Century optic 1.33x Any good?

[ipcmlr]

People seem to have a higher regard for the sankors, eikis, etc which are harder to focus.

Is image quality on these century anamorphics bad which is why these lenses dont get any credit?

[Andrew Reid]

Not used the century optic 1.33x but I did shoot briefly with the Optex 1.33x which is similar.

Not quite as good as the 1.33x LA7200 but not far off and more compact.

Here's the footage:

https://vimeo.com/15543342

[Axel]

When there were only 4:3 camcorders, but 16:9 was no longer that exotic, the Century was highly recommended, because it squeezed 1:1,33 to 1:1,77 (16:9) by using "the whole sensor"(buzzword). I rented one for one day, to test it with my old VX 2000, whose [i]widescreen-mode[/i] meant internal cropping, upscaling and writing to the band anamorphotically. But the Century made ghosting, vignetting and didn't work with all focal lengths (via zoom then, of course). The overall image quality was terrible, and I found for myself a manual crop in post to be best. I [i]would[/i] have bought it, really, though it was 1200 € then, if the results were any good (to cite the thread titel), but they weren't.

Filming anamorphotically nowadays has become a challenge and is executed with puristic graveness. The results are really beautiful. That said, there is always the way of cropping an extreme wideangle shot in post and mimicking flares and elliptic bokeh with a Cinemorph filter. I have no way of distinguishing, if the use of "the whole sensor" preserves quality, but it may in theory.

The factor of 1,33 is the best for storytelling purposes, because Cinemascope (nowadays actually Scope, closer to 1:2,4 but the differences are academic) is the most dynamic AR. It needs to be understood as a combination of proper framing and montage. Long shots change abruptly to close shots that crop the human body/face, the term was (germanism perhaps, I hope it translates) [i]blow up the scope[/i]. It never fails to work. Hollywood uses it and will use it it forever, especially for action films.

It is difficult to achieve this effect with the ultrawide ARs. 1:3,55 is almost polyvision (google, historic).

[vj1277]

I own and use this adapter (Century Optics 16:9 Anamorphic Adapter f/58mm thread) with my Panasonic AF100 and love it. I researched every option, considering the projection lenses and LA700; the loss of f-stop killed those ambitions.

With this adapter you have a best of worlds: no light loss, small and light, beautiful flaring and sharp! Even after vertically squeezing the footage in the Avid, the footage is sharp (even on my 60"!). If you want Cinemascope without the hassle, this is the perfect option!

Here's a link to a film I'm working on where I used the adapter. The only lens I use is the Voigtlander 25mm 0.95 lens, and mostly shoot between .95 and 4.

[url=http://youtu.be/76FFi565LFI?hd=1]http://youtu.be/76FFi565LFI?hd=1[/url]

[Axel]

@vj1277
Beautiful, touching, cinematic!
(triple tautology)

Best wishes.

BTW: This is what the GH2 is very good for. I bought it last summer because then in seemed the most "bang for the buck", then I saw a 1 h german television show, "Nachtschicht" (nightshift). The GH2 came very close, there only was existing light, people who needed to be incognito'd were simply completely out of focus (Voigtlander of course). The filmmaker used no rig. There is a trailer only on YouTube:
[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1SruItfHzY#ws]Was passiert in der Nachtschicht?[/url]

This kind of doc is not possible with any bigger equipment.

[ipcmlr]

@vj1277 that looks great!


Thanks to all who replied!
I'm just starting out with this anamorphic stuff so I'm testing stuff out.

Got an eiki 16f. Just tested it out yesterday. Focusing is a pain (which is why i was asking about the century since it is focus thru) but image wise it looks awesome... when focused correctly... which i said is a pain...:D

Century seems to be very soft at the corners. Much like the effect my century wide angle adapter does.
Anyway, still got the century 1.33x (i got one for under market value so what the heck)
Looks to be very compact and can be focused thru the lens.
Will upload some footage once I get it (which is about 2 weeks from now)

[ipcmlr]

I got my no brand generic Century-like anamorphic and decided to test it out.
My Eiki 16f looks much better but this thing has got focus thru, wide lenses, and can screw directly onto 52mm thread lenses. You can also adjust alignment pretty easily.

Here's the test. https://vimeo.com/40552806

[jlev23]

i use mine and love it, just now testing it on the 5dmk3, looks stunning but havent shot anything to post yet. i did post a flare test from my gh2 though. i think its by far the best option, its just really rare and hard to find one. i have a few friends that feverishly search for them after testing mine out.
http://vimeo.com/18833900