redimp

I've said this multiple times on facebook and will repeat here once more – there is no concept of focus through. There's no simple way to explain why, but bottom line is – if you have squeeze on one axis, you have astigmatism, and it needs correction. "Focusing" anamorphic block is simply correcting astigmatism for that specific focus plane. Original gottshalk's patent shows the ultra panatar prismatic design in the schematics, if prismatic lenses were 'focus through' that patent would make no sense and we won't have 60 years of cinema history created by this patent. Or think about it this way – if there was such thing as 'focus-though' would any cine lens manufacturer in their right mind fiddle with any other design?

@HockeyFan12 Hey Matt, Proxiscope does not add vignetting compared to the original housing (I design products in a way the front lip is nowhere near the angle of view of the lens itself). I suggest a simple test – put on the old housing (good thing the rehousing is reversible and takes 5 minutes), and shoot a scene from at tripod, then put the new housing on and repeat it. That should help you life your doubts. 
Front element has to travel 6mm to get from inf to 2m. Of course to travel from 2m to 1.1 the front lens has to move more, in our case it's another 6mm. That would obviously increase vignetting and there is no work around that, but still, the front lip is so short that it's not the cause of vignetting even at 1.1m. 

My newest design Nexiscope has three times more trave, and even if the lip is 6mm deep and 72mm in diameter it's not going to vignette.

Cheers.

Please don't sand it, it's a hack, not a fix.
The tolerances on the housing are very tight, If your iscorama is warped, the plastic body is not ideally concentric around the lens helical (which is brass to brass, so no warping there for sure). What you need to do is to adjust the smaller metal ring and the way it sits around the plastic body using three small grub screws, until it's perfectly concentric. Try tightening them quarter turn at a time. It's a game of balance, and time spent doing this depends on how bad the warping of the plastic is. Just play with those screws, spend 10, 15, 30 minutes if needed, quarter turn at a time. Loosen one screw and tighten two others to move the small metal ring in the opposite direction of where the traction happens.

Alternatively you can take a caliper, measure the body in the pace where traction occurs, and compare that diameter measurement to the perpendicular diameter of the oval of the body. If the difference is drastic, like 0.5mm or more, you can try to squeeze the plastic in the direction of bigger diameter, to alter the shape a bit. If iscorama was stored on the side it could be warped that way.

It sounds a bit barbaric to squeeze the plastic, but it's the issue some of my customers had and it help them. Just be gentle. One person measured the tolerance of their rama and the difference in diameters was 1.2mm which is crazy – that polymer really does not age well, plus if the lens was laying in a box on it's side for 50 years it shows too. Also Germans chose a material that simply cannot have good tolerances even in theory – I have several iscoramas, some have nameplates that are exactly 72mm, but some have it at 72.8, and some at 71.2  – this is crazy, and some of them don't even screw into standard metal filters, simply because they're too big.

Maxiscope was my attempt to fix this issue for good, as it's a full metal body that replaces plastic, so you don't have to rely on tolerances and issues of the plastic body anymore. 
Hope this helps.

Please don't sand it, it's a hack, not a fix.
The tolerances on the housing are very tight, If your iscorama is warped, the plastic body is not ideally concentric around the lens helical (which is brass to brass, so no warping there for sure). What you need to do is to adjust the smaller metal ring and the way it sits around the plastic body using three small grub screws, until it's perfectly concentric. Try tightening them quarter turn at a time. It's a game of balance, and time spent doing this depends on how bad the warping of the plastic is. Just play with those screws, spend 10, 15, 30 minutes if needed, quarter turn at a time. Loosen one screw and tighten two others to move the small metal ring in the opposite direction of where the traction happens.

Alternatively you can take a caliper, measure the body in the pace where traction occurs, and compare that diameter measurement to the perpendicular diameter of the oval of the body. If the difference is drastic, like 0.5mm or more, you can try to squeeze the plastic in the direction of bigger diameter, to alter the shape a bit. If iscorama was stored on the side it could be warped that way.

It sounds a bit barbaric to squeeze the plastic, but it's the issue some of my customers had and it help them. Just be gentle. One person measured the tolerance of their rama and the difference in diameters was 1.2mm which is crazy – that polymer really does not age well, plus if the lens was laying in a box on it's side for 50 years it shows too. Also Germans chose a material that simply cannot have good tolerances even in theory – I have several iscoramas, some have nameplates that are exactly 72mm, but some have it at 72.8, and some at 71.2  – this is crazy, and some of them don't even screw into standard metal filters, simply because they're too big.

Maxiscope was my attempt to fix this issue for good, as it's a full metal body that replaces plastic, so you don't have to rely on tolerances and issues of the plastic body anymore. 
Hope this helps.

