Cosimo

On Friday, I received a message from the lead developer at Magic Lantern. An interesting theory was being put forward by one of their open source contributors, which he believed could defeat the so-called overheat timer on the Canon EOS R5.
Initially I was skeptical as to whether it would work! Mainly because the initial real-world tests on my own EOS R5 did not reset the timer.
But then, a break-through.
Magic Lantern just became Magic Screw!
Read the full blog post here:
https://www.eoshd.com/news/canon-eos-r5-so-called-overheat-timer-defeated-by-a-single-screw-in-battery-door/

I’ve done a decent amount of front/rear group mismatch pairing. What I’ve found is this:
1. you can often find mismatched pairings that function at equivalent quality to their matched arrangement.
2. mismatched pairings are not able to be focused, meaning that they are in focus only at infinity. (This is different from what anamorphic users refer to as “dual focus.” The anamorphic is infinity only just to be clear.)
3. The maximum angle of view is determined by the front element group, and cannot be changed. (Note a key distinction however that the squeeze ratio changes, which DOES change which taking lens focal length will be associated with the unchanging angle of view. This also means that the vertical field of view changes as well.)
4. the source-point flare comes from the rear element group, the secondary mirrored flare comes from the front element group.
To take all of this and give a specific example, let’s say I’m trying out pairings with the front element group from my Kowa 16-H. On my Blackmagic PCC4K, lets say my favorite lens to use with it stock is my Canon FD 24mm, which also happens to be the widest lens I can use if my final delivery is going to be a tasty, vignette-free 2.39:1. 
Let’s move on now to the (imaginary) mismatch pairing. I have an old B&L CinemaScope kicking around, and I pair the rear grouping from this scope with the front grouping from my 16-H, in front of my 24mm, which is set to infinity. The B&L elements are nice and cozy right up against the 24mm’s front, but things look blurry. I move the 16-H front grouping in and out until I get a nice sharp image. Neat! If I focus the 24mm on something closer, say, my C-stand at 5’ from camera, I can’t seem to achieve anything sharp no matter what the distance is between the Kowa and B&L element groups. Oh well... infinity it is! (That’s what variable diopters are for anyway, right?)
Ok, so we have our trusty 24mm. We have a Frankenstein of glass from two scopes in front of it, and it’s nice and sharp (at least at infinity,) so what now? Well, let’s shoot a chart, pull some footage into an NLE, and figure out what the squeeze of our new Frankenscope happens to be. A quick stretch of the footage to where the chart looks normal reveals..... 1.75X! Neat! Now, there’s definitely some vignette, but that’s ok, we’re after 2.39:1 delivery. Let’s crop in until the vignette goes away, shall we? The result? vignette free when cropped to 3:1. That’s cool, we could probably go a little wider with the spherical lens.
A quick scour through the camera bag unearths a LUMIX 21mm lens. Let’s ditch the 24mm and try the 21mm. Abracadabra, drop some 21mm footage into the timeline, desqueeze and crop out the vignette: 2.39:1. There now exists a 1.75X scope that can go as wide as a 21mm taking lens! That’s a wider taking lens than the Kowa could handle stock! 
 
