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The arguable real (dis)advantage of anamorphic shooting with adapters.
  • I didnt find this related topic, just a few floating opinions inside other anamorphic topics.

    Let me start point it out.

    What is the real advantage of putting a glass above another glass to change the pixel aspect ratio, and get arguable more horizontal resolution?

    If we use a real and good anamorphic lens, we get a real advantage in terms of resolution. But just put an adapter over a lens is not always a good idea. Resolution is not only pixel quantity, but pixel quality. If we need to use extra glass to get these "extra" wide, we will be loosing resolution by the degradation of quality caused by the extra glass. Experiment put many filters in your lens, than pixel-peep it. You will notice an image blur. This is what happened with most (I say most, not all) adapters around. It is fancy to shoot anamorphic, but what is the real advantage? Lets go to an example:

    If you use a 7-14mm lens at 7mm than just crop to get the desired ratio. You get an anamorphic ratio and very wide frame. You cannot use an anamorphic adapter in very wide lenses. So, you win in one side but lost in other.

    What you get:
    * more horizontal resolution
    * some flares (arguable positive)

    What you lost:
    * very wide lenses
    * the capability of use fast lenses at wider apertures
    * time
    * money

    Some guys claim that can achieve 2k resolution from full HD by using anamorphic adapters. This can be untrue depending on the configuration used.
    The extra horizontal resolution gained from the pixel squeezing can be lost by the image degradation caused by extra glass, not not mention here vignetting.

    Anamorphic fan guys, please no offence here, lets try to use logical arguments instead of emotional ones.

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  • A diferente approach about cellphones and film.

    From my point of view, I took about 1863 years to make the first mass produced pencil. Maybe to 1930 to make oil paintings and canvas massively available, for the people, as well to photography, in a massive way too , you know, new materials for new colors, and substrates for rolls of films.

    Michael Angelo, Picasso, Caravaggio, all those masters, made paintings and sometimes even more. But their work was make as a though process, and mainly made people feel, and as a result sometimes critic because it made you think, thus creating what is called culture. Nothing new here nothing.

    It took 1600 years to master light in painting, 260 years more for make massive pencil available and other tech, then 130 to make film massively, then what?...60 years later availability of handy cams, and 20 years later almost half population has cellphone and 8 years more, everyone has a video camera photo camera, and an intelligent one.

    Big big grand masters of cinema will come from this generation, now we will and can say in a few years for the real first time, everything has been filmed and tried. There are new forms of cinema, new techcnics, new narratives and styles. Film, and classic cinema as I call it was the foundation of what we are to come, it’s a transitional point in where we are struggling with our own life’s more than ever, wait more, and it will come.

    As a director I understand what limitations we have, but as a visionary I only can embrace and spect grate things to come for humanity in this aspect.

    Can you imagine, all the videos the right kid will see now, all the grate now and then movies he will see all the shot content he will compare and then use his cell phone and tools available as an app and make a 4K quality 60fps masterpieces at the age of 12 with his friends?

    As Beethoven all young kids that are handled the right tools thrives and glows if they have the talent.

    We are in the starting point now, not only any human can acces a pencil, paint, now a phone, with a camera. I see, film was is and will be grate, all time grate, but it’s by it low volume and cost it’s already done. Digital came to stay and now every hand with balls and will, can access one camera phone, and make what only 9 year before was only posible with dslr, that only 9 years before was possible with 120k dollars Alexa type cameras.

    Im 38, never used film, I only can dream to acces it, maybe never will I live far away from it, but cellphones here in Perú are making a difference. Me and you can see the cultural impact, like it or not, content is the new dad, a bad example dad maybe, it may spawn bad children, but also some genius ones, the ones tha Kubrick would be proud to see grown

    Kubrick was born in the right time, I see a lot of talent lately. I think the new masters have 10, maybe 6 years old right now, and they will use VR sets and use 100 sensors in a 3D eviroment and live raytracing with AI recognition of actors and auto makeup and dynamic virtual light over captured 3D real image... crazy shit will be to be a director in the future , all you must learn and understand before even trying these new paradigms of cinema what a level of vision will be needed to see and understand and make the new masterpieces.

