The 8.25mm is over a 2x zoom compared to the stock CGO3+/CGO3 lens, and was designed to be exactly a 2x compared to our 3.97mm (82 degree HFOV vs 41 degrees HFOV). It has improved overall sharpness, reduced chromatic abberation and very little lens flare. If you can even get it to flare, it will be a very faint rainbow flare, and never a concentrated pink/blue point.
The 2x zoom has a few great benefits:
-Able to capture the same scene but be 2x the distance. This is good to not disturb your subjects. We'll have a video of some surfers coming out next week where the zoom makes you feel like you're right on top of them but we're much further away. One angle that does really well with a zoom lens like the 8.25mm is the straight down shot, like the basketball one above. You'll see some examples of this also in the surfing video.
-The 47mm equivalent focal length is a very common focal length for cinematic shots, most commonly used on larger aircraft rigs and setups like the Inspire X5. So it's a focal length people are used to seeing.
-You can get some really great parallax and tracking shots with objects centered in the frame. See the Parallax video with the balloons above to see what I mean. Basically you can pan around and keep an object the main point your eye looks at and then the background blurs slightly behind.
There are though some things you have to keep in mind when using a zoom lens:
-You will almost always need to use various ND filters to stop the light down and allow you to use lower shutter speeds. That's why we worked with Freewell to come out with a kit that has ND4-ND64. In bright sunlight you'll need at least a ND16, and with overly white scenes such as snow or concrete you'll need a ND32-ND64. We typically shoot for a shutter speed around 1/250s, as this will remove the rolling shutter jello issues. It's also important to lock your white balance when using ND filters.
-Fast pans will often show the effects of the rolling shutter, so you have to slow your pans down, especially if you're at a lower shutter speed. You'll see an example of this in a shot from the surfer video.
-Something that is highly recommended as well is to balance your props, as you want to reduce any easily corrected vibrations that may exist.
Other than that, we think having a narrow FOV camera for your aerial drone platform is a great option for any pilot, and the professionals will likely find they rarely will go back to the wide-angle setup for most shots. After all, it's a flying camera rig, so it's very easy to move further back for that same wider angle shot if you need it.