brucker

very nicely lit  :)

oops, thought you were after the thread of the taking lens. my bad, misread your post :P

you could always ask redstan the man.

what lens have you got now?

it doesnt have to be a prime, they'll work fine on a zoom,... if you dont zoom of course.

i would shoot with your current lens and figure out what you think you're missing, then go hunting,... cos i think i can speak for everyone when i say, the hunt never ends :P

it all depends on what look you're going for,...

i'm liking my contax zeisses at the moment,...

but i also like my russian optics ( lots written about them on this forum) like the helios, mir and jupiter. also nice and can be had cheap.

pentax asahi takumars are nice and cheap too.

seen some nice stuff on minoltas too,.. unfortuantely i sold mine before i got into anamorphics so could never try them out myself.

the russians and takumars are cheap enough that you can buy a whole bunch of each and play with them till you find what you're after. the contaxes are a bit pricier but pretty damn tasty.

but all have a slightly different look to them so it comes down to what you're after.

best resource for info?

this forum, end of. 

look at the lens cap of the lens to which you want to attach it to, that'll give you the A in an A to B step up ring.

yeah it's definitely usable and it is quite nice over a massive Kowa/B&H/Elmoscope as a walk around everyday anamorphic for both stills and video.

tried walking around with my elmoscope II one sunday,... epic wankers cramp! killed my wrist like a mothereffer!

haha, seriously, you have the best stories!

it looks like its on the outside,.. i can see the thickness of the rear glass and it looks like its on the surface. 

but you're right, it would be best for me to leave it,... i've done simple spherical lenses before but with anamorphic the alignment freaks me out. :P

i had a go at wiping it with isopropyl but as i clearly dont know what i'm doing i thought it best not to try anything else. 

i received it like this,.. so i dont know if anyone's tried to clean it before. 

i'll have a look for some hydrogen peroxide to see if it'll come off, thanks for the tip tony!

and yeah it should work great on the pocket cam, i hadnt thought of that! 

FYI, it is now up for auction: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300891246344

you know you want to gear up for the pocket cam now cos by the time its out these will be stupid pricey! hehe,  :P

great idea for a thread!

yes, thanks to this site 8 months ago i learned about anamorphic lenses and managed to get amazing looking stuff on a dinky lil nikon v1 camera with zero previous video experience.

i actually entered a local competition with said dinky camera + anamorphic for a laugh and came in second place, much to my suprise... my 30 second bit is now being aired once a week for a year on local tv.

i've now upgraded to a gh2 as i've actually been getting paying work, all due to the amazing people that contribute and who drop a crazy amount of knowledge on these forums, so yes, thank you guys very very much!

can i spam mine too?  :ph34r:

Izukar scope x1.5 Anamophic, fixed focus, rear optic scarred therefore not 100% perfect therefore the collectors should stay away and it should go cheap.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300891246344

i did a short write up with yet another boring video sample here: http://www.eoshd.com/comments/topic/2514-izukar-scope-by-ichizuka-optics-little-8mm-fixed-focus-anamorphic/

as a self confessed dumpster diver :P i have had a few with fungus but they were always white and cloudy.

after a bit of googleing it looks like the acid from fungus, looks like someone cleaned the fungus up before it got to me.

yup, is that fungus itself, or the result of fungus? cos it looks like there used to be fungus and the acid has etched the pattern in.

some pictures of the lens:

it came to me in that leather kowa case. 

bit of dust inside,.. and a couple of blemishes on the rear lens which wouldnt wipe off below.

it's not bad,.... but then it's not really great either. 

the good: 

- its a x1.5. 

- fixed focus (with a minimum focus of about 8 feet i think) is kinda nice,.. i liked not having to dual focus when i was just out and about. might be good for run n' gun where you're not closer than 8ft,... i rarely do that though so i couldnt say for sure.

- it's sharp with a good taking lens as you can see from the video. the diopter as well seems pretty decent, but i'm no glass expert so.

- it's sharp at f2.8, and not bad at f2, but a bit harder to pinpoint focus at f2. apparently has to do with it having two optics and not a mirror thingy.

- you can kinda of rack focus but its not great,.. more below in the bad.

the bad:

- fixed focus,.... you can kinda rack focus but not really,... in the video i tried to and you saw how it turned out. the zone in focus tends to move very quickly,.. almost twice as fast as i'm used to. and the contax zeiss has an unusually long focus throw,.. so on lenses with shorter throws, it will be more of a bitch to do. with practice one could get decent i suppose.

- the diopter focuses really close,... so while nice, it means you only have down to 5ft,.. then a jump to about a 6inch close up. you'd need a weaker diopter to fill in the gap,.. and it is a bit of a pain.