    I’m exited, understandably sad for not even touching a film canister in my life , but happy that I made it making content, a lot of shitty ones, give my family support and live a respectable life after all.

    So... it’s a wide spectrum but a good one in my perspective to have lots of cameras around for people, more can now paint and draw, new Warhol’s and basquiat’s are coming and I’m exited, not all is classic painting, not all is Tarkovsky or Kurosawa.

  • @endotoxic...accepted. And as well you should. I'm back to shooting fujifilm 35mm and just bought 5 rolls of 16mm b&w reversal tri-x. It's on ice. Although no film scanned better than kodachrome, fuji is the only game in my town, or any other. Digital content isn't worth anything on it's own. 7 billion cellphones proved that. In fact, there's far too much of it, sadly. It did have it's moment though. But films will be made with digital files for the foreseeable future...until it's no longer an attractive model. I do ask one thing of it however. It gives me some content.

  • Kitty, sorry, @kurth I’m sorry I love you, i Learn a lot from you and vitaliy

  • @endotoxic.... In the early 70's , fresh out of school, I thought I wanted to be a professional cinematographer. I got a job at Victor Duncans. Man, that was a mistake , although I learned alot about shooting film in those 2 months, it was/is a miserable way to make a living. Then I got a real job. That was work. Or maybe you're really trying to say "oeuvre" ? The videos posted here generally don't qualify as "works". Most are really demo reels.

  • @endotoxic ....did u watch Mark's video...or do the images just pass directly to your asshole w/o any thought processing whatsoever ? I was commenting on content. Watch the video again. "stolen lands ftp " except ftp is a brand name ...https://fuckthepopulation.com/ ...or maybe they're talking about files lol. But if u google ftp, on the first page...

  • Kurt show us your work please

  • @markr041 .....FTP....fuckthepopulation. It's a brand name !

  • Rendered to take advantage of the higher resolution (4992 x 2160):

  • Nice videos markr041, great job.

  • Lumix 20mm F1.7 lens + SLRMagic Anamorphot 1.33X/40 adapter. Shot using Vlog L at 4K 60p.

  • Upon second watch on a larger screen, I definitely do see the flares. It doesn't look bad or anything, it looks pretty good! I'm just partial to the 2x look even on 16:9 footage.

    I'm gonna post some of my anamorphic test footage here soon with a cinelux and the FM single focus adapter. It's a pretty good combo except it barely flares at all. Still nice and sharp though.

  • @kurth I agree that story is the most important aspect. But cinema/video is a visual art and visual style is second (or audio) in importance And style includes the look - and the anamorphic look is unnatural (wide-angle FOV with less wide-angle DOF, attractive and distinctive flares, distinctive bokeh, among other distortions of reality or "blemishes").

    On the other hand, I do not think anyone viewing the videos I posted would conclude they are "soft;" that is totally second-order given modern lenses. And that is mainly the point of my posting them.

    One could complain about the lack of oval bokeh, but you get the distinctive flares and the DOF/FOV disparity, and you are not also sacrificing quality in terms of visible non-anamorphic issues like softness or CA. As can be plainly seen.

  • I learned.... if there's content, how good the image matters alot less. I've never shot any adapters that didn't soften the image. And flares are great. All aesthetic blemishes add to the experience.

  • @sammy What is wrong with the image, exactly? We are here to learn. There is the Sirui 1.33X F1.8 anamorphic lens for $699.

  • @kristoferman You have to be kidding. There are horizontal blue flares all over the crime video. Look again, especially at the police scenes. And flares are not the only reason (perhaps the least) to like anamorphic looks.

