Century Optics 16:9 Widescreen Adapter

Steve Korson · January 15th, 2008, 01:32 PM

Bob T.

Which wideangle do you have that fits with the 16:9 from Schneider? I just received mine, and now want a wide-angle to compliment.

Thanks,
S Korson

Bob Thieda · January 15th, 2008, 03:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve Korson

Bob T.

Which wideangle do you have that fits with the 16:9 from Schneider? I just received mine, and now want a wide-angle to compliment.

Thanks,
S Korson

Steve....Sorry, I believe I wasn't clear....
I ordered the sunshade/filter holder for my 16:9 adapter here:
http://www.schneideroptics.com/Ecomm...D=1460&IID=949

And it also happens to fit my WD-58 Wide angle lens...
Which is very cool!

Bob

Tom Blizzard · January 15th, 2008, 05:45 PM

WI've now had time to work with my new 16:9 lens. Maybe we can compare notes and see if the rest of you have experienced the same thing and made the same discoveries.

Here's what I discovered. Some great things and some I don't completely understand. So if you have some insite, please let me know.

I'm sure that most of you understand what a home DVD player does and doesn't do to an anamorphic picture.
So , here goes: I used the 16:9 lens on my GL2, (of course NOT using the 16:9 setting on the camera), I made a test video, and then I burned my DVD using Adobe Premiere Elements. BTW, through some trial and error burns I found it best to select the NTSC fullscreen mode in Adobe just prior to burning the test DVD, here's what I found.

First, I've got to mention that since I have a 16:9 TV, I set my DVD player to the 16:9 setting. This is the correct setting and it has been this way for years. As you know, if you have read this far, this properly displays the anamorphic DVDs using the full resolution that the TV can provide. So, all pictures have the proper aspect ratio and correct geometry.

The burned Test DVD mentioned in the previous paragraph, ( burned in the "fullscreen" mode using Adobe), will properly display on my 16:9 TV with my DVD player in the 16:9 setting. Proper geometry and no black bars. The picture aspect setting on my TV is labeled "wide" which is the 16:9 setting. Everything looks great.

Now here's the problem: Take the same DVD and show it on a standard 4:3 TV with the DVD player properly set on 4:3 Pan-and-Scan setting. The picture from my test DVD is distorted geometrically. The geometry in the picture is squeezed horizontally. In other words, people are tall and skinny. Yes, I know that's what the 16:9 lens does to the picture when it is taken with the GL2. However, as we all know, the player, set in the 4:3 setting should put black bars at the top and bottom of the picture when it corrects the anamorphic picture and gives us a picture with correct geometry...... but in this case, there are no black bars and no geometric correction.

This would not be an issue if everyone had a 16:9 widescreen display. However, I have a wedding coming up and the couple has a 16:9 TV, but both sets of parents have older 4:3 TVs. The couple wants the wedding done in widescreen so there will be no vertical black bars at the sides of their picture when the geometry of the picutre is correct................. see the problem??
Suggestions???

Afterthought......
I did reburn the test DVD using the NTSC widescreen setting with Adobe Premiere Elements and that still results in a squeezed the picture, (horizontally), on a 4:3 TV but it throws vertical black bars up on the sides of the picture of my 16:9 TV. They cannot be removed in any setting on the TV. Plus the geometry is incorrect on all TV aspect ratio settings.

Bob Thieda · January 15th, 2008, 06:41 PM

Tom....I don't know Adobe Premier as I use Vegas Pro 8...

But in Vegas, the first thing I do after placing the clips in the time line is right click on each clip and change the clip's properties from 4:3 to 16:9......(I can do all the clips in a time line at once with a script)
After that...I treat the project as if it came from a 16:9 camera and render in 16:9....
Seems to work....but as I said, I'm using Vegas...

Bob T.

Don Palomaki · January 15th, 2008, 07:02 PM

Is there a "letter box" or "LB" display option on the DVD player in question - for use with 4x3 TV sets? That may give the full width (at loss of some lines) for full screen anamorphic recordings.

Tom Blizzard · January 15th, 2008, 09:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Don Palomaki

Is there a "letter box" or "LB" display option on the DVD player in question - for use with 4x3 TV sets? That may give the full width (at loss of some lines) for full screen anamorphic recordings.

Thanks Bob....... I'll check.

Yes Don, tried that too.....but no cigar.
Video was still vertically squeezed and no black bars at the top and bottom.

EDIT : NO,NO,NO, I mean horizontally squeezed In other words, people are very tall and skinny... sorry bout that............