- widest i can go on the GH2 is 50mm,... this has a smaller rear than my shigascope so the vignette is more pronounced than my shigascope on a 35mm distagon. i havent tried my 37mm mir-1B as i dont have an m42->gh2 adapter yet,... but i think the vignette might still be visible. 40mm might be ok but dont take my word for it.

as far as the image goes,... i think its nice,... but it's not as nice as my shigascope and i like the minimum focus of less than 3ft, i've gotten used to dual focusing and i dont do run n'gun,....plus the bidders on that auction site seem to have gone a bit nuts,... all of which is why i'm letting this one go. 

hope this is useful to someone, and if there are any questions do feel free.

cheers.

Shuji.

edit: measured min focus, 8ft

Bolex 8/19/1.5x rear element is 20mm

ok,.. the rear on my shigascope and izukarscope are smaller, 17mm and 19mm respectively.

from here i'll use the focal length of lenses for 35mm still photography to avoid any confusion, so multiply by x2.7 for the field of view:

on a nikon v1 cx sensor which has a crop factor of x 2.7, a 28mm takumar vignettes.

a 35mm takumar doesnt vignette.

i did play with a v1 zoom lens that went from 24-something in the shop and i put my shigascope infront, and it would be ok till about 30mm. after that the vignette starts to appear.

http://youtu.be/y2KdP55tIz8

I took the Izukar-scope out for a little walk today and for those that are interested, this is what i came back with.

i've added a bit of a description in the youtube link, but it's getting a bit late here now, and i'm a bit knackered and a bit sunburnt :(  so i'll just copy that here,... tomorrow i'll add a bit more about what it's like to use and some pics of the lens itself as i plan to put it up for auction.

how far off is the sensor from nikon v1's cx?

and how does the bolex rear measure? 

a couple of anamorphics i have might be similar in size so i could try it out on the nikon v1 if you want.

nicely done!

the great thing about fucking with anamorphics is that you wind up getting used to the contrast/colours/look of the footage that you learn what needs to be done to non-anamorphic footage to make it blend. 

i wouldnt have guessed either.

fuck me, that went for $600?! :blink:

right, mine's ( two optics one) going on the evilbay then.

haha, love the gore!

@cantsin does the V2 still have autogain on the LCD that you cant turn off?

the v1 has that making it hard to guess exposure with adapters and manual lenses,... one work around is to switch it into movie mode which has autogain turned off, so you can see the actual exposure.

then switch it back and apply the same settings in picture mode.  

i've got one that looks almost exactly like that, but it's branded izukar-scope and the lens cap doesnt have the conversion table.

the bit on the end that says 0.7~1meter is a diopter that screws off. 

it needs to be stopped down to f3.5.

a shot on a nikon v1 with a takumar 35mm f3.5 with the diopter, straight out of the camera.

and one without, but with a soft takumar 35mm f2, straight out of the camera.

i could have sworn that i took some on a gh2 with a zeiss 50mm but i cant seem to find those pics.....

cheers for the tip JohnBarlow, will give it a try.

been meaning to watch argo for a while now :)

haha, i want a letterbox 2000 :P

@jgharding i would really appreciate it if you could try the 85 and any other contaxes you might have,... you wouldnt happen to have the 100mm f3.5 would you?

as you mentioned, they're gorgeous without an anamorphic so i'm thinking i might just wind up mixing anamorphic and spherical for the long  and wide angle shots,.. they should mix well.

@tommykristensen my condolences  :P

the vario sonnars have a rotating front which will be a bit of a bitch with anamorphic, and apparently the 3D zeiss pop is not as strong after about 135mm,... but yeah they should be very tasty on their own.

also my helios 44 was a beater lens before me so i got it real cheap,... wasnt too happy with it till i decided to open her up with no experience of opening up a lens,... turns out someone didnt put her back properly, but it was real easy to fix and i dont know the first thing about lenses,... as Bioskop says, a child could do it. mine's razor sharp now.

that's odd,...

my 50mm f1.4 is an AE, 35mm f2.8 is an MM and they both work well wide open. the f1.4 in particular works better at 1.4 than my 50 takumar which was a pain till after f2.8

it's pretty hard to nail focus at 1.4 so i normally use f2 on the zeiss,.. but on the takumar f1.4 was impossible, and f2 not as bad but not worth the effort compared to f2.8.

the zeiss 135 is an MM and is being a bit of a bitch up to 5.6 in sunny conditions.

oh well, good reason to try something else :D

i second the lavs,... unless you're shooting really close to your subjects you'll get much much more room noise from a camera mounted shotgunmic than you will from lavs.

working a shotgun is an artform in itself, and the cheaper ones sound like crap indoors, whereas with lavs you can just place them as close to your source as possible, out of view of the camera and you'll get pretty decent audio. 

syncing in post is as easy as pressing record on camera and recorder, have your subject clap their hands in full view of the camera, and then lining up in your NLE.