Caleb Genheimer

FWIW, my Small-HD AC7 can do 100% custom scaling. Mind you, when you push it, the unused areas of the screen get some crazy digital garbage, but I've desqueezed my Kowa at 2X and cropped it to 2.76:1. Setting up for a non-standard squeeze is just as easy, just some basic maths. Not every monitor an do this, of course, but it is possible. I'd say go for it one way or another. For whatever it's worth, in a year or two I'm hoping to step up to a better anamorphic solution, something between $2-3K. If you've proved one thing with the SpeedBoosters, it's that you don't f*ck around when it comes to designing optics. I have a Kowa with a Rangefinder, and the single-focus has already made a night and day difference, and has reassured me that anamorphic really can be useable in 4K and on professional projects with the right lens setup. I just this week used anamorphic on a paid shoot for the first time, and while it went well, there are a few things that could still use improvement. 1. Field of View. I'm getting about a 35mm FOV horizontally, and that on APSC/S35. While this is decent, it's right at the sweet spot for portraits and just a touch shy of feeling wide. It's so close I can almost see it, but something just under 30mm would produce truly stunning landscapes and establishing shots. What's more, this is just out of reach with projection adapters. Break the "FOV Barrier", I think there's a real gap in the market there. 2. Flares. There was a long phase with the anamorphic hobbyists where it was all the rage to hate on flares, and there's still a negative stigma around it. Good or bad, flares with the current options for lower budget anamorphics are a big hot mess. Some of the projection anas have ok flares, but the new SLR Magic offerings just look strange. What's more, the single focus adapters can't seem to make up their minds. The Rangefinder is tack sharp, but for some reason it has pseudo-vintage blue coatings which put strange blue haze spots in the image. Whatever you do with flares, be decisive. Either nail a vintage look with rich thick flares, or clean it up 100% with modern coatings and keep it all about the bokeh. 3. Lens size. Of course, any anamorphic worth it's price tag will be no pancake lens, but stack a UV filter on a Rangefinder on a step ring on a front clamp on a Kowa on a rear clamp on another step ring on a pancake lens on a lens mount adapter, and you've got a portrait prime lens longer and heavier than a 24-70. I would hope that an integrated anamorphic could be made a bit smaller and more compact than this, especially with the help of modern optics. 4. Lens support. This is a HUGE deal if you go the "front adapter" route. Seriously. I'm considering getting my Rangefinder modded to have a rod lens support, because it's just needed. Let's face it, all the projection anas are a decent size and weight once rigged on front of a lens. There are ALWAYS a lot of parts to get it all hooked up end-to-end. Mine shifts around when I turn the Rangefinder focus ring, causing alignment wobble. Include a way to easily bolt the focus adapter to some rails, so that torque applied while focusing doesn't affect the rest of the setup behind it. Alternatively, this is my prime reason for wanting to move to an all-in-one-housing lens. All the various parts and pieces provide no end of possible failure points. My ideal anamorphic would be a 30mm S-35 in the neighborhood of 2X squeeze (anything significantly less and why freaking bother? Shoot spherical.) Alternatively, 40/45-ish full frame. I'm serious when I say that anything beyond f/4 would be welcome but not required. Because of the way anamorphic renders out of focus areas, I've consistently found that f/4 is not only adequately shallow... It is also sharp and manageable. You want to see the smear, not obliterate it in completely out of focus mush. Around the $2-2.5K mark would be my sweet spot, with of course a 50mm and something longer like 75/85mm also available eventually to fill out a 3 lens set. Again, I'd be most enticed by a wide in the standalone lens department, because anyone these days can grab a projection ana and shoot >50mm stuff. Being able to tell clients that "yes, I have a full three lens set that is reliable and we can shoot anamorphic" is an entirely different ballgame and the wide is what makes a new set better than (for example) a set of LOMOs, along with modern sharpness and usability/reliability. I think wide FOV is a defining characteristic of cinema anamorphic, every bit as much as bokeh, flares or lens distortion, and that's why the projection anas always feel like they just fall short a little. I would leave the single focus adapters to SLR Magic and Rectilux, unless you can beat SLR Magic in quality for the price point. It's a very capable adapter for anyone in the market for a solution to their projection lens woes. Anyone hell-bent on using a projection ana on a high quality level will shell out for the Rectilux. There's a huge hole in the "real anamorphic" prime lens market, basically anywhere below Hawk (and obviously way below Panovision). Go for that sweet spot, kinda like the Xeen lenses. More serious than plain Rokinons, but not quite bank-breaking like CP.2s. Catch the top end of the hobbyist market, and the everyday working stiff profesionals who until you came along hadn't even considered anamorphic.

perfect description of their color science. It shouldn't be so difficult to wrangle into something pleasing to look at.

