Meet the Special SIGMA FF High Speed Primes Behind Top Gun: Maverick

by Francesco AndreolaNovember 17^th, 2022

During Inter BEE 2022 in Tokyo, Takuma WAKAMATSU-san, Product Planner at SIGMA Corporation, proudly introduced us to a special edition of the company’s popular FF High Speed cinema primes that was specifically engineered to shoot some scenes of the latest Top Gun movie.

Imagine sitting at your office desk one day and receiving a one-of-a-kind request from the shooting team of a Hollywood blockbuster. Well, that’s pretty much what happened to SIGMA’s cinema lens development department back in 2018.

Around that time, the production of the Top Gun: Maverick movie had just started, and the crew had a particular desire: seeing lens data communication technology come to SIGMA’s existing FF High Speed prime lenses.

Tailor-made SIGMA FF High Speed primes for Top Gun: Maverick

Top Gun: Maverick is undoubtedly the most successful theatrical release of the year. And even if you haven’t watched the movie (yet), some of its behind-the-scenes sequences went so viral that I’m pretty sure you have stumbled upon them.

Needless to say, the movie was shot on Sony’s flagship CineAlta camera, the VENICE, which was paired with a variety of lenses. These include Zeiss Master Primes, Voigtländer and FUJINON Premier lenses, and of course, SIGMA’s FF High Speeds.

According to WAKAMATSU-san, the latter were customized to meet the requests of the Top Gun: Maverick team. More precisely, the original PL-mount version of these lenses was updated to pack Cooke’s /i lens data communication technology, while their optical design remained unchanged.

Initially, only four sets of these modified lenses were produced. Three were flown directly to the United States for the production of the movie, while the fourth one is still jealously guarded by SIGMA to proudly show off.

The company then expanded this solution to support other camera systems beyond the Sony VENICE. The SIGMA FF High Speed cinema prime lineup was first introduced back in 2016 and consists of 10 focal lengths, with an eleventh one (65mm T1.5) currently under development.

Have you ever shot with the SIGMA FF High Speed cinema prime lenses? What do you think about their use in Top Gun: Maverick? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below!