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First time in ages i got away for a few days and did a road trip out to a little country town i like to visit. Full discloser, never really considered myself, much of a cleanliness or sterility freak 🙃. However i am liking the sirui 1.33 24mm. Probably mostly for the convenience it brings. Its not 1.5, 1.6 or 2x, and i think the anamorphic effects are kinda tame compared to those other stretches i mention. I liken it to stepping stones i think, little bit different to what you'd normally see but not as jarring as 2x ( although jarring might be too strong an adjective). It will flare and do the blue streaks as well but i find the blue streaks to be less intrusive compared to what you see on youtube. I suspect the first prototypes steaked quite a lot in youtube videos, no idea if they toned them down. My experiences has been their abit more subdued. The anamorphics guy Tito Ferradans has a vid on using oval cutouts in sirui lenses. I'd probably try something like that next. If i wanted a look that was closer to 2x Its taken a while to figure this lens out and i expect i still need to do more with it to realize its potential. The whole sterility / cleanliness thing, is of course subjective. What you may like, i may not and vice versa. I personally don't find cleanliness and or sharpness objectional in a lens and i recently bought a lens with a whole lot of yellowing going on that most wouldn't buy. I think the sirui and the other modern anamorphic lenses bring convenience to anamorphics. Buying a vintage anamorphic is much like travelling down a rabbit hole. Theres lots of things to add on and sometimes that can take a while to sort out. Its my understanding that 1.33 are geared towards crop sensors and the bigger stretches for full frame ? of course you can mix and match, if you so desire. i'm on mft format and i think 1.33 stretch adds enough of a difference for me. i also suspect a 1.33 stretch is a good start, if your looking to dip your toes in anamorphics and have a crop sensor camera, but dont want to travel down a rabbit hole.

high praise indeed, from the man who's usually the one dishing out impactful photos 😉 If i am honest, i'm quite chuffed with my shot as well lol. These cattle had been penned nearly for two weeks as the trucks couldn't get in to load and have been fed and watered every day and in that time have really settled down, being handled every day. The yards really quite long and there's about 103 cattle in there and widens out on the right hand side. Although you don't see that many in this shot.

Just watching this video here, which is about the Sirui Ironstar 35mm T1.9 1.5x lens and am amazed at how different the looks are: This has loads of vertical bokeh: and yet, this has triangular horizontal bokeh (I think it's called Coma?): I mean, seriously: Then he compares them to the Blazar Remus which seems to have vertical bokeh that even gets more prominent towards the edges rather than less-so: and then compare that to a swirly bokeh image cropped to a broadly similar aspect ratio and the bokeh on the very edges looks similar: It's definitely not the same, but if it wasn't sharpened to within an inch of its life it might be a broadly similar aesthetic when put into a more normal scene. Or this crazy combo of Helios 44-2 and Blazar 1.5x adapter, which seems to have horizontal streaking on the edges rather than vertical: I'm beginning to think the bokeh is a lie, or potentially randomly generated!

@maxJ4380 love this shot. Nice color and sharpness. I like how you used the fence rails to add an even tighter window into the frame... especially with how busy the frame is... A window into chaos. It also looks like a frame right out of Yellowstone.

Here's a quick test from the Voigtlander 42.5mm F0.95 and Sirui 1.25x showing the overall quality and how it behaves with differing apertures. The Voigt is sharp when stopped down, but not when wide open. The colour shifts are from the Voigt. F2.0 F1.4 F0.95 Here's an image from the other night to get a bit of a flavour. I've sharpened it quite a bit in post. I've shot with this combo on my current trip and really like it, but it's really heavy and so I've been thinking about alternatives for getting a similar look. I'm starting to think of this as a two-part challenge: the first part is things that can only be done optically like the bokeh (size, shape, CA, etc) and the second part is things that can be influenced in post (especially the softness of the focal plane). In this sense, I'm looking for glass that will give me the right bokeh, and can then degrade the image in post using softening, vignetting, distortion (barrel / pincushion), CA (of the whole image) etc. I'm surprised at how much the bokeh swirls: The fact that swirly bokeh is just anamorphic bokeh at the sides of the image, and the wider the aspect ratio you end up using in the final video the more you're cropping off the top and bottom where the swirl goes from vertical to horizontal, makes me think that a very swirly spherical lens with a wide crop might be a passable alternative. I will be investigating my vintage fast ~50mm collection on SB when I get home. These seem the easiest way to get soft images with character without huge weight and complexity and cost.

For those who are curious, here's my 16mm B&H footage. It has been stretched and graded slightly. No sharpening or window treatments whatsoever. The panning is to show distortion and falloff: Granted, I had to cut some corners to get here. I added a wide angle converter to the mix to get close to an S35 35mm equivalent while cropping in ML raw to 1344x1008 (I usually work with this crop). And this isn't a 50mm f/1.4 taking lens either. I find that the best taking lens for the B&H is the Olympus Zuiko 100mm on my 5D3 because it's so small and manageable. This combination gives me a neat 47.6mm S35 field of view (close enough to 50mm for me). Adding my new Sony VCL-HG0758 Wide Angle Converter brings me down to 33.33mm (S35). To answer Rich's questions as best I can: Can they deliver this field of view/dof combination? Yes, but only with a Wide Angle Converter. Can they deliver the above without adding CA or softening at f1.4? I haven't tried it at f1.4, but it's pleasantly soft at f2.8. Can they do this on a full frame sensor? See above. Can they do this without adding vignette? See above. Can they provide this without the need for additional support? I would recommend using a support. As a former Iscorama owner, I am still pleased as punch with this lens. I love the 2x stretch and with the modification I did, it rack focuses easily. There's no additional glass elements in front of the lens to worry about unless I need to attach the the wide angle converter. It's a pretty nice lens.