Their first camera with a good codec plus their variable ND will sell like freaking hot cakes. Doubly so if it is full frame. Variable ND is really the ideal/ultimate way to handle exposure compensation, and putting it in the body as an electronic system is just bonkers-awesome. Unless Samsung come back with a vengeance, my next camera will be a Sony. There's something about their color science that bugs me, but at the rate they're going, I'd be willing to deal with that in favor of other advantages.

Unless someone has the exact same setup, it'll be hard for them to give you exact numbers. Play with the custom scaling. First, crop the correct amount off the sides by stretching it out, then compress it vertically until the image is the right aspect. You need to know what portion of the original image should be showing, and which parts should be cropped off. Take your target aspect ratio and divide it by 1.5 in order to determine this.

Yeah that's where I'm at right now, just using a wide prime by itself. I guess I'll stick with that.

Does the Pentax extend when zooming?

Well I'm at 40mm on APSC, so right in that "50mm FF" FOV range. Would I be able to squeeze the ff38 in between the Ramgefinder and Kowa?

What brand would you suggest? The Cavision look pretty hefty, which in my mind indicates there's some decent glass going on there, but I don't really know.

Rangefinder, yo. Taking lens stays at infinity!

Works well! One that is on my list to try is the Pentax "stack of primes" 35-105 f3.5. If it works decent, it might just stay on my Kowa/Rangefinder. It always looks best nearer to f4 anyway, on S35/APSC, 35mm is wider even than I can go by a little bit, and 100mm should me more than enough long end. It's an early zoom lens so no crazy complex optics, so I'm thinking it might work ok.

The FS5 on paper is as near an ideal camera as I could imagine, and by far the best in its price range, no contest. But it needs a few things fixed nonetheless. For one, Sony needs to work on their color science. They also need better codec as Andrew pointed out. 10bit with macroblocking is a shame. All-I or at least clean 10-bit. I'm also with Andrew: why can't this brilliant new ND be used for auto-exposure?! That's the first and most obvious use for this new technology and there's no way the folks at Sony are so dumb that they overlooked that potential.

I shot this in an afternoon with my friend, and used it as a chance to test my anamorphic setup in a tricky scenario: green screen. It's at f4, and locked off but even so it produced great results considering it was lit with four practicals from the hardware store. It does contain Star Wars spoilers, so consider yourselves warned ?

I'm with you on the NX1, Andrew! It has captured striking imagery with an astonishing success rate for me compared to any other camera. It might not sit atop any specific quantifiable ranking of cameras, but what it's capable of is just short of miraculous. On the Ronin, that AF system is a dream come true, and paired together in the right hands, most any shot is possible. It handles extremely well, is reliable as heck, and it has good tech specs where it counts.

Interesting. So for my purposes, I need a focus-through/afocal WA adapter. For everything closer up, the 40mm with anamorphic is wide enough. My main hope is to get that extra 30-40% wide for shots at infinity, mostly for establishing shots outdoors or in large interiors. I have to admit, I was inspired by a few shots from Hateful8 promo footage. Those anamorphics are not an extreme squeeze, but still, they get a wide shot that feels both expansive and intimate all at once (this above all is what draws me to anamorphic in general.) Im getting about 24-28mm non-anamorphic equivalent with my current setup, which is just on the verge of a true wide shot. I'm going to email Cavision for some more details, perhaps they can help me make an informed purchase or at least steer me clear of any expensive mistakes.

The Cavision is the same filter thread size as the Rangefinder, whereas the DSO WA is a much smaller rear that I'm sure would vignette. Great for use on the TRUMP system, but not for my purposes. Cavision has WA adapters and WA Converters. They seem to be emphasizing the fact that these are NOT the same thing, but I can't for the life of me understand the difference. One "only works with your camera in macro mode" whatever the crap that means. My fear is that they mess up infinity focus or something... Or worse, that they vignette pretty hard core, and "macro mode" = zooming in.

Simply amazing. I know there's been a bit of hullabaloo about Rectilux vs Rangefinder, but I'm shooting 4K on NX1, and the Rangefinder holds up great. It's actually my taking lenses that I'm finally starting to give more thought to, now that I can focus the darn thing. Does anyone know if Apple's Motion could do this desqueezing stuff?