EDIT:
OK, here's what I found.
Bob, right click reveals nothing about the aspect ratio choices in Adobe.
However, if i go into the "motion" menu of the clip(s), I can control the vertical and horizontal xy scaling. I can take the picture as it comes from my GL2 and widen it a bit and then compress the top and bottom to get the correct geometry in the picture. I know that will show black bars on the top and bottom of a 4:3 TV screen in the player in the 4:3 mode. I'll have to burn a DVD to be sure. I'm just afraid that it will simply throw up those same black bars on my 16:9 TV. Of course they should not be there. I'll let you know. Thanks for your replies.

David L. Holmes · January 16th, 2008, 07:35 AM

Tom, I did alot of playing around a year ago with this. You have to capture your video in a 16:9 ratio, or go into Premere and Zoom your video 133% (that is the calculated zoom from 480 lines of resolution to 360 "cropped" wide screen). BUT with the new 16:9 adaptor, we do not have to zoom the original 4:3 ratio DV footage! So the new process is to change the Pixle Ratio from .9 to 1.2 (should be under File - Interpret Footage). Changing the pixle ratio will stretch the video footage into the correct widescreen format without decreasing the resolution. Then you have to burn a widescreen DVD using your new 16:9 DV footage.

Hope this helps :)

Tom Blizzard · January 16th, 2008, 07:44 AM

Thanks so much David.... now we are getting there.
regards, Tom B.

(I also posted this question over in the Elements section)

Tom Blizzard · January 25th, 2008, 03:44 PM

Well, I've got to tell everyone that it is working and doing what I hoped it would do. Thanks to Bob, Don and David. David, you were right, that was part of my problem.

It now does everything the way it should and when it should. Thanks so much for your help and suggestions. A forum member by the name of Dylan Pank from the UK helped me a lot with details too.

Thanks again, Tom B.

Chris van der Zaan · January 27th, 2008, 10:24 PM

Sorry for the delay. I have been quite busy the past weeks Someone asked to post some pictures of the sunshade mounted on the lens and camera. I don't have a GL2, but i do have a VX2100. (Which i bought especially because of this lens offer) I must say it is an awesome lens. It does everything i hoped for. Zooming is still ok till 6x.. I am quite a zoom freak in occasions where it allows me to do so and i still can do every move i am used to. The sunshade looks bad ass. I got some 'oohhs' and 'ahhs' from friends. The standard VX2100 sunshade looks like some kiddy thing when this baby shows up. :)

Anyway, enough with the talk, here are the pictures:

http://users.bart.nl/users/mvdzaan/vx2100/IMG_2155.JPG
http://users.bart.nl/users/mvdzaan/vx2100/IMG_2156.JPG

I also bought the LCD magnifier (http://www.schneideroptics.com/Ecomm...D=1460&IID=950) which i really like. It unsqueezes the image to true 16:9 and on top of that it magnifies the LCD. It's really much better then without. I can see a lot more details. It didn't attach it when i shot the current photo's, but i will post one where it is attached later on.

Tom Blizzard · January 28th, 2008, 03:44 AM

Thanks Chris. I agree, that hood looks great!

I followed your link to take a look at the LCD magnifier but it would sure help if I could see how it looks on your camera. I'm looking forward to your picture.

Also, just in case someone is interested, here's a link over to the Premiere Elements section and my steps to using the 16:9 adapter with the GL2.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...=112482&page=2

Chris van der Zaan · February 21st, 2008, 09:51 AM

Sorry for the slow reply again. I will post a picture this week. I have been so busy the past months.

Looks like i was woohooing a bit too early with this lens. I have shot some footage the past 2 months. All looked great on cam. But this week i wanted to edit the footage on computer and I discovered there is -serious- vignetting. It is not visible on the viewfinder or the LCD, but it is visible in the footage when you capture/view it on computer.

It is pretty bad. I have to zoom in to at least 2x to get rid of it. This lens is virtually unusable when i am filming documentary. Because i can never see if there is vignetting or not.

This wasn't mentioned in the description on SO website. :( It just mentioned something about the zoom through issue, but not vignetting. :(

I don't know what to do now. I wanted a 16:9 cam with good low light output. I bought the VX2100 when i saw that great deal, but now i got one which does vignetting.

I have looked if there is still a filter/step up ring left on the VX2100. Nope. I have also carefully adjusted the 16:9 lens, but the vignetting stays. Another solution might be to crop some of the image in post.

I think i could have better bought the FX1 or something to have real 16:9, but 2 steps down low light performance...

I wonder, does the bayonet mount version have vignetting as well?

Ryan Avery · February 21st, 2008, 11:19 AM

Chris,

The problems you are having with your Century 16:9 adapter are not representative of anything we have here in the Office or anything we currently produce.

This means that your problem should be unique and needs to be fixed. It is possible that you recieved an older stock version (you bought it on an inventory reduction sale) in which we did have an issue with the lens vignetting in underscan or editing but not in the viewfinder at the time of acquisition.