  • Im surprised that we still dont have anamorphic prime options for indie level to mid level productions,SlR magic on paper is ok, but image not so great.

  • From the street crime video it doesn't appear to flare at all. A 1.33x adapter without even flare seems... Unnecessary?

    I much prefer the 2x look.

  • @markr041....bleeker street crime....yeah...the score was alittle over but interesting....have u thought of scoring yourself ? It looked like the little dude in the center was orchestrating.

  • Now the same anamorphic SLRMagic adapter using the Sony A6500:

  • Much more interesting, and cinematic, and relevant:

  • Testing "near" focus.

  • SLRMagic anamorphot 1.33X/40 ($399) + Canon EF 40mm pancake ($199) on the Nikon Z6 = Full-Frame 4K handheld anamorphic video:

  • @Psyco Back when image quality was strongly limited by film MTF you could make a valid argument that a rear anamorphic could improve image quality by using a bigger piece of film. This is no longer the case with high performance digital sensors. Now, the only reason for using anamorphic is to achieve anamorphic character. Unfortunately, rear anamorphic adapters have no such character, so they are basically useless. You're better off using a good spherical lens and cropping to the desired aspect ratio.

  • Re-post from Dave Mullen, ASC from here: http://www.rogerdeakins.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?t=2633

    "So these days, people are more likely to pick anamorphic over spherical when they want a 2.40 movie more when they are interested in the odd optical artifacts of anamorphic lenses shot in low-light -- the stretched bokeh, the horizontal flares, the shallower depth of field, etc. Anamorphic lenses tend to be physically larger and heavier than spherical lenses, and are often either a bit slower in speed, or even if they are faster, look better if stopped down. They tend to flare more and when you rack focus, the amount of stretching between the foreground and background will change, causing a visible breathing effect during the focus rack. Most of these artifacts are an aspect of front-element anamorphic prime lenses -- most anamorphic zoom lenses and telephotos are just spherical lenses with a rear anamorphic element in the back to squeeze the image -- they don't have the anamorphic artifacts but many are also not very fast -- a T/2.8 35mm spherical zoom converted to anamorphic usually becomes a T/4.0-5.6 lens."

    Another Dave Mullen, ASC repost from here: http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=493

    "No, rear-mounted anamorphic elements do not to create the oval-shaped lights in the background -- but on the longer lenses, you instead get SQUARE-shaped lights, which is really odd-looking.

    Wide-angle lenses tend to not have room in the back for an anamorphic element, plus back focus is too critical with those lenses to stick another element back there. Plus I suspect it is easier to make a sharper anamorphic element if it is large (for the front) than tiny (for the rear.) "

    There is a good discussion towards the bottom of this page: http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=47189

    Here is an offer in 2009 to make such a rear anamorphic adapter:

    http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?36580-FS-Rear-anamorphic-adapter-for-Zoom-Cooke-MK-II-Angenieux-HR-25-250-PL-mount

    The P+S ver$ion: https://www.pstechnik.de/en/shop/anamorphic-rear-element-with-mounting-rings-for-angenieux-and-cooke-zoom-lenses/a-1570/

    I don' think there is a cheap anamorphic rear adapter to be had for cheap.

    @Psyco The Kish Optics rear mesmerizers I worked with came in PL mount. I am surprised to learn they went on to make a front mounted version: http://handheldfilms.com/kish-front-mesmerizer/

  • @brianc1959 no oval bokeh is the only drawback of a rear adapter - and its not that important. The very obvious horizontal flares can be faked with screw on filters (or DIY with fishing thread). And nobody knows what other effects such a adapter would have - maybe some very similar?

    Anamorphic lenses having some very special optical problems that people today call "character" is one thing, but the purpose of such a lens/adapter is by giving a wider image and using the whole sensor.

    @CFreak thanks for the info - if you ever stumble on one of this adapters let me know, maybe it can be adapted to be used with our gear.