What a wonderful lens! Many times a year the client springs for the Canon CN-E 17-120 F2.8 and they never regret it. When shooting live content and with large sensor cameras, it’s always tricky keeping up with focus. It gets especially tricky if the jib is swinging around aggressively. Cine servo lenses such as the Canon CN-Es or Fuji Cabrios help solve this issue as they are fully parfocal servo zoom lenses. They blend the functionality of a 2/3” broadcast zoom lens with the super35 world. The CN-E 17-120 is a lens I particularly like to use….I know who doesn’t like a $25k+ lens?! The servo motor is extremely clean and accurate. I can start jib moves and at any point sneak into a super subtle push. You should expect this kind of quality from high end ENG lenses, but I haven’t quite experienced a lens that was THIS accurate with its servo. A good measure of quality is how easily you can start and stop a zoom from it’s beginning and end points. With lesser quality ENG lenses or simply beat up ones, I find the starts/stops aren’t perfect. When completely wide, you sometimes get that dreaded zoom bump when starting a push. I work around this by tapping on the zoom control to get the lens slightly off the starting point. It does not give any noticeable amount of push, but it allows me to comfortably sneak into a push without having to think about it. On the 17-120 this is never a worry!
