@B3Guy: I think option 2 is the best. I think that an anamorphic lens would be preferred over an adapter, as it guarantees the best image quality possible, plus working with every lens and great for it's focal length. For the back, there's a much easier way: For the image circle, make it so that the hole itself is an oval (glass or aperture not needed to be it, this would be like an oval mask at the back). Similar to placing a bokeh filter in front, it works just as well in the back. All you have to do is to adjust the size so it fits the adapter without vignetting and then the oval shape will be there. And if possible, please add follow focus gears, mark it in T-stops, with a non clicked aperture and place the markings on the side. This would be for filmmakers anyway, so you might as well get a head of it! For the front thread, the best would be an inner diameter of 77mm and an outer diameter of 80mm. This would make it work with standard matteboxes.

For a good quality 25/35mm anamorphic lens with 1.8X I would "like" to pay $300 but I would expect to pay at least twice that amount, and for exceptional quality would be happy to pay four times that.

when i talk about an affordable price adapter i do not mean plastic or toy design. If there is plastic, it can be just in the housing. The lenses must be glass and coated, no vignetting, no soft corners, no barrel distortion, no chromatic aberration. IQ is a must. I think it can be done at 300 usd price range. Lets say, not consumer, not professional, but prosumer... like GH2 is.

Certainly, you´ll in time need to decide and assess what you can - cannot do. Either you go the cheap route and make a lens/adapter that performs well for the money (could be with a prism, plastic elements or whatever) or you go the "cheap" high end route and think about what you need to achieve to sell lenses / adapters for that market category. In the first instance, build quality is secondary. You will have customers as long as there´s a desire for an anamorphic look. In the second instance you can´t cut corners anywhere and you´ll need to work long and hard at it, but if you succeed you will no doubt have a solid base of customers since there is so little competition at sub 5k price point..

@slrmagic Slight vignetting is ok to me... but not too much. If you guys are planning to make a fixed focal length anamorphic lens, I'm pretty sure it can be as big as Nokton 25mm 0.95. In fact the size doesn't really matter as long as it can be easily controlled with follow focus. Just make sure it has m43 mount :)

Also I don't think anamorphic lens has to strive for optical perfection, but it must have its own unique characters and good center sharpness :)

@jackdoerner I agree about a cheap plastic adapter being a bad idea. It would be downright silly to have a cheap and flimsy solution for the hobbyists on one side of the spectrum and an incredibly expensive pro-solution on the other side of the spectrum, but nothing in between for the semi-pros and the low budget professionals. The need for anamorphics is huge in the middle range right now, not in the lower range! I don't see many hobbyists screaming for anamorphics...

@slrmagic We most certainly want any vignetting to be in post production if at all possible. It is easy to add a vignette to footage, but much harder to remove it if it was put there optically. A vingette is effectively removing information from the image. If we want to remove information, we can always do it in post. However, we can't get any new information in post, no matter how hard we try. If left with a choice, always take the option that yields a more "perfect" or neutral image on the sensor.

If people really want optical vignetting, it could easily be done with a vignette filter (I don't know if anyone makes such a thing currently, but imagine an ND Grad with a vignette pattern), or maybe even with some empty filter rings that stick out far enough to enter the edges of the frame.

In spite of what @disneytoy and others say, I think a cheap plastic adapter is a bad idea. Yes, no-budget filmmakers will love it, but no one else will, and anyone who has actually tried to acquire a decent anamorphic lens will know that finding one that covers S35 is nearly impossible at any price point. Projector lenses will, but they're not designed to be used on cameras and it shows. There is a HUGE gap between the plastic lens/toy camera level and the next practical anamorphics ($5K - $10K range). Yes, there are a few lenses that cover that gap - mainly the ISCOs - but all are extremely rare and, by this point, quite old.

Is the protruding front of a zoom really a problem though? Only if you plan to use a mattebox and zoom while shooting. Personally I´d never do the latter so it would not make much of a difference. Just the normal hassle of changing lenses.

There would definately be a market for a cheap plastic adapter. For me? Don´t know, would depend on the IQ.

15 votes only for the anamorphic squeeze. Can we do better than that? http://www.easypolls.net/poll.html?p=50477872e4b0ce84916c0ecc

@disneytoy I'm been looking for the lens, too. 8mm Berthiot S.T.O.P. "Baby Hypergonar". Some say there are only 50 units ever being made?

To solve the problem of weight and avoid damages on plastic lenses the anamorphic adapter can have an aluminium base, a flat aluminium from the bottom of the adapter to the bottom of the camera and screw it in the camera tripod screw hole. and this aluminium base can have another screw under it to fit on tripod or in the rails/mattebox. this base can be removable and can exist different sizes bases for different lenses or it can have some kind of slider to make the adapter go front and back, also useful for zoom lenses when it extends while zooming. all problems can be solved with some imagination and design.

@apefos The problem with the extending barrel is not that it will vignet, but the fact that the whole adapter will be pushed forward as you zoom. That makes it very hard to use a mattebox and to fasten the adapter to your rails.

In any event. Someone who makes a very inexpensive anamorphic adapter will sell a ton. how many of us hunted out old Anamorphic and projection lenses for a lot of $$$. How many times did you actually use them? If you want to spend $300+ you can buy them on ebay. But a small light weight adapter for a Lumix lens that already has auto-focus is an untapped market.