Soderbergh is a wild man...

[Shawn Nelson]

It would be hard to find a movie where the same set-up was shot twice in two formats. The next best thing is to compare movies with sequels that changed formats - for example, "X-Men 1" was shot in anamorphic, but the next two X-Men movies were shot in Super-35. At least you'd see the same sets shot in different formats.

All of the "Star Trek" features were shot in anamorphic except for "Star Trek 6", the only one shot in Super-35. I found a frame from each that are similar enough to see the difference in how the background goes out of focus in anamorphic (Star Trek 5) versus spherical (Star Trek 6):

Anamorphic:

Spherical:

Hey David, thanks again for the explanations. I was watching 'Alien' for the first time in years and didn't know the tech specs. But as I was watching one of the opening pans of the empty Nostromo spaceship I saw the distortion in the ship and the lens flares and immediately exclaimed to my wife "That was shot anamorphic!" (she was, perplexed). Anyhow, after watching I checked and it was just cool to be able to pick that out like that, after your lessons here.

 

[dvpixl]

yeah. I saw it in Blade Runner too.

 

[Brandon Fraley]

anamorphic is sweet, or at least has it's place. I'm glad it will be an option for those that really want it... like me

 

[Felipe Jaco]

I have seen lot of movies that were shoot with Sony Cine Alta and it has much less resolution and they cropped image for anamorphic size, and in the movie theatre it looked ok. So cropping of RED images isn't going to create any problems in terms of loss of resolution.

 

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

Cropping isn't really the issue, I think people just want to have the animorphic look coming from their red camera.

 

[Daniel García]

Babel

Babel

What a nice thread I seem to have missed! ...at least before it became a kool-aid battle.:sad:

It would be hard to find a movie where the same set-up was shot twice in two formats.

I'm sorry i'm late for this discussion, but I just read the other day that the Japanese section of Babel had intercut spherical with anamorphic shots, particularly in the night interiors. I don't remember why, maybe something to do with not having enough light to stop down the anamorphic lens as much as they wanted? Ah, I'm not sure.:huh:

So now, everyone go grab the Babel DVD and post some comparison screengrabs!

A little OT:

Okay, I'm going to get back to trying to carve oval aperture discs for my Lensbaby in order to get that oval bokeh now...

Man that cracked me up... LOL!!!:usd:

 

[Alexander Nikishin]

Since an anamorphic mode is in the future for RED...

Will it be possible to have an anamorphic de-squeeze for the monitors and preview feeds?

Is Soderbergh shooting with a de-squeeze for his monitors and feeds or is he using a Pani monitor that does the de-squeezing?

As for the resolution he's shooting in ....... 2764 X 2304 ?

I would imagine the sides of the frame are being cropped in this mode when shooting with 2:1 anamorphics.....by how much, and what does that leave the effective resolution at?

 

[Omnius]

Thank you David Mullen.

You are truly a GOD.

I always enjoy reading your articles in various publications and on the message boards.

 

[Steve Freebairn]

I watched the Prestige again last night, I'm pretty sure it was shot with anamorphic lenses.

 

[JasonAvalos]

what the freak is soderscope? Just the center of the lens? not sure but hella interested!

 

[Florian Stadler]

New Squeeze

New Squeeze

What we really need here to unleash the potential of of a 2:1 sensor is a set of Anamorphic PL mount lenses with a 0.8333/1.2 (turn them 90 Degrees in the mount to get the 2 different squeezes) to get a full sensor 2.39 and when turned 90 Degrees full sensor 1.66 image. No wasting of pixel real estate required.

 

[Deanan]

What you gain in a mild squeeze you lose in resampling and additional optical elements. Is it worth the extra effort to creating new lenses for minimal resolution gain and minimal anamorphic look?

 

[David Birdy]

What you gain in a mild squeeze you lose in resampling and additional optical elements. Is it worth the extra effort to creating new lenses for minimal resolution gain and minimal anamorphic look?

Deanan,


Is it possible to use "Split Block" technology similar to the Way "Sy" and other camera makers use this to make the camera more mobile and compact?

