Andy Zou

I'm playing around with the gh4 4:3 anamorphic mode with the slr magic 2x adapter. It requires a taking lens, so I have to pick a good prime to use with it. To save me some trial and error, what do you prefer as a "normal" or most versatile focal length? I know 35 or 50 works well for spherical lenses, but those may be rather wide on the horizontal focal length to be normal. I myself usually compose more on the vertical framing than the horizontal framing, but wanted to hear some others thoughts.

Very interested in whether twisting the focus too hard in one direction would just unscrew the rangefinder? Could make it problematic if I paired it with a redrock microremote's auto-calibration, as it'd mean I'd have to do it manually and always be aware of not overshooting it.

​I like the article and agree with the points, but a good satire should be nearly indistinguishable from what it's critiquing, and this is a little too openly mean. I'm going to bet that the marketing will actually work quite well for its demographic (which is probably everyone else who isn't on a forum to talk about cameras.) The optimist in me would love to see a dopey dad just buying this off the shelf because he figures his kid might like it and he doesn't have anymore time to spend at B&H, and who knows? That kid may have the beginning of a new passion. The real butts of the joke shouldn't be the consumers who don't know any better, it should be Canon, because they know what they're doing. It'd be as if Hasbro tried marketing Easy Bake Ovens to chefs. Canon's trying to toe the line of who they can market to, but joke's on them because an educated person isn't going to pick up their bundle and they have to resort to flashy marketing ploys. A satire I'd like to see would be if Andrew wrote a Canon White Paper.

I used a Variable ND but always had trouble using a polarizer with it. The polarizer has to come before the Variable ND, so I had to use a Matte box because my variable ND doesn't have front filter threads. Also, the changing color casts of Variable ND concerned me (probably because of the multiple polarizers inside) But now that I need to keep things light for gimbal work, I ended up purchasing a 77mm B+W 2 and 3 stop filter along with a B+W Polarizer. Step rings for smaller lenses. And it's an investment that will last just fine if I take care of them. If I had to run N Gun I would switch back to Variable ND but only if I had to.

I noticed this with the GH4's new Ana mode going to my SmallHD-AC7 via HDMI... 4k Monitoring downscaling to 1080p in the GH4 works fine recording. At first I thought you couldn't monitor 4k Ana in Gh4 downscaling to 1080p but then I turned "Info Display" Off and I could monitor, but it turns OFF when recording. Imagine my disappointment when I was so excited that I could frame the shot on the AC7 only to see it turn off as soon as I hit record. Am I just going to have to shell out for a 4k-capable monitor before I can monitor the 4K 4:3 mode on the GH4? I suppose it's very useful for framing but annoying that it goes off once you hit record...

​Hopefully it is my own focusing issues, or I may just need to shoot at 5.6 or higher. I also didn't do any post-sharpening, so the larger resolution may translate very poorly to 720. I also didn't shoot it with camera-sharpening off, and that may have had an effect especially on contrasty areas. I would have gone with the 16:9 adapters but I guess I had the resources and the stubbornness to chase the 2X dream. I actually had an Isco from vid-atlantic for a hot second, but I returned it because the focus/locking mechanism felt very gritty (they offered to exchange but I changed my mind). Also dealing with adapters front and back that relied on thumbscrews wasn't something I liked at all...the ergonomic perks of a screw on adapter with front filter threads and an alignment collar appealed to me. I think it'd be good if someone more versed than I did their best with the lens, because it really was an impromptu shoot where I had my camera and a slider ready for a shoot the next morning. ​Not sure what you mean here unless you're talking about more sentimental qualities that differentiate from brand to model to manufacturer such as amount of flare, etc.

​yeah, pretty wide and clearly pretty soft most of the time but I just wanted to really see it out. Supposedly the right lens pairing can occasionally break expectations?

​Sure, it wouldn't vignette without the speedbooster. I only have the speedbooster for adapting EF lens to MFT, though. And if I was going to go with a non-speedboosted lens at that point I would just go with a native MFT lens because the smaller size enables the anamorphic to be closer to the aperture pupil of the lens, as well as smaller lenses. 35mm EF speedboosted is ~ 21 MFT. If I went with a MFT 25mm I'd probably be pretty golden. ​The distortion can be kind of fun, yeah! Don't know if you liked the Sia video with Shia Lebeouf but I found the distortion on the edges at least lent it a more surreal/dreamy quality.

​The caveat that I mentioned is the vignetting. At 35mm you can't add any diopters or filters without making the vignette noticeable; some of the shots in the video are cropped ~5-10% because I found it distracting! Slightly upsetting because I bought such a nice lens because I wanted *one* solid taking lens to use for now. I wish there was a Zeiss 40mm!

Had a free day with a slider and the new SLR Magic Anamorphot 2X! I'm new to anamorphic so any soft focus issues are debatably my fault or the lenses! GH4 ana mode, Zeiss Distagon 35mm f/2 + Metabones MFT Speedbooster. Some vignetting, especially when diopters+ND were added Flarey stuff towards night-time at the end.

​The alignment collar is really nice to use, makes aligning it a snap as opposed to wrangling those 3 screws! ​Beeldlab, you said you used the Voigtlander 17.5 with it? I'm trying to get the widest view I can with it; I bought a used Zeiss 35mm F/2 to use with a Speedbooster and it didn't vignette in 4:3 but I forgot about trying it with diopters! Which gave me a vignette 35mm + speedbooster + 4k Photo is around 60mm FF equivalent, but if I use the smaller MFT lenses will I be able to go down to something like 25mm MFT? Did you use the 17.5mm MFT without vignetting? Andrew says the 20mm started to vignette in 4:3.