Bold

if you don't wanna pay for the EOSHD guide, mine is free. (and better. hehehe)
www.tferradans.com/anamorphic

magellan, welcome!
There's really no one piece of advice that's going to fit everyone's needs.  The best way to decide on your first anamorphic is to research, research, research.
Tito's Anamorphic blog is one of the best starting points.  And you won't find a larger collected body of anamorphic knowledge than this forum.  Search it deeply!  Also look at test footage on Youtube and Vimeo of various lenses to see if a particular brand of lens produces an aesthetic that really appeals to you.
Ultimately there is no perfect anamorphic solution.  Every choice has benefits and drawbacks.  The only way to know the best choice for your is to list our your needs, search through the options, and find the type of lens that most closely matches your needs.
Once you find a lens or two that falls within your budget, search EOSHD and other forums to see what others have built to get the most out of those lenses.  You'll find that there are different strategies to mounting them... from 'bailing wire & bubble gum,' to buying specialty parts, to custom-fabricating parts on your own, and many options in between.

Here are some other thoughts, in no particular order:
1.33x adapters don't have the sharpest image quality and don't do well in low light, but are often the easiest to use.  They tend to be lightweight and adapt easily to taking lenses.  Usually good flares but less oval bokeh.  They are relatively easy to acquire and will run you between $500-800.  Not a bad choice for starting anamorphic.
Big projector lenses will give you that nice 2x oval bokeh, but vary wildly in terms of flare and image quality.  They are invariably heavy so they require a certain amount of adaptation and support (which adds even mre weight).
Although I don't have one, there are some dual-focus lenses that appear to deliver great images.  But dual focus seems to present another set of headaches if you're shooting something with lots of movement.  Probably not something you want to take on as a beginner.  Dual focus owners can speak better to the learning curve and the time involved to get good focus during dynamic/complicated shots. 
Watch some films shot with anamorphic.  I just rewatched the original Mad Max, and realized there are some shots with horrible aberrations at the edges, and the film has barrel distortion throughout.  But you know what?  It doesn't matter.  What matters is how the images made me feel, not how razor sharp or technically precise they were.
What Bioskop said. It is okay if your anamorphic images aren't perfect - they aren't meant to be.  
Most importantly, MONEY = TIME.  If you save money buying a cheap anamorphic, the more time you'll have to spend getting it to work.  So they key the questions are: what's your total budget, and how much spare time are you willing to spend building your rig?
I saved money buying some B&H's, but the time it took me to get them to where I needed was enormous.  If I had to do it over again, I might have chosen a different route.  Then again, I learned a LOT in the process.
I hope this helps!

I hate the fact that you keep peddling these shit lenses to people, they are a complete & utter waste of time & money.
To hell with sharp, as Anamorphic lenses are all about the defects they produce & a little about the flares.
My advice to the OP is to do some searches in this section of the forum, as we have gone over & over which lenses are good.
There is so much info here, it's stupid. Spend a while looking at different posts - you might have to go back a while to avoid all the bad advice that is handed out by this guy Ken.
Don't take offence Ken, but you really do hand out some really shit advice when it comes to Anamorphics.

Wow, that time of the month again?
For anyone actually interested you can get a custom clamp from Raf made almost exactly the same as a Redstan for far less. You will also get good customer service and a better than 50/50 chance of it turning up. Just email him if you want details (email on website), he's a super helpful guy.

Other sets of eyes is always good.  My other recommendation is to add time to whatever your doing.  That is, try to finish ahead of your deadline as best you can, and let the work cool down for a while (longer is better) then re-visit it with fresh eyes to spot the things that need correcting.  This is not always realistic or practical in real-world situations, but even  couple days away from the material can give enough distance to come back with a more objective eye.
Not at all.  (or, if it is, I've got it too)

Other sets of eyes is always good.  My other recommendation is to add time to whatever your doing.  That is, try to finish ahead of your deadline as best you can, and let the work cool down for a while (longer is better) then re-visit it with fresh eyes to spot the things that need correcting.  This is not always realistic or practical in real-world situations, but even  couple days away from the material can give enough distance to come back with a more objective eye.
Not at all.  (or, if it is, I've got it too)

www.tferradans.com/anamorphic - for overall information about your questions!
and I would recommend a Century Optics small adapter (or the SLR Magic 1.33x Anamorphot) as an all arounder with nice flares, distortion and edge artifacts.
http://tferradans.com/blog/?p=7670

Or Panasonic LA7200, those focus through adapters much easier to film with, but you're not getting the same bokeh that 2X lenses produce

SOLD.