Yep I'm aware of that, but with the Rangefinder, it stays at infinity, so the changing squeeze with focal point doesn't happen.

I'm on NX1 at the moment, probably will be for a while yet as weddings are my main bread and butter, so no RAW unfortunately. I've got some whiz-kid computer friends, perhaps they can whip up another converter solution or a plugin or something.

Yep, exactly what I was asking about, thanks! I was even filming checkerboards yesterday while trying to sort this out. Of course I don't want to completely flatten out the lens barreling, as that's one of the trademark traits of anamorphic, but this goes beyond average barreling along the far edges, it really is a squeeze ratio thing. It is very obvious when panning especially. So I guess only advanced graphics programs will be able to do this? I'll have to dig around some more.

Hi, all! I'm trying to figure out how to get the most out of my anamorphic, and I've noticed that the squeeze ratio across the frame with my Kowa 16-H is not consistent. A straightforward 2X stretch works perfectly for desqueezing the center of the image correctly, but towards the left/right edges of the frame, the image gradually becomes more compressed even than 2X, causing it to look compressed at the edges even after the footage is desqueezing. Has anyone ever done a dynamic/graduated desqueezing with varied adjustment of the desqueezing across the frame? Any ideas how to do this?

I'm sorry, but Panasonic lost me a while back. The GH2 was an incredible camera with the hacks, for the price, as an entry for me into interchangeable lens cameras. But Panny and the MFT crowd IMO have ultimately shot themselves in the foot. The physics of light dictate that their smaller sensors simply cannot yield the same results as their larger bretheren. I know that "technically" the GH4 is a great cam, but the times I have used it, it hasn't yielded great results easily. I had to bend over backwards to wrangle the colors into something remotely appealing. The shallow DOF is not there when you want it, and the crop makes everything feel constrained. Sure the cameras and lenses are marginally smaller and lighter weight, but they're not drastically smaller so as to make a huge difference. 8K on a MFT sensor is downright ludicrous, IMHO. On a full frame sensor, or even S35, the photosite size would be sensible. Not on MFT. I love over-sampling as much as the next guy (because I'm always stretching footage in strange ways for anamorphic), but 8K is useful for only specific applications. I'd much rather see some companies push into larger sensors for uber-high-definition imaging. The films I have seen shot on large format (IMAX 70mm) have a way of rendering that isn't attainable any other way (much like full frame vs MFT). It'd be rad to shoot some medium/larger format digital video some day.

Quick note: the SmallHD can do almost any ratio from a 2x, 16:9 input signal: up to 2.76:1 (Ultra Panovision 70). The blank areas of the screen get a bit glitchy at extreme squeezes, but it's darn nice seeing what the heck you're actually shooting.

Trust us when we say Redstan. It may be tempting to cheap out, but seriously. Proper alignment is of utmost importance with anamorphics, and when it comes to alignment, Redstan is just the best. Accept no substitute.

I'm getting pretty near 22/s35 already. I'm looking at this, actually to put on front of the Rangefinder: http://www.adorama.com/CILWA006X82.html?hotlink=t&svfor=5m&gclid=Cj0KEQiAkIWzBRDK1ayo-Yjt38wBEiQAi7NnP_kA8nV502UdpJIeqRmENb_H_u4tFuqvZ7P6JlouYC8aAh8z8P8HAQ

Hi, all! I've recently been honing my anamorphic setup. I run a Kowa 16-H through a Konica Hexanon 40mm taking lens, and I focus it with a SLR Magic Rangefinder which has been a joy to use after years of using a double-focus setup. Of course, at 40mm, I'm not running full frame, rather APSC/S35 on my Samsung NX1. Long story short, it gives a clean image cropped to 2.4:1, and in my new favorite "Ultra-Panovision 70" mode of 2.76:1, it hard vignettes only slightly in the corners, depending on the shot. Near as I can tell, I get between 22mm and 25mm equivalent horizontal FOV (compared to my Samsung OIS 16-50 zoom). That's pretty wide for a projection anamorphic setup, but I'm interested in pushing it further. The Redstan clamp I'm using on the Kowa is 72mm, and the Rangefinder rear thread is 77mm. I'm curious if anyone knows of a wide angle adapter that I could put I between the two to push my setup just a bit wider. Shopping around for these things has proved difficult, as the specs are often incomplete or even contradictory. There are countless cheap pieces out there, but I'm looking for a decent quality unit, especially in sharpness (a little distortion is fine and actually adds to the anamorphic character.) If you've used a wide angle adapter with good results, I'd love to hear how you made it work.