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Lenses: Spherical Lenses vs Anamorphic Lenses

steve green

steve green

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Need some help…….I've got a client whose talking about shooting Anamorphic for a TVC thinking it'll look "sharper" and more "cinematic". With little experience with Anamorphic lenses, is the "sharper" concern accurate for broadcast TV? My first thought thought would be to shoot 6K wide screen to give them the "cinematic" look they desire?
 
From what little I know about Anamorphics, the older vintage primes appear to get "sharp" more often stopped down, but not so often wide open. Whereas Master Primes generally perform admirably even WIDE OPEN.

As for "cinematic", that's so open to debate. But the wider aspect ratio and alluring bokeh and flares from Anamorphic are certainly eye catching and memorable.

That said, maybe consider the new Master Prime anamorphics? Those appear to be quite sharp, even wide open. The new Cooke's are probably quite decent wide open too.

For a great overall look, maybe even consider the Hawk Anamorphic Vintage 74's...modern design, vintage coatings/lowcon aesthetic...
 
steve green said:
Need some help…….I've got a client whose talking about shooting Anamorphic for a TVC thinking it'll look "sharper" and more "cinematic". With little experience with Anamorphic lenses, is the "sharper" concern accurate for broadcast TV? My first thought thought would be to shoot 6K wide screen to give them the "cinematic" look they desire?
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Sharper and Cinematic are two different things. One is a technical answer, the other very subjective.

Anamorphic shooting "gains" resolution in the Y axis as the image is squeezed/unsqueezed to produce the wider format image. This resolution gain though may or may not be lost if you aren't using the full 2.40:1 aspect ratio. Sharpness is honestly not a problem for a Red Digital Cinema camera. You can make the material do anything you want really when it comes to sharpening in post or scaling down say a 6K image to 4K or 2K.

As for Cinematic look, well yes. This is a strength that anamorphic has in it's unique look when rendering in focus, out of focus, and focus pulls (also rather unique lens flares). Are spherical lenses cinematic? Yes. No. Well. Yeah. You get the thing there. It's subjective on that front.
 
The film look is created with three key features.

1) 24 Frames Per Second, adds an element of blur that movies have used for so long and we are used to this device to take us out of reality and to bring us into believing the story.

2) Wide Screen. Ask your client what movies have the cinematic look they are after. Chances are those movies were shot and seen 2.35:1.

3) Shallow Depth of Field. Lots of the movies use lens aperture to give special focus to their actors, with a blurred background to bring them to center screen, achieving a desirable, easy to watch image. This technical elemental brings an artistic touch, takes a ton of work and talented people to get it right and can look amazing.

Cheers
 
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Phil Holland said:
Sharper and Cinematic are two different things. One is a technical answer, the other very subjective.

Anamorphic shooting "gains" resolution in the Y axis as the image is squeezed/unsqueezed to produce the wider format image. This resolution gain though may or may not be lost if you aren't using the full 2.40:1 aspect ratio. Sharpness is honestly not a problem for a Red Digital Cinema camera. You can make the material do anything you want really when it comes to sharpening in post or scaling down say a 6K image to 4K or 2K.

As for Cinematic look, well yes. This is a strength that anamorphic has in it's unique look when rendering in focus, out of focus, and focus pulls (also rather unique lens flares). Are spherical lenses cinematic? Yes. No. Well. Yeah. You get the thing there. It's subjective on that front.
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Understood about the subjective nature of "cinematic"…….But am I understanding you correctly in that there's a definitive sharpening of an image shooting Anamorphic as opposed to Spherical? This being said, can this "sharpening" be countered by downscaling 6K to 2K? Also, would there be a nice "cinematic" feel to the TVC to air it in WS and not 16x9?
 
Maybe he mean's "sharper" as in cooler or more "hip". Anamorphic will not be sharper than spherical IMO. Maybe he just wants the 2:40 ratio. If so that's easy to do on the red.
Here's a spot that I shot in 2:40 on the epic (not anamorphic) with an old cooke 5:1 zoom ( and diffusion).
https://vimeo.com/64106297
 
Ana is cool at the mo.

People who do not really know what it is are asking for it. The hard questions are:- do you try to explain the difference between ws 2.40 and true ana risking people thinking you are trying to blind them with science and charge more for it or do you choose one or the other without explaining the difference and hope they don't think you are trying to scam them for choosing either....
 
steve green said:
.But am I understanding you correctly in that there's a definitive sharpening of an image shooting Anamorphic as opposed to Spherical?
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on film yes, on RED no because there is a smaller 'target' area, granted the full height is 'squashed' down to whatever height (vertical rez) you finish/export in, but I doubt any anamorphic (except the new zeiss ana's) will resolve more detail this way at 2.8 than spherical cropped at 2.8. and if they do its splitting hairs.
 
Anyone used the Anamorphic feature in the Epic, and how does work with Spherical lenses and RCX? Does the Dragon have a 6K Ana setting?
 
steve green said:
Anyone used the Anamorphic feature in the Epic, and how does work with Spherical lenses and RCX? Does the Dragon have a 6K Ana setting?
Click to expand...

I believe Dragon has a 6k ANA setting.

Anamorphic setting is for anamorphic lenses only.
 
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