Or is it? A meander through the maths:
21/1.75=12mm lens equivalent horizontal
24/2=12mm lens equivalent horizontal
BUT!!! (You may say, and you’re correct) there is no vertical squeeze factor here, so vertically, the 21mm is STILL wider than the 24mm. Yes. You are using a wider focal length lens, but your horizontal field/angle of view remains unchanged. The two scope configurations both are and aren’t equivalent to each other. Oh the joys of anamorphic. This is why anamorphic lenses are said to have two focal lengths (one horizontal and another vertical,) and it’s why we get oval bokeh too! 
The final kicker is when we add our variable diopter of choice: an SLR Magic Rangefinder. The stock Kowa is now choked to a maximum of 28mm, and the Frankenscope can only do 25mm. It turns out that in practical application, the limit of all wide anamorphic adapter setups is the variable diopter, not the scope. The new Rapido FVD-35 is right at the limits of the very widest anamorphic adapters. What’s more, a bigger diopter setup to squeeze out those last few distorted degrees of angle-of-view would be laughably gigantic. The FVD-35 is 134mm in diameter. That means it already sits only 2cm above a 15mm LWS rod setup, so unless you want to go full 19mm studio rods and use 6.5X6.5 mattebox for filtration, the FVD-35 will do “just fine.”
Why, then, would anyone bother to Frankenscope? Well, because lenses are so much more than the numbers. Even by the numbers, you might prefer a novel squeeze ratio. You might want beautiful mixed gold and teal flares. You might want the thick, lush flares from an old scope with some added sharpness and contrast from one more modern. You might want a unique look, that’s all your own, completely custom. Besides that, the experimentation is really fun! 
A quick look at remotely reasonable anamorphic offerings reveals: Xelmus has a 40mm and Atlas has a 32mm, both of which only cover a standard 35mm open gate. The FVD-35 is right in this ballpark in any case. Unless you find an exceptionally rare 22mm LOMO, or rent some top shelf glass, you’re not going to go wider... never mind that depth of field becomes so deep when this wide that the differences between spherical and anamorphic are difficult for most people to differentiate. As someone who hacked scopes apart to try and go wider, here’s my conclusion: do what works for you, but you’re gonna need a big variable diopter, because that’s the bottleneck. After that, find your wide scope of choice, Frankensteined or stock, it’s just preference. 
I had some awesome results from very humbly priced pairings. I bought a half dozen or so scopes off eBay, and did my level best to spend $100 or less on each. A great trick is taking big/long adapters meant for 35mm projection, and pairing their front element groups with rears from shorter 16mm projection scopes. As a general rule, this seems to significantly shorten the scope’s length, and reduces the squeeze factor. There are a plethora of theoretical 1.8X, 1.75X, 1.5X, and 1.33X custom scopes out there for anyone with the willpower and funding to go on a mix and match bonanza.
 

Stunning shot glass wizard. 

Cinelux front glass/ Moller 32 rear glass 1.6X with Lomo  block 75mm on FF sensor. 

To be honest what Dan Sasaki from Panavision says is much more valuable to me than what you wrote.You can read my private conversation i had with him. These are only DIY prototypes  and there is no hacksaw involved, even a child would know that these would of course benefit from a new housing , but since I am not selling it or launching anything on the market I am not worried. But most of all  please do not worry at all about my children, I am the father. How dare you! 

let off steam, remember to clean up when you're done.

Matching  different cylinders glass from different anamorphic scope is equivalent of a cylindrical Galilean telescope running backwards, finding a match with different systems that meet the afocal condition. Here are few prototypes  I put together and some sample shots. I hope you like, thanks!
.
 
 

Hello Vladimir, so glad you made one 1.6X scope, looks good man! 

im in. this is from 1.6x scope, first test with 50f2:
 

Thanks Leslie! To be honest I also had some doubt about the multiple horizontal flares,  I have contacted Mr Dan Sasaki  Panavision optical engineer to have an opinion about my scopes and my experiments. I had a lovely chat with the guy. You can read the answer on the screenshot I have attached from my private messenger .There is no grading at all in the photo I 've posted. No I haven't paid full price for my lenses , it is an early investment I did when the anamorphics  weren't  so expensive like in these days,, I am glad I did though, most of these were quite cheap as well since they had small issues. This is a quick flare test I did quite long time ago with this scope 
 

Cinelux front glass/ Moller 32 rear glass 1.6X with Lomo  block 75mm on FF sensor. 

To be honest what Dan Sasaki from Panavision says is much more valuable to me than what you wrote.You can read my private conversation i had with him. These are only DIY prototypes  and there is no hacksaw involved, even a child would know that these would of course benefit from a new housing , but since I am not selling it or launching anything on the market I am not worried. But most of all  please do not worry at all about my children, I am the father. How dare you! 

Tinkering with lenses and hacking together stuff is what makes anamorphic fun to me, I think some people totally miss the point of why many of us do it.

