (it'll cover the Canon 5DM3 and 1D C) and professional cine style gearing and marking.

Canon has paired its recently released lightweight cine zoom, the CN-E 30-105 T2.8, with the closely matching CN-E 15.5-47 T2.8 Cinema Zoom. Like its sister, the 15.5-47 weighs just 4.85 lbs. Both lenses also share a 300-degree rotation on the focus scale for many precise marks, 11-blade irises, 114mm front diameters for fitting to common matteboxes, and 105mm front filter threads for use when a mattebox is not an option.

Announced at NAB 2012, Canon is starting to ship their lightweight cinema zooms, with the first being the CN-E 30-105 T2.8. Featuring an 11-blade iris, a close focus of just 24 inches, and a low weight of 4.85 pounds, the lens is available in both PL or Canon EF mounts.

Canon supplied one of the first production CN-E 30-300 Cinema Zooms for AbelCine's optical technicians to evaluate. We put the lens through our usual battery of tests, and we were very impressed. The 30-300 has excellent contrast and sharpness, with very low flaring and high corner-to-corner resolution and brightness.

Fujifilm's Optical Devices Division today announced their latest entry into the 35PL lens market, the Fujinon 19-90 T2.9 Cabrio zoom lens. The name Cabrio is a reference to small convertible sports cars, aka Cabriolets. The lens is both physically compact, at less than nine inches in length, and a feather-weight, at less than six pounds, making it the longest focal range handheld lens available. But the Cabrio allusion also extends to the included removable handgrip/zoom rocker servo.

Last year in our booth at NAB, AbelCine showed a prototype of the new Canon CN-E 14.5-60 T2.6 Cinema Zoom lens. We were very impressed at the time, and in recent private testing, were even more pleased. Now that the release version is shipping, AbelCine's optical technicians have put this new PL-mount zoom through a battery of evaluations, and we are very excited by the results.

The ARRI ALEXA has become so popular that many clients are asking to use it in ways outside of the traditional Digital Cinema market. Documentary and ENG-style productions, long the playground of 2/3" cameras, are now beginning to use the ALEXA. With this demand, AbelCine has worked to adapt the camera to the style of "One Man Band," everything-on-the-camera shooting.