Please don't sand it, it's a hack, not a fix.
The tolerances on the housing are very tight, If your iscorama is warped, the plastic body is not ideally concentric around the lens helical (which is brass to brass, so no warping there for sure). What you need to do is to adjust the smaller metal ring and the way it sits around the plastic body using three small grub screws, until it's perfectly concentric. Try tightening them quarter turn at a time. It's a game of balance, and time spent doing this depends on how bad the warping of the plastic is. Just play with those screws, spend 10, 15, 30 minutes if needed, quarter turn at a time. Loosen one screw and tighten two others to move the small metal ring in the opposite direction of where the traction happens.

Alternatively you can take a caliper, measure the body in the pace where traction occurs, and compare that diameter measurement to the perpendicular diameter of the oval of the body. If the difference is drastic, like 0.5mm or more, you can try to squeeze the plastic in the direction of bigger diameter, to alter the shape a bit. If iscorama was stored on the side it could be warped that way.

It sounds a bit barbaric to squeeze the plastic, but it's the issue some of my customers had and it help them. Just be gentle. One person measured the tolerance of their rama and the difference in diameters was 1.2mm which is crazy – that polymer really does not age well, plus if the lens was laying in a box on it's side for 50 years it shows too. Also Germans chose a material that simply cannot have good tolerances even in theory – I have several iscoramas, some have nameplates that are exactly 72mm, but some have it at 72.8, and some at 71.2  – this is crazy, and some of them don't even screw into standard metal filters, simply because they're too big.

Maxiscope was my attempt to fix this issue for good, as it's a full metal body that replaces plastic, so you don't have to rely on tolerances and issues of the plastic body anymore. 
Hope this helps.

Hey guys, I wanted to share this rehousing mod I made recently for my Iscorama 36.

It's a replacement for a front piece of old plastic housing, that is made of anodized aluminum and has cine gears, retaining 72mm front filter threads and adding just 50 grams of weight.
It took me quite some time to figure out this design and I'm pretty proud of it! It solves some real-world problems like close-focus, enabling you to focus down to 1.1m, but unlike DIY mode it has a hard stop at 1.1m and infinity, and looks way nicer then a grub screw drilled into a hole. 

I made a little video explaining what it is, since after I posted this on facebook people started asking what it does and what are the specs, and asking how to buy one. https://www.dropbox.com/s/wd1w620ddxnv2je/proxiscope.pdf?dl=0

I have decided to order a small batch of these, and already placed an order at one of the shops that does the first stage of the milling. I will make another video showing a closeup process of swapping the housings, so people can evaluate the effort and see if the price (which will be announced at the same time) is right for them. This is intended as a do-it-at-home kind of mod, but you can also take it to the nearest photo technician and they'd be able to do it for you, it's a simple process that takes 3-5 minutes to perform.
I also made a PDF with some specs, you can find it here. https://www.dropbox.com/s/wd1w620ddxnv2je/proxiscope.pdf?dl=0

If you're interested in getting one – shoot me a message and we'll figure it out, there's a little queue forming already

Hey guys, I wanted to share this rehousing mod I made recently for my Iscorama 36.

It's a replacement for a front piece of old plastic housing, that is made of anodized aluminum and has cine gears, retaining 72mm front filter threads and adding just 50 grams of weight.
It took me quite some time to figure out this design and I'm pretty proud of it! It solves some real-world problems like close-focus, enabling you to focus down to 1.1m, but unlike DIY mode it has a hard stop at 1.1m and infinity, and looks way nicer then a grub screw drilled into a hole. 

I made a little video explaining what it is, since after I posted this on facebook people started asking what it does and what are the specs, and asking how to buy one. https://www.dropbox.com/s/wd1w620ddxnv2je/proxiscope.pdf?dl=0

I have decided to order a small batch of these, and already placed an order at one of the shops that does the first stage of the milling. I will make another video showing a closeup process of swapping the housings, so people can evaluate the effort and see if the price (which will be announced at the same time) is right for them. This is intended as a do-it-at-home kind of mod, but you can also take it to the nearest photo technician and they'd be able to do it for you, it's a simple process that takes 3-5 minutes to perform.
I also made a PDF with some specs, you can find it here. https://www.dropbox.com/s/wd1w620ddxnv2je/proxiscope.pdf?dl=0

If you're interested in getting one – shoot me a message and we'll figure it out, there's a little queue forming already

To everyone who's still watching this thread – here's my progress:
I've bought a Fladners and blackmagic I/O and graded the shot above myself, using Hunger Games stills as references. Here's the last version, and I'd love to know what you guys think.
 