Cinemoller 1.6X with 50mm f1.4 FVD on 5d3

Cinemoller 1.6X with 50mm f1.4 FVD on 5d3

I know of no movie or story that hasn't been embellished or exaggerated at some point. Any creative person tends to wax lyrical or poetic about things, its human nature. When they stray too far, well i call that click bait. 🙄  Getting back on topic if some dude from panasonic whats to call it some type of galilean action i'm fine with that. I presume he knows more about such stuff, more than i do anyway.
I have a stack of my brothers kids photos hanging up around the house. I have met those kids precisely twice in thirteen years. Does that make me a pedophile ? My parents live with me, grandparents tend to like grandkids as a rule. so i ended up with a bunch of photos of kids that arent mine.  Since most parents are justifiably proud of their kids and have photos, it doesn't bother me that cosimo combines two interests ( kids + anamorphics) Kids make for cheap talent if anything, a meal at macas and its all good 😀
What isn't normal is that you come into this thread and cast slurs and aspersions on some dude. Your either a troll or idiot or both. Cant really see how the forum benefits from having you around  @Andrew Reid  your the boss, whats your take on this ?

To be honest what Dan Sasaki from Panavision says is much more valuable to me than what you wrote.You can read my private conversation i had with him. These are only DIY prototypes  and there is no hacksaw involved, even a child would know that these would of course benefit from a new housing , but since I am not selling it or launching anything on the market I am not worried. But most of all  please do not worry at all about my children, I am the father. How dare you! 

To be honest what Dan Sasaki from Panavision says is much more valuable to me than what you wrote.You can read my private conversation i had with him. These are only DIY prototypes  and there is no hacksaw involved, even a child would know that these would of course benefit from a new housing , but since I am not selling it or launching anything on the market I am not worried. But most of all  please do not worry at all about my children, I am the father. How dare you! 

Sorry, I did not mean to sound mean. But this is not how internet works, I am free to voice my opinion. I see a BS post and I call it out. OP pretentiously talks about "galilean action" and "horizontal artifacts", yet the images are highly uninspiring home shots with some of the ugliest flares I've seen. Then he proceeds to post lenses that look butchered. It seems he just took a hacksaw to some schneider cinelux lenses, then butchered some other lenses and randomly paired elements until he got a useable image. Using pseudo scientific terms to describe this process does not make it anything different. Just pure lens hacking. Pointless exercise, because no self-respecting DP will use something like this to shoot anything remotely important. Sure, if you want to learn by destroying lenses – go ahead. They don't make them anymore though.

But what really worries me is that I see at least 4 different kids in these shots. I don't know how old OP is, and I don't want to assume their gender, but this is not normal. 

Matching  different cylinders glass from different anamorphic scope is equivalent of a cylindrical Galilean telescope running backwards, finding a match with different systems that meet the afocal condition. Here are few prototypes  I put together and some sample shots. I hope you like, thanks!
.
 
 

@Cosimo I applaud your work.Thank you for sharing, and contributing. For me and many others, experimentation is the cornerstone of learning about anamorphic. Non-conctructive criticism of other people's work seems petty and antithetical to the anamorphic community. Ignore the haters, and keep doing what you are doing!

No offense, but this is pointless. I mean, maybe if you have too much time on quarantine it's an interesting hobby, but it looks like you simply ruined schneider cinelux lenses. Any cheap sankor lens can do much better than this, with nice waterfall background. Get yourself a good cinelux and it will be a proper lens with good image, that won oscar.  I don't know what's a point in these, they look hacked together, not suitable even for lowest budget indie productions. I don't think any DP would put that on their camera. Maybe you should look at Rapido Technologies, they make good products like cases for anamorphics with engravings. etc. They still don't look very good, just a dull black pipe, but anything would look better than this. I think this would scare away any model or client when they see it in front of the camera. Maybe that explains why you only photograph kids and have no serious work to show with these.

Seems like your the one that's been cooped up too long,.... We do this because we can. There is no right or wrong,  there is only the image aesthetic. If it doesn't please you go someplace else. Rapido sure do make some nice kit, i plan on getting the fvd16 fairly soon. Having said that i bet that rapido's  first few efforts were not exactly exhilarating to look at either. On set it wouldn't surprise me what a DP' would do to get an image. So long as it doesn't fall apart and kill some poor sod who cares what it looks like. Your last comment is just mean and spiteful. Everyone has been cooped up for the last three months, cosimo is fortunate to have some kids that are happy enough to be involved.

i do like the images your getting. How did you cut the glass ? i'm guessing a diamond blade on a 5 inch grinder ?  By the way you should enroll that kid in drama classes you've got a budding actress on your hands 😀