The block and lens are separated from the camera housing, them an umbilical cord connects to the main body?

Thanks
Dave

 

[Florian Stadler]

And you have tested this Deanan? You had these lenses built and done a side by side comparison? Someone I know has with reportedly mind-blowing results (not on your sensor).
Calling 20% resolution gain minimal and dismissing the look of something you haven't even seen once in your life seems uninformed and compromising at the least. Are you saying this as a spokesperson of Red?
Please clarify your experiences and knowledge on this subject.

Thanks!

 

[Deanan]

Maybe you should state your affiliation with the unmentioned company and free equipment received in the past.

As for the facts, we're talking a 305 to 341 pixel gain vertically which is
15-16% depending on 2.39 vs 2.35.

 

[Florian Stadler]

I am a freelance Cinematographer striving for the best picture quality given each projects parameters and have no company affiliations whatsoever. My services are represented by the Stacy Cheriff Agency, Los Angeles. I have received free equipment for testing and Public Service announcements from many companies in the past including Keslow Camera, Clairmont Camera, Dalsa, Panavision, Kodak, Arri, Sony, Panasonic, Thompson and Otto Nementz to name a few.

The Anamorphic format results in a 2.39 aspect ratio (usually called 2.40 for simplicity) and not 2.35. Checking my facts I discovered that the Red is natively 1.77 aspect ratio and not 2:1 as I mistakenly stated in my previous post. Is this correct? I might have gone on old information. Therefore the squeeze factor would be 1.33 to get to a full frame Anamorphic aspect ratio using the sensor's full potential. If you were to crop these pixels instead of squeezing the image optically, wouldn't you have to crop specifically 590 Pixels vertically rather than "305 to 341" (4,096 x 2,304 at 1:1.77 and 4,096 1,714 at 1:2.39)? Mathematically that would be 25.6% or ROUGHLY A QUARTER OF THE RESOLUTION. If a quarter of your bank account is insignificant to you, I'd like to have it

Please correct me on the current dimension in use on the mysterium and its uncropped aspect ratio as I realize things change. I have 2 numbers at hand, the mentioned 4,096 x 2,304 and 4520 (h) x 2540 (v). Is the 2nd one taking into account the extra pixels used to see past the framelines in the viewing system? Thanks for the clarification.

 

[Fredrik Callinggard]

And you have tested this Deanan? You had these lenses built and done a side by side comparison? Someone I know has with reportedly mind-blowing results (not on your sensor).

I'm really interested in this. I would love to see some pics? Would it be possible for you to publish some? You see I, like Deanan, am sceptic to why you want to step away from it's original purpose, but if it still looks the same, well then why not.

(correction - don't take purpose literally. I don't need a page of lecturing, we've all seen that you've done your homework ;-) )

 

[laguun]

What you gain in a mild squeeze you lose in resampling and additional optical elements. Is it worth the extra effort to creating new lenses for minimal resolution gain and minimal anamorphic look?

For us its decided: we prefer working with regular glass.
Via 35mm film projection the bottleneck of the resolution is the projection anyhow, and for digital 4K projektion i dont know of -a single- 4k cinema in europe equipped with anamorphic lenses.

If a DP however wants to use a scope lens in order to get a certain look, i would also be not refusing that.

 

[Deanan]

4096 x 2304 is the recordable area. 4520x2540 is recordable + lookaround.

Developing a new anamorphic format solely because one manufacturer has a 2:1 sensor makes no sense to me. Support for 1.33x and 2.0x makes sense as they are available formats.

 

[Tom Lowe]

It would seem odd to me to use an analog/optical technology like an anamorphic lens with a digital chip. It seems random.

I for one have no interest. Resolution is not the problem with RED 4K. The only way to make significant resolution gains worth caring about, IMO, would be a 6K chip. In my opinion, the best bet would be a 6K chip the size of a 65mm negative, so you could downsample it to 4K and also gain dynamic range. Of couse, you would need all new 65mm glass for that!