We would like to test this lens here at our facility and see if we can duplicate the problem. At the minimum, please post some screen shots or something to give us an idea of what you are looking at. We would like to help you in any way we can.

Ryan Avery
Schneider Optics

Chris van der Zaan · February 21st, 2008, 12:20 PM

Hi Ryan.

Thanks for your great reply. I have made some pictures, please look at them.
I just played around with it some more and it seems the vignetting stays visible until about 4x zoom. (!) Considering the zoom gets blurry at about 6 this is pretty bad.

Anything with less zoom shows vignetting.
This is what i shot first, before i watched the footage on computer:

http://users.bart.nl/users/mvdzaan/v...picture002.jpg

http://users.bart.nl/users/mvdzaan/v...ure002_cam.jpg

http://users.bart.nl/users/mvdzaan/v...picture004.jpg

I did some readjustments tonight, by looking at the image on pc, and i was able to make it look like this. It is night at this moment, so i don't know what it looks like at daylight. (as you see at the other pictures the barrel is clearly visible, while it is black now) :

http://users.bart.nl/users/mvdzaan/v...ture005_pc.jpg

http://users.bart.nl/users/mvdzaan/v...ure005_cam.jpg

This is the best i can get out of it.
I have bought two pieces of the 16:9 58mm mount lense and both show the same issue on Sony VX2100 cam. Maybe both are an older revision of the lense? (bad luck)

It would be great if we can fix this issue. I can send both adapters to the USA as soon as possible if needed.

Ryan Avery · February 21st, 2008, 01:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris van der Zaan

Hi Ryan.

Thanks for your great reply. I have made some pictures, please look at them.
I just played around with it some more and it seems the vignetting stays visible until about 4x zoom. (!) Considering the zoom gets blurry at about 6 this is pretty bad.

Anything with less zoom shows vignetting.
This is what i shot first, before i watched the footage on computer:

http://users.bart.nl/users/mvdzaan/v...picture002.jpg

http://users.bart.nl/users/mvdzaan/v...ure002_cam.jpg

http://users.bart.nl/users/mvdzaan/v...picture004.jpg

I did some readjustments tonight, by looking at the image on pc, and i was able to make it look like this. It is night at this moment, so i don't know what it looks like at daylight. (as you see at the other pictures the barrel is clearly visible, while it is black now) :

http://users.bart.nl/users/mvdzaan/v...ture005_pc.jpg

http://users.bart.nl/users/mvdzaan/v...ure005_cam.jpg

This is the best i can get out of it.
I have bought two pieces of the 16:9 58mm mount lense and both show the same issue on Sony VX2100 cam. Maybe both are an older revision of the lense? (bad luck)

It would be great if we can fix this issue. I can send both adapters to the USA as soon as possible if needed.

Upon further review of your images this is what's going on:

1) Your piece is functioning as designed. It was designed to be used in conjunction with an editing program that has the capability to "unsqueeze" the image and transform it into 16:9 letter box. Once you do this, you will not see any vignette even in underscan WITHIN the editing program or on final display.

2) If you are pulling this off footage straight off the camera and into the computer WITHOUT going through an editing program, you will see the problems that you are demonstrating.

If this is indeed what you are doing where you are seeing this problem once in the editing program then there is likely something wrong with your lens.

Ryan Avery
Schneider Optics

January 15th, 2008, 01:32 PM	#106
Steve Korson Tourist Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Murphy, TX Posts: 1	Which Wide Angle Bob T. Which wideangle do you have that fits with the 16:9 from Schneider? I just received mine, and now want a wide-angle to compliment. Thanks, S Korson

