Red One 2:1 Anamorphic support

[William Wedig]

I posted over in the Lens Test forum (thanks for all the answers guys) asking about whether or not Red was planning on supporting 2:1 anamorphics in camera. Some people mentioned that Red had initally wanted to support them but as of now I know it doesn't. I was hoping that the camera would do things such as mask the chip to the 4:3 sensor size needed for anamorphics, output unsqueezing to the monitor and EVF, etc.

I know I'm talking about less resolution (not using the whole chip) and all the tech specs it seems to not make sense, but I like the look and feel of them and would really like to shoot on them. Anyone know if this is planned for any the near future? I can't imagine it's a huge priority as of this point.

Thanks

 

[mezmo]

They will probably go for 2.35/40:1 super 35 using more sensor width than
height to avoid the unsqueezing tech. that's just a guess.
Anamorphic glass on a Digital cam would be interesting.
Mezmo

 

[Dj Joofa]

I want to know the effect of anamorphic lenses on a digital sensor camera. Due to the Kell factor (shall I assume 0.9 for Red camera?), more information might be lost horizontally after an anamorphic squeeze/de-squeeze than vertically.

Is the effect of un-equal information loss in horizontal/vertical directions noticeable on screen?

 

[Nathan Buxton]

3k anamorphic mode makes sense to me.... higher framerates too

 

[William Wedig]

They will probably go for 2.35/40:1 super 35 using more sensor width than
height to avoid the unsqueezing tech. that's just a guess.
Anamorphic glass on a Digital cam would be interesting.
Mezmo

can you specify what you mean by avoiding the tech?

I also thought the Mysterium was a 16:9 native sensor, which would leave you at around a 3.55:1 aspect ratio (roughly, post squeeze) which isn't so useful. You'd be forced to crop the sides and unsqueeze in post I would think.

Is the effect of un-equal information loss in horizontal/vertical directions noticeable on screen?

I was wondering this myself. I don't know if it would be noticeable or have a bad effect.

I was thinking if you were to end in 2k it probably wouldn't effect the image too much. Even with shooting the current 16:9 format, you'd end up using around 2,000 pixels (horizontal) and 2,500 pixels (vertical) which would be more than 2k. Again, this is only my speculating, not having a Red to test on.

 

[sander kamp]

I just did a small test with anamorphics in Bangkok. The lenses were the exact same LOMO's as for sale on eBay now (I don't know anything about this seller, link is just to show the lenses I used). These images are not the best possible and don't show much anamorphic behaviour but nevertheless give an idea. We shot some footage at a swimming pool that I can't post and that looks quite good. In low light you get a lot of lens artifacts like strange flares - although you could like that. The images are cropped at 2.40:1

Workflow now is doable but could be better. You can set the frame guides to 4x3, which gives you an indication of what you will crop to if you are going to output to 2.40:1. There are user settings for frame guides but I don't know how to set them. Your eyes kind of get used to seeing a squeezed image. De-squeezing on the LCD would of course preferable. In RedCine I found it works best to set the Y scale of all clips half of the X scale (apply: All). RedCine tends to forget aspect ratios of the project or clips or starts cropping them strangely.

There are some interesting things to be said about the rolling shutter. For horizontal movement you would essentially amplify the rolling shutter by a factor two, since you are stretching the image horizontally. You can also mount the lenses in a 90 degree angle and get an almost square image which if you would crop it would give you half the rolling shutter. A bit like shooting 2k but with possibly a bit more resolution and smoother image.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Remember that you would only want to unstretch the 2X anamorphic image for monitoring, offline editing, and for home video HD masters -- for theatrical D.I. work, you want to leave it with the 2X squeeze.

 

[Johnny St.Ours]

I'm planning to shoot a lot with anamorphics, I hope they do come up with some tech supporting it so I don't just have a permanent headache from staring at squashed heads.

 

[Jarred Land]

We have alot of productions currently using 2:1 anamorphics, and we do plan on offering in camera support for 2:1. Obviously you can still use the lenses right now, they just are squeezed on the viewfinder and you need to unsqueeze in REDCINE.

 

[William Wedig]

Workflow now is doable but could be better. You can set the frame guides to 4x3, which gives you an indication of what you will crop to if you are going to output to 2.40:1. There are user settings for frame guides but I don't know how to set them. Your eyes kind of get used to seeing a squeezed image. De-squeezing on the LCD would of course preferable. In RedCine I found it works best to set the Y scale of all clips half of the X scale (apply: All). RedCine tends to forget aspect ratios of the project or clips or starts cropping them strangely.

That's weird. It's good that it has at least 4:3 support. It'd be nice to have the camera unsqueeze it but it's not totally necessary.

There are some interesting things to be said about the rolling shutter. For horizontal movement you would essentially amplify the rolling shutter by a factor two, since you are stretching the image horizontally. You can also mount the lenses in a 90 degree angle and get an almost square image which if you would crop it would give you half the rolling shutter. A bit like shooting 2k but with possibly a bit more resolution and smoother image.

What sort of things were you seeing? Was it totally awful and unusable?

 

[Rainer Fritz]

I heard that they will build some anamorphic optics for red:

http://www.vantagefilm.com/

regards
rainer

 

[sander kamp]

What sort of things were you seeing? Was it totally awful and unusable?

The rolling shutter is discussed elsewhere on this forum but I have seen some examples in my footage, especially with whip pans, where you get a strange, rubbery kind of experience. Under normal circumstances on tripods, dollies and not too shaky handheld you don't notice it.

But say you want to do a Bourne Identity kind of fast action hand held thriller then I can imagine using a 90 degrees rotated anamorphic lens, essentially only using half the height of the sensor and halving the rolling shutter. But it will look different from normal anamorphics since highlights and bokeh will be horizontally stretched instead of vertically.

So please RED, make an option for vertical de-squeezing, too.

 

[Ariana]

But say you want to do a Bourne Identity kind of fast action hand held thriller then I can imagine using a 90 degrees rotated anamorphic lens, essentially only using half the height of the sensor and halving the rolling shutter. But it will look different from normal anamorphics since highlights and bokeh will be horizontally stretched instead of vertically.

The shutter is alot better in 2k and 3k from my tests. For Bourne type of
shots, I'd definitely drop down to 3k and maybe even 2k because at that point you're not getting much resolution anyway with the camera moving.