 
 

Do you know where I can set the gamut in camera on my F3? 
I could hire a colorist, because I don’t know how things work, or I cold try and understand how things work, and then make a sober decision. 
Not to say I didn’t reach ot to colorists. I did. Wanted to hire someone, but one of the candidates pointed out that my grade can actually look good, but on my screen exclusively. So he said that even if I hire him and he grades to taste, on my monitor and in my environment it will still look off, or different or even worse then what I currently have. So I’ve invested ina good monitor and decent calibration for now and am trying to understand the cam and it’s footage better.

Do you know where I can set the gamut in camera on my F3? 
I could hire a colorist, because I don’t know how things work, or I cold try and understand how things work, and then make a sober decision. 
Not to say I didn’t reach ot to colorists. I did. Wanted to hire someone, but one of the candidates pointed out that my grade can actually look good, but on my screen exclusively. So he said that even if I hire him and he grades to taste, on my monitor and in my environment it will still look off, or different or even worse then what I currently have. So I’ve invested ina good monitor and decent calibration for now and am trying to understand the cam and it’s footage better.

If (but I'm not) I was going hardcore (but still doing it on the ultra cheap "indie" budget) into color grading then I'd be buying an OSEE (or FSI if I could swing it) as my personal grading monitor.

Plus some "cheap" (but decently good. OLED) BIG screen from JB HiFi (our local big box retailer, also over in Australia, but pick whatever is appropriate for your country... "Walmart"?) with the BMD Teranex with a reverse LUT as the set up for the client monitor.
Together with either a Tangent Ripple or Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve Micro Panel.
 

Untrue. Both the F35 and F3 use SLOG1 and SGAMUT. The results with Resolve's transforms bear that out. 

It's definitely S-gamut. This is just with Color Space Transform and a little gain applied. Also love the look your getting here.


 

Some sexy pictures from Proxiscope user.

Hey guys, I wanted to share this rehousing mod I made recently for my Iscorama 36.

It's a replacement for a front piece of old plastic housing, that is made of anodized aluminum and has cine gears, retaining 72mm front filter threads and adding just 50 grams of weight.
It took me quite some time to figure out this design and I'm pretty proud of it! It solves some real-world problems like close-focus, enabling you to focus down to 1.1m, but unlike DIY mode it has a hard stop at 1.1m and infinity, and looks way nicer then a grub screw drilled into a hole. 

I made a little video explaining what it is, since after I posted this on facebook people started asking what it does and what are the specs, and asking how to buy one. https://www.dropbox.com/s/wd1w620ddxnv2je/proxiscope.pdf?dl=0

I have decided to order a small batch of these, and already placed an order at one of the shops that does the first stage of the milling. I will make another video showing a closeup process of swapping the housings, so people can evaluate the effort and see if the price (which will be announced at the same time) is right for them. This is intended as a do-it-at-home kind of mod, but you can also take it to the nearest photo technician and they'd be able to do it for you, it's a simple process that takes 3-5 minutes to perform.
I also made a PDF with some specs, you can find it here. https://www.dropbox.com/s/wd1w620ddxnv2je/proxiscope.pdf?dl=0

If you're interested in getting one – shoot me a message and we'll figure it out, there's a little queue forming already

Just an FYI, the color you get from setting the camera to video out / s-log PP is much more accurate colorwise than locking the camera to S-Log out with no profile. 
The difference is very obvious in the greens. It is a lot closer to the FS7 in a bad way. A member on DVX User tipped me off to this. Clearly this is a flaw because the two profiles shouldn't be different. 
I agree, the menu situation is very annoying on the f3. 
I have owned the F3/Black Magic Recorder for a while now and have been extremely satisfied with the images. 
 
 

Sure it's not a fridge? :P

The video assist won't accept 4;4;4.  It will probably give you a green tinted image if you send 4;4;4.    for use with the video assist, set the f3's sdi out S-Log 4;2;2  Use SDI output A, not the 'Video Out' bnc connector.  If you're set to 24p you should be sending 24p out of the sdi.  the BM video assists seem to sometimes detect the wrong frame rate - on the A7 series they see a 25, 24 and 30p signal as 59.98, but when imported into the timeline you'll see the correct framerate.  
It's worth setting the camera to Cine EI mode since it locks you at 800iso and you get the most from the sensor.  correctly exposed you can pull or push the 4;2;2 footage a lot before it breaks up.  Amazing camera.  ps.  watch out for the 'shutter on/off' switch down near the bottom left in front of the flip out screen.  Set to 'off' gives you 360degree and changing shutter angle won't change anything.  catches you out sometimes.
 

