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Nailing your focus with anamorphic lens


funkyou86
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Dear fellow forumers,

I would love to hear your opinions and techniques, how do you nail your focus with anamorphic lens. I'm shooting with GH4, and bought recentily a Bolex 1.5x anamorphot lens, since that I have experienced several issues and yet, I'm not sure with which device should I pull focus.

The issues I have found:

#1 PEAKING - Because of the baby mollers smaller size, there isn't coming through too much light, so the peaking isn't working very well. Same with autofocus (didn't tried yet, waiting for a native lens).

#2 FOCUS DISTANCE - Without a diopter, you can focus from 1,5-2m to infinity. The vintage lenses have nice, long focus barrel, but the distance between 2m and infinity is very small. Pulling focus without a proper follow focus or other device is a mess. 

#3 APERTURE - Some say, bolex is great when wide open. Personally, I found it too soft. The anamorphic lens completely changes the behaviour of your taking lens. 

 

How do you pull focus? What device are you using (i was thinking about purchasing a movofilms FF or aputures new DEC). Also what is the fastest aperture you use on set? Thanks! 

Cheers!
Alex

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4 hours ago, Caleb Genheimer said:

Get yourself a single-focus unit (Rectilux or Rangefinder), and a monitor that can de-squeeze the image. I personally stick to f4 and think it almost always looks fantastic. 

Hey Caleb,

I've got the focusthrough version of the baby moller, so I only have to focus my taking lens. Focus Pulling become very unusual with anamorphic since the peaking is not reliable and the focus distances are very short. 

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I have the Bolex Moller 8/19/1.5 and use it with a Rectilux and it’s very sharp indeed. Particularly if I add on a Tokina Achromat 0.4, and good lighting. Hair on the nose sharp. Focus wise, it's very good although I cannot use a follow focus with the Rectilux because the whole focus ring moves in and out as you pull focus. 

Before I had the Rectilux, I actually didn't pull focus. What I did was set my focal point and stay there until it was time for a new shot, using hand-held and moving the camera back and forth (slowly) to readjust focus. Run n gun. The $300 MustHD monitor is good because it’s cheap and you can record and play back at the 1.5 aspect ratio of the Bolex. Very cool. Now all I need is a project to shoot!

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7 hours ago, roccoforte said:

I have the Bolex Moller 8/19/1.5 and use it with a Rectilux and it’s very sharp indeed. Particularly if I add on a Tokina Achromat 0.4, and good lighting. Hair on the nose sharp. Focus wise, it's very good although I cannot use a follow focus with the Rectilux because the whole focus ring moves in and out as you pull focus. 

Before I had the Rectilux, I actually didn't pull focus. What I did was set my focal point and stay there until it was time for a new shot, using hand-held and moving the camera back and forth (slowly) to readjust focus. Run n gun. The $300 MustHD monitor is good because it’s cheap and you can record and play back at the 1.5 aspect ratio of the Bolex. Very cool. Now all I need is a project to shoot!

Looks like you found your way :) Here are some shots, testing the bolex with different apertures: 

Please note that a Lens Turbo Adapter was mounted so x0.72 the aperture value as well. 

The focus through bolex is great for run and gun, but you have to stop down the aperture at least to f4. But I have to make more tests, a festival is coming up in the next month, will see how it can handle those conditions.

Honestly, framing and desqueezing the image doesn't really bothers me, i can still frame the stretched image, but judging the focus from a 3' inch screen without proper peaking can ruin a lot of shots. Do you have any experience with attachable Viewfinders? I mainly shoot with shoulder rig and a slider, so it could be a reasonable investment, I'm just not sure if it will magnify my LCD in the way I imagine, if yes, that can solve my issue.

Thanks for your comments guys! Happy shooting!

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6 hours ago, funkyou86 said:

The focus through bolex is great for run and gun, but you have to stop down the aperture at least to f4. But I have to make more tests, a festival is coming up in the next month, will see how it can handle those conditions.

Honestly, framing and desqueezing the image doesn't really bothers me, i can still frame the stretched image, but judging the focus from a 3' inch screen without proper peaking can ruin a lot of shots. Do you have any experience with attachable Viewfinders? I mainly shoot with shoulder rig and a slider, so it could be a reasonable investment, I'm just not sure if it will magnify my LCD in the way I imagine, if yes, that can solve my issue.

Thanks for your comments guys! Happy shooting!

Peaking a complete waste of time when you're using the Bolex as a focus through, especially @ f4  - viewfinder is the way to go. You need to get used to focusing by eye - TBH i've never liked focus peaking, just don't trust it at all, for anything. I use a cheap £10 one from amazon - there are more expensive ones out there, its your choice.

A tip: if you're doing a lot of racking, then its best to use a lens with a long focus throw.

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  • 4 weeks later...
On April 22, 2016 at 8:04 AM, Bioskop.Inc said:

Peaking a complete waste of time when you're using the Bolex as a focus through, especially @ f4  - viewfinder is the way to go. You need to get used to focusing by eye - TBH i've never liked focus peaking, just don't trust it at all, for anything. I use a cheap £10 one from amazon - there are more expensive ones out there, its your choice.

A tip: if you're doing a lot of racking, then its best to use a lens with a long focus throw.

My peaking always falls off on my A7 when using a Jupiter 9+ Sankor 16C combo. Nailing focus is always tricky, and some people recommend measuring, but I just go by eye. If you had a nicer viewfinder with peaking, do you think it would still have the same problems? Or do you just use the viewfinder to nail by eye more accurately?

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On 18/05/2016 at 8:08 PM, JamesDrum said:

My peaking always falls off on my A7 when using a Jupiter 9+ Sankor 16C combo. Nailing focus is always tricky, and some people recommend measuring, but I just go by eye. If you had a nicer viewfinder with peaking, do you think it would still have the same problems? Or do you just use the viewfinder to nail by eye more accurately?

Viewfinder & by eye - it's all about practice & once you know what to look for (e.g. how sharp your lens is in focus), then it just becomes so easy to determine.

Also, you got to remember that the more you stop down your lens, the bigger the range of what is in focus gets - so you have some wiggle room.

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