Hi everyone,
I own a gs70 and am wondering if adding a WA lens and using the letterboxed function (horizontal black bars top and bottom) on the camera would allow for more of a "realistic" widescreen effect.
On a related note: will a 4:3 letterboxed video play on a widescreen TV without showing the black bars on the top and bottom of the screen?
I really enjoy this site.
Sincerely,
Doug

Putting a wide angle lens on the GS70 will not make the frame size wider. It will still have the same shape on your widescreen TV. So, you will have pillar boxing (vertical black bars) on either side of a 720x480 image. If you use cinema mode, it will add top and bottom black bars (letterboxing) to the pillar boxing so the whole frame will be outlined with black bars. The video in the middle of the screen will have a 16:9 shape, though.

If your widescreen TV has stretch controls, you may be able to expand the video size so less of the letter/pillar boxing is visable. This is akin to digital zoom, though, so the picture quality may degrade.

If you want true 16:9, you might want to take a look at the Century Optics anamorphic wide angle lens. It comes in a 37 mm size so it will screw onto the filter threads of your GS70. It is about twice as expensive as a typical WA.

Hi Guy,
Thank you very much for your advice. I am very new to 16:9 and from what I've read it seems like it's the way TV is going whether it's HD or just SD-16:9..........
Also..will an anamorphic lens give the same quality as a camera that shoots native 16:9? Thanks again Guy.
Sincerely,
Doug

Doug,
A camera that shoots native 16:9 is a high definition cam. These cost 10s of thousands of dollars (except for the new Sony HDV and the JVC HDV cams) and take exceptionally better images than a miniDV cam.

Do you mean a camcorder that has a 16:9 mode like the Panasonic GS400? If so, those camcorders shoot in anamorphic squeeze mode. So you get the same results as shooting with an anamorphic lens...the image is horizontally squeezed into a 720x480 frame. Many pros that shoot widescreen on a DV cam prefer to us an anamorphic conversion lens. That used to be because most DV cams that have anamorphic squeeze modes crop and digitally zoom the image so vertical resolution is lost. However, there are a lot of DV cams now that have high resolution anamorphic squeeze so it makes less sense to use an anamorphic lens. However, it is reported that an anamorphic lens on a regular 4x3 DV cam produces excellent results.

Very informative article on your site. I think the whole anamorphic thing is starting (ever so slowly) to make sense. Thanks Guy.

I'm considering buying a new video camera within the next 6 to 8 months and am wondering about the new sony hd cam. It sure sounds like it will produce awesome images and it'll shoot sd as well as hd?
Thanks again for everything Guy.
Sincerely,
Doug