First batch babies are getting ready for shipping.
 

Hey guys, I wanted to share this rehousing mod I made recently for my Iscorama 36.

It's a replacement for a front piece of old plastic housing, that is made of anodized aluminum and has cine gears, retaining 72mm front filter threads and adding just 50 grams of weight.
It took me quite some time to figure out this design and I'm pretty proud of it! It solves some real-world problems like close-focus, enabling you to focus down to 1.1m, but unlike DIY mode it has a hard stop at 1.1m and infinity, and looks way nicer then a grub screw drilled into a hole. 

I made a little video explaining what it is, since after I posted this on facebook people started asking what it does and what are the specs, and asking how to buy one. https://www.dropbox.com/s/wd1w620ddxnv2je/proxiscope.pdf?dl=0

I have decided to order a small batch of these, and already placed an order at one of the shops that does the first stage of the milling. I will make another video showing a closeup process of swapping the housings, so people can evaluate the effort and see if the price (which will be announced at the same time) is right for them. This is intended as a do-it-at-home kind of mod, but you can also take it to the nearest photo technician and they'd be able to do it for you, it's a simple process that takes 3-5 minutes to perform.
I also made a PDF with some specs, you can find it here. https://www.dropbox.com/s/wd1w620ddxnv2je/proxiscope.pdf?dl=0

If you're interested in getting one – shoot me a message and we'll figure it out, there's a little queue forming already

Here is what’s best I’ve found from over the years...
Option 1  Shoot with a camera that has internal ND feature.
Option 2  Instal fixed ND’s upfront in a rail mounted mattebox - or VND/ circular ND using a filter tray adapter.
Option 3  Rear mounting a fixed or VND (between Anamorphic rear and taking lens front) can work perfectly well, providing the setup is on rails. In bright conditions a collapsed rubber lens hood can also be used to create a lightproof donut that is compact enough to not introduce added vignette. Flares are not affected or dulled...at most an added faint green line is added to the streak flare from the ND’s multi-coating.
Option 3  If rail mounted setup is not used - front mounting ND’s can be attached to front of scope lens by using clamp adapter, or screwing into native thread if using iscorama lens types. If using clamp adapter, some added vignette might be introduced if using wider taking lenses. Fixed value ND’s are usually best used in this scenario since they are usually thinner. VND’s can sometimes introduce issues if used on the front clamp of scope lenses that rotate whilst focusing, since a shifting polarising effect can be introduced. Sometimes front mounting ND filters can introduce added flare effects, usually an added faint green streak line flare is apparent when exposed to intense direct light source.
 
Always best to get the best possible quality filter budget will allow - especially if mounted to front of a rotating scope, since some lower quality ND filters can introduce unwanted texture to bokeh. When these are rotated it can be very distracting to see this artifacts in bright light as well as ugly colour shift. A very decent budget solution is the Hoya PROND64 (six stop fixed ND) - quite capable in bright daylight and easy to rear mount in a rail setup as described previously.
 

Also, there simply might be finger grease on your glass.

Twinkle flare either caused by micro scratches on Kowa or taking lens (or both). Test taking lens first to see if present...if not, then you know it is the Kowa. You can usually tell if an Anamorphic has any micro scratches by putting on a ‘clean’ taking lens and freehand rotate it while pointing at a strong light source. If the twinkles rotate...there is your answer. Micro scratches are usually bad news on rear of lens elements, but a few on the larger front optic usually don’t impact too badly. Your example pics also show some glow, indicating either a load of fine micro scratches or light mildew on At least one of the optics.
white veiling glare can indeed caused by light hitting optic edge of front element, blackening the edge will eliminate that...or simply use a lightweight rubber lens hood to control the off-axis light from entering the lens. It could also be caused by the taking lens partially flaring, when it’s flare is being clipped by the Kowa choking the light path.

Not battery operable, but Cool Lights just slashed the prices on all their fluorescent fixtures. A lot of very good light for the money, and the softbox/grid options are both cheap and work well. Add one or two Aputure hard lights and you'll have an extremely versatile kit without breaking the bank.
You might also think about grabbing one or two tungsten fixtures as well, just for the sake of variety. A source four leko w/50 degree lens and/or 650w fresnel are both incredibly versatile lights that are plentiful and cheap on the used market. A Lowel Rifa or two might come in handy too--one of the best lights for making talent look good, quick to set up, lightweight, and very easy to control with a grid or duvetyne skirt. Search eBay, you can find them for great prices.
Probably more important than which lights you choose is your grip package, so make sure you don't skimp on bounces, flags, clamps, gels, frames, diff, etc.

Damn, that looks nice!