I really like to shoot anamorphic and i spend a lot of time doing little researches, which leads me to invention that i want to introduce. I've learn a lot of information from this subforum, so i want to share my idea here. I believe it gonna be a second breath to independent anamorphic solutions.
So I came up with what anamorphic lenses was originally created for: using whole image sensor area with benefits. Back then there was a film and now we have a 16:9 standart for video and to use it properly id suggest a simple technology: stack together two anamorphic lenses and rotate a camera 90 degree. And then applied 4x coefficient to 9:16 sensor area that results in 2,25:1 ratio:

Of course if u shoot 4K RAW loosing some data is'nt a problem: u're still end up with proper resolution, color and details and even have nice possibility to recompose frame horizontally. But for 1080p recording cameras or 8-bit codecs loosing some data from sensor not the case, is'nt it?) So what do we have:
- 4320x1920 (for 1080p) and 8640x3840 (for 4K) de-squeezed interpolated image that can be downscaled to 1920x850(840) with some color and sharpness benefits
- stack of two anamorphic lenses required longer focal (about 150mm for sankor16f/rectimascope48 stack for FF) but with 4x it comes to pretty the same FOV as 85mm/2x on FF. It also requires smaller aperture to get same DOF. So it results in sharper image with same DOF (multiplied by lack of loss resolution in the camera). Of course increased number of glasses results in some lights losses, about 1 stop i think, maybe less.
- one of the nicest feature of my scheme: it kills rolling shutter effect. I develope idea of that anamorphic solution with a7s model in mind, it's a great camera which suffer from well knowed issue: terrible RS. But when you rotate sensor and applied 4x stack of anamorhic you decreased RS effect in the final image by 4 times (since RS effect appears on horizontal which is became vertical). From now on forget about RS)
- and one issue: its getting even harder to look at monitor: now its 4 times squeezed image. Honestly i always like to shoot anamorphic without desqueezing function that gives me some abstraction and somehow another vision of composition and im not suffering much from 4x squeezing to. Its hard to use monitor to nail a focus but easier with viewfinder. Actually i send a letter to atomos with asking for some cooperation here but got no respond (maybe a reason is my broken english, who know : )
Of course stack of two anamorphots is loosing any ability to focus, but it working well with diopters like usual combo of taking lens and ana - just set them all to infinity.
And im asking here for some help. Im already tested my prototype (later im gonna do post about it) with usual diopters and it worked. But to use it properly i need some variable diopters and for now i can afford only SLR Rangefinder, which have not very high perfomance. But since aperture at my taking lens starts with 3,5 it may work. I know here's a guy, Tito, with a lot of anamorphic stuff, i will ask him for test, but maybe anyone have opportunity to try it to?
PS I know my English is bad so i provided some pic for u guys)

Phew, this one is wrapped. Using different methods, I managed to get a decent cut, and here's a detailed tutorial on how to do it yourself!
http://www.tferradans.com/blog/?p=8922

Die Hard, of course

Die Hard With a Vengance is probably top for me for overall entertainment.  But films like Predator will always stay close to my heart

Terminator 2. 

The Killer (Dir. John Woo) - mind blowingly amazing & a must if you like action/gangster movies (American films just pale in comparison).
Best action sequence - the opening 10mins of 'Hard Boiled' (John Woo again). Don't know how many people die, but its a lot & the gun play is out of this world.

Kung Fury is 31 flavors of awesome!

Kung Fury is 31 flavors of awesome!

Kung Fury is 31 flavors of awesome!

Always hard to pick just one.
For me action (or any other) films don't work without sympathetic characters.  Ones that are flawed, vulnerable, and nuanced.  This is why for me The Road Warrior, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Die Hard work so well, and to me are a definitive trinity of 80's action.  Even the antagonists were interesting.
There have certainly been other memorable action films before and after.  La Femme Nikita, Hot Fuzz, Hardboiled, The Matrix, 13th Warrior, Big Trouble in Little China, Terminator 2, Aliens and Fury Road are a few others that really stand out in my book.  Cameron, McTiernan, and even Carpenter were unrivaled in their heyday.  Police Story gets an honorable mention for the relentless awesomeness of Jackie Chan's stunt work.  I think action loses a lot when it is overshadowed by CGI. While the current deluge of comic book heros provides entertainment for the eyes, most of these films lack any kind of compelling characters and are ultimately forgettable.
If I had to settle on just one to call my favorite, I can't decide.  Probably a tie between Raiders and Die Hard.

I shot a small narrative (I won't call it a "short") mixing all 1.33x anamorphic adapters with various taking lenses. The goal was to test out if all that talk of "this adapter is good, this one is bad", to see if we can actually notice the difference between lenses when there's a story being told. I included both well lit and low light shots to evaluate performance with different apertures. The camera used was Kinefinity's Kinemini 4k, and I shot it all raw for more flexibility in post. Taking lenses were all Russian, from 28 up to 135mm. The blog post has a cheat chart with all the data for each shot.
Can you tell when this or that lens is being used? Is there anything in particular that bugs you? Do you think this test makes the difference between 1.33x adapters easier to notice?
Lenses used were Century Optics WS-13, Panasonic LA7200, Isco 16:9 Video Attachment I, SLR Magic Anamorphot 1.33x-50, Century Optics 16:9 (the small one).
http://www.tferradans.com/blog/?p=8333
There's more info on the blog post above, but if you're feeling lazy, here's the video.
 

