brucker

i still use one, cos the chicks dig it :P 

its one of those old analog sekonic ones from when i was shooting film,....

i still use it because i like to have a base reading off of which i can fiddle with, and when i find what i want to expose for, i dont have to faff about with the trial and error to get what i want, even though it doesnt cost anything on digital.

i find i work faster if i meter, then decide if i want to go up or down, then set and shoot, as opposed to shoot, nah a bit more , shoot, nah a bit more , shoot , ah ok.

i:m probably wrong and it's actually more time consuming, but i like not having to rely on the camera,..

this is probably me being old fashioned, but i once read someone say that photography is everything that happens before the shutter opens, and i'm inclined to agree.

Does this mean I can use wider taking lenses for anamorphic? ... or the opposite?

the opposite if it's placed behind the taking lens like its meant to be,.. i think.

but maybe yes if they could place it in between anamorphic and taking lens?

what ^he said,... a nice pricey anamorphic isnt worth anything if you cant align it properly, be able to fine tune the alignment and have it sit so tight and securely that you could probably walk around with your camera on a strap and not worry about the anamorphic falling out. 

and it looks the business!

re:focusing,...  i have no experience with full frame and anamorphic but i'm thinking that your depth of field will be razor thin at larger apertures.... so you might struggle to focus wide open on full frame so stop the taking lens down till you can identify your zone clearly,..

check distance on your lens,.. adjust the anamorphic to a similar distance,... fine tune your taking lens' focus,... and that's it. you can always open her up and finetune later if you need larger apertures.

also it doesnt need to be 100% exact,.. the greater your depth of field the larger your zone of focus will be, obviously, so, the easier it will be to fall within both the anamorphic and the taking lens's zone of focus.

if you played with it everyday, in a couple of weeks you'll be able to estimate distances and set your taking and anamorphic before even raising it to your eye. i do alot of stills on the street as well and focus is normally pretty easy. it really is one of those things where you have to play with a bit everyday, shoot random crap, and see how it turns out, adjust your process.

i used to be a bokeh whore, but with anamorphics, full depth of field is so effortlessly beautiful that i'm almost always at the hyperfocal distance,... makes run and gun pretty easy.

have fun!

i came

:lol:

that was quite interesting,... i'll have to read up more about fibonacci and how it relates to cinemascope.

that looks brilliant!

redstan goes by the name tony wilson on this forum or his email is on redstan.com,... i'll bet your Bolex that he has a clamp that will fit  :D  

yeah i'm in no hurry really, so i might just wait a bit. not like i'm doing this for a living  :P cheers for your input!

yeah 2.8 is limiting, and i'm a self confessed speed whore, :P ,...

but i think that if you've got one thing in sharp focus but the scene is darker,.. that tends to look better than brighter but blurry. it'll suck the blacks into an abyss of course though.

more dynamic range in the gh3? aarrghh, like i need another reason to upgrade  :P i was pretty much set to get a gh2 cos they're so cheap now,... might wait a bit and go for gh3.

cheers for the tests man!

interesting that the gh3 is brighter, and by quite a bit,... dunno if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

you might not need an external for focus,... i've found that on my lil x2.7 crop nikon + anamorphic, i can hardly focus at f2 so it must be hella hard on the gh's larger sensors. 

so i tend to stop down to f2.8,... you should be able to nail focus better at that than f2, then while keeping in mind that your dof is going to shrink, open her up and refine the focus. 

a Lada perhaps?

pretty cool painting technique  :)

the walk was a bit long but i did watch it all the way through,... had it not been split screen i probably wouldnt have. i think there's something about having twice as much information (or more) being thrown at you that makes you sit and watch, like you're brain is too busy processing everything to get bored. 

so i think it works really well, and you executed it really well, and its much better than fast cuts to keep the viewer interested.

if this becomes popular you'll be the reason x2's start getting silly expensive  :P

i'ma go out and play with my x2 today  :ph34r:

oooh, that looks wicked! love the split screen!

so much so i might have to steal that idea  :P , its like this is how x2 is meant to be presented.

i wonder how it would look in a dialogue scene.

wow, i really need to watch that movie now,...

i shot part of an event in the wrong mode a couple of weeks ago, and the aspect ratio change was annoying as hell. having said that, there are enough movies and shows on tv i've seen that start out letterboxed and then they gradually fade away and i cant say i've found that too distracting.

but yeah, provided you've got the aspect ratios the same, the exposure is the same since you lose a bit with an attachment, the grading is close, the depth of field is similar, it would be really hard to differentiate.

i was surprised at how well they blended and how easy it was to match the different shots yet still retain the feel of anamorphic because the leading shot was anamorphic.

and even when it isnt, i think our brains expect a certain amount of change at a cut so  it becomes a non-issue really.

