Anamorphic 101

[Kevin D'Haeze]

Rather than obsess about when my Scarlet-W order will be allocated, I'm doing myself a favor and trying to focus on and educate myself about what I'd like to do with it after it gets here. One of the things that seems exciting and that fascinates me (but have not tried my hand with yet) is anamorphic shoots. Can anyone offer some input on what some of the leading anamorphic lenses are? Who are the "go to" rental suppliers that you trust? I'm interested in knowing what the higher-end lens choices are, but also if there are lenses available of decent quality that won't break the bank as a purchase? Thanks for your thoughts!

 

[Luke Neumann]

Kowa PL anamorphics are my personal favorites. Very "vintage" feeling and a great combo with RED to lighten up the image. I rent mine from Max at Gearhead Camera because he splits up his set. I generally shoot wide and with only a few lenses anyways so it's great.

 

[Daniel Soderberg]

Can't beat the look and small size/weight of Kowas... Where are you based?

 

[jordan levy]

cooke is announcing some vintage style anamorphics at nab i heard, i love their new sets now but very very clean, they have that cooke look though, just dont flare and distort like the old styles. other then that, panavision.
i like the look of the kowas but they breathe more then any other ones ive ever used.

 

[Demetri Zuev]

Here's a mini list of ana glass for you:

1) Lomo anamorphics
2) Elite anamorphics
3) Kowa anamorphics
4) Hawk C anamorphics
5) Cineovision anamorphics
6) Hawk V-Plus anamorphics
7) Cooke Xtal anamorphics
8) Zeiss Master anamorphics or Cooke 2x anamorphics

And some places around LA where you can rent them:

http://www.oldschoolcameras.com/35anamorphic.php - these guys have a wide variety of vintage anas


http://www.radiantimages.com/lenses/35mm-pl-prime/anamorphic/anamorphic-arri - masters and modern cookes as well as lomos and a set of kowas


http://www.keslowcamera.com/catalog/lenses/anamorphic-prime-lenses/ - kesslow has hawks and elites as well as others


http://www.slowmotioninc.com/#!anamorphic/c71e - this place has a full set of elites and lomos


http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?138154-Cineovision-Anamorphics-for-rent - these guys have a lot of vintage anas (Cineovision, kowa), they are in Miami area though


http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?132383-KOWA-ANAMORPHIC-SET-FOR-RENT - Nick is a well known and trusted sources of Kowa anas


http://www.lensworksrentals.com/kowa-anamorphics/ - another place for kowas


http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?109431-LOMO-Anamorphic-Lenses - more lomos



And you can hit ShareGrid for anamorphic adapters for regular glass Like Panasonic, Iscorama and SLR Magic

 

[Randy Panado]

Slrmagic.com also has their new set of anamorphic lenses they'll be showing off at NAB. I've heard they should be somewhat reasonable to own for us owner/operators. If you happen to live in San Francisco / Bay Area, I'm arranging a meetup after NAB on April 26th to take a look and demo the new lenses.

 

[Erich Roland]

ANAmorphic source

ANAmorphic source

We have Lomo's and Kowa's at Dc Camera.
Piece-meal is often ok.

 

[Martin Ubilluz]

If you can't afford panavision anamorphics which are the best or can't get your hands on them the CINEOVISION are the way to go . I own kowas and cineovision (i rent them as well) and I always prefer the cineovision . you won't get any unwanted distortion on the sides like you do with the kowas. Hawk C are also nice but they are much flatter with less character. the master anamorphics and cooke anamorphics have 2x squeeze but don't have any of the nice anamorphic qualities people look for.
Id like to add always try for panavision anamorphics. their lenses are un matched and they have so may different kinds and qualities.

 

[Gaston Fazio]

Hi all:

Here at HD HOUSE in Miami, we just received a brand new set of COOKE ANAMORPHICS 25mm, 32mm, 50mm, 65mm MACRO, 75mm & 100mm

Ready for rent.

Call us with any question!!

Thanks

Gaston
305-522-5751

 

[Tom Dowler]

Also on the anamorphic 101 tip, am I right in thinking that when thinking about field of view for anamorphics you should halve the focal length? So for a wide shot you might go 24mm on a spherical, but should look at a 48mm (or nearest) anamorphic?? Does that change between 1.3x and 2x anas?

 

[Brendan H. Banks]

Also on the anamorphic 101 tip, am I right in thinking that when thinking about field of view for anamorphics you should halve the focal length? So for a wide shot you might go 24mm on a spherical, but should look at a 48mm (or nearest) anamorphic?? Does that change between 1.3x and 2x anas?

Oh yeah, this is interesting. Would love to hear about this!

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Yes and no. A 2X anamorphic lens has double the horizontal view of the same focal length in spherical (hence a 40mm anamorphic is similar to a 20mm spherical) BUT the film / sensor area used for the final image is also a factor in determining field of view, i.e. there's some crop factor involved.