ANAMORPHIC CHOP SHOP - PROPER ASPECT RATIO
http://www.tferradans.com/blog/?p=8249
ANAMORPHIC CHOP SHOP - CROPPING IN POST
http://www.tferradans.com/blog/?p=8793
ANAMORPHIC CHOP SHOP - FIXING MUMPS
http://www.tferradans.com/blog/?p=8832
ANAMORPHIC ON A BUDGET - UPCOMING, 2016
http://www.tferradans.com/blog/?p=8746
ANAMORPHIC ON A BUDGET - THE NEW ROMANTICS
http://www.tferradans.com/blog/?p=8923

I want to take a moment to thank everyone who contributed to this thread.  Tito, Gabriel, Nahua, and particularly Rich, for your support and the invaluable information you shared that allowed me to get from 'novice anamorphhc modder' to 'slightly-less-novice anamorphic modder.'  Seriously, without your insights I never would have finished this mod.

I now have three working B&H lens mods.  Two have the 14mm helicoids, allowing focus to approx 36 inches, and the 30mm helicoid which provides an amazing 8-inch focus distance.  The downside on the 30mm helicoid is that:
It still requires several barrel rotations to rack focus from 8 inches out to infinity Focus breathing is noticeable particularly at close distances. Not a bad trade-off, to be able to so close with the camera.  I'm going to keep one of the 14mm's as well as the 30mm.  I've ordered parts to create a second lens bracket, and will bundle that with the remaining 14mm helicoid modded lens for sale on eBay, to recoup some of my costs.  As mentioned, I'm thinking of making the helicoid mod & lens bracket available as a kit if enough B&H owners are interested.  So let me know if you are.
Now I'm ready to start taking my rig out to do some serious test footage.  I'm especially interested in trying my Mamiya Sekor 50mm f1.4 and my Angenieux 12-120mm to see results of night shooting and zooming, respectively.
Once again, a thousand thank-yous to everyone in this thread for your help.  You've allowed me to realize my goal of shooting in widescreen, an ambition I've had every since I bought my first 8mm movie camera so many years ago.  I hope the info in this thread has helped other B&H owners take advantage of this lens.
Cheers,
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I want to take a moment to thank everyone who contributed to this thread.  Tito, Gabriel, Nahua, and particularly Rich, for your support and the invaluable information you shared that allowed me to get from 'novice anamorphhc modder' to 'slightly-less-novice anamorphic modder.'  Seriously, without your insights I never would have finished this mod.

I now have three working B&H lens mods.  Two have the 14mm helicoids, allowing focus to approx 36 inches, and the 30mm helicoid which provides an amazing 8-inch focus distance.  The downside on the 30mm helicoid is that:
It still requires several barrel rotations to rack focus from 8 inches out to infinity Focus breathing is noticeable particularly at close distances. Not a bad trade-off, to be able to so close with the camera.  I'm going to keep one of the 14mm's as well as the 30mm.  I've ordered parts to create a second lens bracket, and will bundle that with the remaining 14mm helicoid modded lens for sale on eBay, to recoup some of my costs.  As mentioned, I'm thinking of making the helicoid mod & lens bracket available as a kit if enough B&H owners are interested.  So let me know if you are.
Now I'm ready to start taking my rig out to do some serious test footage.  I'm especially interested in trying my Mamiya Sekor 50mm f1.4 and my Angenieux 12-120mm to see results of night shooting and zooming, respectively.
Once again, a thousand thank-yous to everyone in this thread for your help.  You've allowed me to realize my goal of shooting in widescreen, an ambition I've had every since I bought my first 8mm movie camera so many years ago.  I hope the info in this thread has helped other B&H owners take advantage of this lens.
Cheers,
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An image is worth more than 1000 tutorials. I'm still in progress. Last night we spent about 4 hours playing with wires and stuff, and then. Today I kept going for more two hours and voilá! I still need to polish the edges, but it's MUCH better than my first attempt through brute force.

Every step has been properly documented and I'll still repeat the process for the last diopter, hoping to get better shots still.
Thanks Brian! I was trying to avoid resorting to expensive tools or specific services since they might not be available to everyone (if I were back in Brazil, I wouldn't be able to find a place that understood my goals, for example). Doing it with stuff that you can buy off any hardware store is more appealing to my current goals of making the knowledge and tools accessible to everyone.
That being said, I believe I would've gotten a perfect result with a saw and saved myself some jump scares, burnt wire, plastic, transformers, watching stuff glow red hot and a TON of time polishing edges. HAHAHAHA!

Thank you Rich!  Just did this for the front element on a B&H and it made things way easier!
Cheers,
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