besides, if the story is so compelling that one actually notices,.. then i think the film has bigger problems than what it was shot on  :P

congrats! you lucky bastard! :P

anyone make music?

it'll probably follow a similar pattern,... emulator plugins will come that will letterbox+add cheesey flare+fiddle with colours/sharpness.etc all at the touch of a button and it'll have a special "add mojo" randomizer and a special algorithm that is written by an anamorphic "expert" ...

and lil johnnys and janes everywhere will have their first steps rendering in glorious faux-nemascope,..

but there will be a core of us that would rather shoot and capture the look at the shoot than spend hours fiddling with sliders into the wee hours of the morning, so the prices of certain lenses will remain high if not go higher as supply dwindles.

just like in music where you have guys who have gone back to portastudios and tape and four track recorders and vintage synths cos all that technology got in the way of doing what they want to do.

dual focusing is nothing compared to the hours you could waste fiddling with sliders and always going just a smidge too far  :P

cheers Rudolf, it was a very lucky find. i've only been hunting for these locally for a couple of months, but so far this is the only one i've seen. but yes, it is incredibly easy to use and so nice and compact that on my nikon v1 i have an anamorphic HD system that i can carry anywhere and everywhere, and i do. 

i did see a price list from back in the day that seems to suggest that it was sold cheap enough that there must be a good few more kicking around in japan, but i could be mistaken, i know very little about these things.

i've heard from tony wilson that yashicascope's can be nice if maintained properly, but like yourself was never convinced to pick one up,... if one pop's up cheap enough i probably will though, lens hoarder that i am  :D

there are other smaller anamorphics that are quite interesting and that are all in the x1.5 - x1.25 range but they're all for 8mm cameras, which isnt a problem for my little nikon v1, but might be for larger sensor cameras,... youd be stuck with having to use 85mm and greater lenses to avoid vignetting,...

but if you're cool with that there are baby kowa-8's i started a thread on that, but i've since traded it.

i also have the elmoscope 16, not the big kowa looking one but an older, smaller one which i think is a x2, and i just got in an izukar-scope which is a x1.5

i think i'll pop out and test both of those today so i can start threads on them.

but yes i am so taken with my shigascope that i'll probably be putting those two up for sale in the new marketplace forum soonish.

the spherical and anamorphic do blend nicely,... i mean there's obviously a difference but its not as massive as i would have thought. 

finally figured it out from your video,... apart from the look, the exposure drops a bit ( 1/3-1/2 a stop) with the anamorphic, so if we compensate either when shooting or in post we should be able to maintain enough consistency for it to not matter much.

it matches my experience with some sphericals too, like the russian ones and the takumar 35mm f3.5, they get really cinematic when underexposed a tad,... so couple that with the aspect ratio and voila, instant cinema without the hassle of wide adapters!

haha, cheers nahua, i am determined to make it to hawaii one day!

forgot to mention that the images are a mixture of still photos taken in photo mode and still grabs from video mode, hence the slightly different aspect ratios.

here's a bit of an update on the shigascope,....

i have been shooting tonnes of stills and since the redstan clamps came in, i'm never going to shoot spherical ever ever again!

unless threatened with castration,... and even then,... maybe,...

so here are some stills i've taken over the past couple of months, most with some post work done. i post more on flickr and me facebook if you like what you see.

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/57711921@N05/8306085973/][/url]

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/57711921@N05/8306085973/]Tak the writer, still chatting,...[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/57711921@N05/]nanntonaku[/url], on Flickr

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/57711921@N05/8236683402/][/url]

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/57711921@N05/8236683402/]Simonさん[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/57711921@N05/]nanntonaku[/url], on Flickr

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/57711921@N05/8177991354/][/url]

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/57711921@N05/8287634022/][/url]

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/57711921@N05/8287634022/]Down at the Y 3[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/57711921@N05/]nanntonaku[/url], on Flickr

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/57711921@N05/8302631709/][/url]

cool, shall head over and watch tuit suite.

its surprising how well they can be blended, and i think that if you lead with anamorphic to establish the look and feel, then mixing and maintaining the feel is not that big a deal. 

we'd probably only get "busted" by people on this forum anyway :P

i'm an anti-viral sanitation engineer :)  

not even with a long tele?

what ^^^they said. 

lens nuts and pixel peepers will notice but considering the amount of post that goes into even the most amateur of productions, chances are it wont be that big a deal.

you can even mix new modern sphericals with old vintage anamorphics with a vintage taking lens and blend them enough to not be a big deal. 

lovely! and yeah, i'm finding that not as sharp lenses can make footage look a bit too dated,... lovely, but dated nonetheless. 

love the moustache!

i've been using that ^^^ and its nice and compact, and sturdy, and the hardware store has a bunch of brackets that you can use to support a lens if you're tight,... otherwise one of them canon telephoto rings will do the job.