With 35mm film, it wasn't much of an issue -- 2X anamorphic used a 21mm wide area of the 35mm negative and Super-35 spherical used a 24mm wide area, so it wasn't quite double the horizontal view with 2X anamorphic compared to Super-35 spherical, but it was close. With the Dragon sensor, the 6K 6:5 area used for 2X anamorphic photography (because 6:5 = 1.20 : 1, so once you double the horizontal area to get rid of the 2X squeeze, you have a 2.40 : 1 aspect ratio) is 18.95mm wide, whereas the 6K WS area for spherical photography cropped vertically is 30.7mm wide (as is 6K FF, 6K 2:1, etc.)

That's a 1.62X crop factor to take into account. So even though your 2X anamorphic lens gives you twice the horizontal view, that view has to be cropped to reduce the width of the image back down to 2.40 : 1 once unsqueezed.

So whereas if both the 2X anamorphic area and the spherical area could use the 30.7mm width of the sensor to get a 2.40 : 1 image, then the equivalent of a 40mm anamorphic would be a 20mm spherical, in the case of the Dragon sensor, since it is not square-ish in shape, you'd need something shorter than 40mm in anamorphic to match the view of the 20mm spherical lens (I think you'd need a 25mm anamorphic if my calculations are correct... Or is it a 32mm, I'd have to figure this out more carefully...)

(Doing the math again...)
I think it's 25mm 2X anamorphic to match a 20mm spherical on the Dragon because of the cropping to 1.20 : 1 on the sensor.

You can go one way and say that the 18.95mm width of 6K 6:5 is the virtual equivalent of 37.9mm once you double the squeezed image, so the difference between 37.9mm and 30.7mm is 1.2345X, so a 20mm spherical would become a 25mm anamorphic.

Or you can figure that the crop factor between 30.7mm and 18.95mm is 1.62X, so if normally you'd use a 40mm 2X anamorphic to match a 20mm spherical if the sensor areas were the same width, you'd have to compensate for the 40mm anamorphic being cropped by 1.62X and thus use a 25mm anamorphic instead to match a 20mm spherical.

But I admit there's a chance that I've got confused... just don't ask me to deal with 1.3X anamorphic right now.

 

[Brendan H. Banks]

AMAZING, thank you David. From what I gather you're a seasoned pro (and have seen so many posts from you on here, thank you) -- I have a few typical go-to's for my approach to scenes when working with spherical lenses. I love wides and mega-wides at a 14mm and medium or more controlled wides at 24mm. Close-ups and mediums I'm still figuring out and playing with...each completely dependent on character and story, though still finding my voice in those shots. Here's a completely subjective and opinion question -- do you find yourself landing on a go-to focal length for spherical, but a totally different focal length for anamorphic? And if so, do you see any sort of trend in those differences (maybe you would shoot 18mm for spherical wides but find yourself on a 28mm for anamorphic)?

So much is subjective and I'm always curious to hear about each artist's approach!

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I've only shot anamorphic in 4-perf 35mm, so that's my frame of reference for focal lengths. The 40mm anamorphic has always been the workhorse anamorphic focal length for wide shots -- I think much of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" was shot on one -- but I've occasionally used a 35mm anamorphic, which is like shooting with a 17.5mm or 18mm spherical. The thing to keep in mind is that there is some barrel distortion with wide-angle anamorphic lenses, it only starts to disappear at 50mm or longer.

At Panavision, for super wide-angle anamorphic shots, there is a 30mm C-Series, 28mm E-Series, and a 25mm G-Series, if you want something like the look of a 14mm spherical, but you'll have to live with some barrel distortion probably (I haven't tried these lenses.) And they wouldn't be as wide in view on a Dragon sensor in 6K 6:5 mode (but then, also some of the barrel distortion would get cropped out.)

For example, this is a wide-angle anamorphic shot in "The Professional" -- I'm guessing a 35mm anamorphic:

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Another example of barrel distortion of wide-angle anamorphic lenses:

 

[Jason Han]

Very nice info David thanks!

One of the most popular ones right now are the Hawk-V lites, they are amazing - lighter and improved versions of old Hawks. I have a shoot coming up that I wanted to rent these for but couldn't find them anywhere (all rented out by hollywood productions), so I was playing with master anamorphics and cooke anamorphics (which I love the most), but these weigh 6-7lbs+, and are not suitable for gimbal work. You would need a steadicam op to come in and/or work solely on sticks/dolly. Most anamorphics are really heavy except for the Kowa anamorphics, those are such beautiful glass that weigh only 2-3lbs, perfect for gimbals.

cooke is announcing some vintage style anamorphics at nab i heard, i love their new sets now but very very clean, they have that cooke look though, just dont flare and distort like the old styles. other then that, panavision.
i like the look of the kowas but they breathe more then any other ones ive ever used.

Do you happen to know the weight of those new anamorphics? Cooke's are undoubtedly my favourite, I just wish they weighed less