January 15th, 2008, 05:45 PM	#108
Tom Blizzard Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: West Rosemary Beach, Florida Posts: 199	Couldn't do this in 20 words or less....:-( WI've now had time to work with my new 16:9 lens. Maybe we can compare notes and see if the rest of you have experienced the same thing and made the same discoveries. Here's what I discovered. Some great things and some I don't completely understand. So if you have some insite, please let me know. I'm sure that most of you understand what a home DVD player does and doesn't do to an anamorphic picture. So , here goes: I used the 16:9 lens on my GL2, (of course NOT using the 16:9 setting on the camera), I made a test video, and then I burned my DVD using Adobe Premiere Elements. BTW, through some trial and error burns I found it best to select the NTSC fullscreen mode in Adobe just prior to burning the test DVD, here's what I found. First, I've got to mention that since I have a 16:9 TV, I set my DVD player to the 16:9 setting. This is the correct setting and it has been this way for years. As you know, if you have read this far, this properly displays the anamorphic DVDs using the full resolution that the TV can provide. So, all pictures have the proper aspect ratio and correct geometry. The burned Test DVD mentioned in the previous paragraph, ( burned in the "fullscreen" mode using Adobe), will properly display on my 16:9 TV with my DVD player in the 16:9 setting. Proper geometry and no black bars. The picture aspect setting on my TV is labeled "wide" which is the 16:9 setting. Everything looks great. Now here's the problem: Take the same DVD and show it on a standard 4:3 TV with the DVD player properly set on 4:3 Pan-and-Scan setting. The picture from my test DVD is distorted geometrically. The geometry in the picture is squeezed horizontally. In other words, people are tall and skinny. Yes, I know that's what the 16:9 lens does to the picture when it is taken with the GL2. However, as we all know, the player, set in the 4:3 setting should put black bars at the top and bottom of the picture when it corrects the anamorphic picture and gives us a picture with correct geometry...... but in this case, there are no black bars and no geometric correction. This would not be an issue if everyone had a 16:9 widescreen display. However, I have a wedding coming up and the couple has a 16:9 TV, but both sets of parents have older 4:3 TVs. The couple wants the wedding done in widescreen so there will be no vertical black bars at the sides of their picture when the geometry of the picutre is correct................. see the problem?? Suggestions??? Afterthought...... I did reburn the test DVD using the NTSC widescreen setting with Adobe Premiere Elements and that still results in a squeezed the picture, (horizontally), on a 4:3 TV but it throws vertical black bars up on the sides of the picture of my 16:9 TV. They cannot be removed in any setting on the TV. Plus the geometry is incorrect on all TV aspect ratio settings. Last edited by Tom Blizzard; January 15th, 2008 at 10:56 PM. Reason: Stated "vertically" should have said "horizontially squeezed!!

January 15th, 2008, 06:41 PM	#109
Bob Thieda Major Player Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Carol Stream, IL Posts: 541	Tom....I don't know Adobe Premier as I use Vegas Pro 8... But in Vegas, the first thing I do after placing the clips in the time line is right click on each clip and change the clip's properties from 4:3 to 16:9......(I can do all the clips in a time line at once with a script) After that...I treat the project as if it came from a 16:9 camera and render in 16:9.... Seems to work....but as I said, I'm using Vegas... Bob T. __________________ Bob T.

January 15th, 2008, 07:02 PM	#110
Don Palomaki Wrangler Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Northern VA Posts: 4,488	Is there a "letter box" or "LB" display option on the DVD player in question - for use with 4x3 TV sets? That may give the full width (at loss of some lines) for full screen anamorphic recordings. __________________ dpalomaki@dspalomaki.com

January 25th, 2008, 03:44 PM	#114
Tom Blizzard Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: West Rosemary Beach, Florida Posts: 199	Well, I've got to tell everyone that it is working and doing what I hoped it would do. Thanks to Bob, Don and David. David, you were right, that was part of my problem. It now does everything the way it should and when it should. Thanks so much for your help and suggestions. A forum member by the name of Dylan Pank from the UK helped me a lot with details too. Thanks again, Tom B. Last edited by Tom Blizzard; January 26th, 2008 at 12:48 PM.

January 16th, 2008, 07:35 AM	#112
David L. Holmes Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Detroit, MI USA Posts: 96	Tom, I did alot of playing around a year ago with this. You have to capture your video in a 16:9 ratio, or go into Premere and Zoom your video 133% (that is the calculated zoom from 480 lines of resolution to 360 "cropped" wide screen). BUT with the new 16:9 adaptor, we do not have to zoom the original 4:3 ratio DV footage! So the new process is to change the Pixle Ratio from .9 to 1.2 (should be under File - Interpret Footage). Changing the pixle ratio will stretch the video footage into the correct widescreen format without decreasing the resolution. Then you have to burn a widescreen DVD using your new 16:9 DV footage. Hope this helps :)

January 16th, 2008, 07:44 AM	#113
Tom Blizzard Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: West Rosemary Beach, Florida Posts: 199	Thanks so much David.... now we are getting there. regards, Tom B. (I also posted this question over in the Elements section)

January 27th, 2008, 10:24 PM	#115
Chris van der Zaan Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 75	Sorry for the delay. I have been quite busy the past weeks Someone asked to post some pictures of the sunshade mounted on the lens and camera. I don't have a GL2, but i do have a VX2100. (Which i bought especially because of this lens offer) I must say it is an awesome lens. It does everything i hoped for. Zooming is still ok till 6x.. I am quite a zoom freak in occasions where it allows me to do so and i still can do every move i am used to. The sunshade looks bad ass. I got some 'oohhs' and 'ahhs' from friends. The standard VX2100 sunshade looks like some kiddy thing when this baby shows up. :) Anyway, enough with the talk, here are the pictures: http://users.bart.nl/users/mvdzaan/vx2100/IMG_2155.JPG http://users.bart.nl/users/mvdzaan/vx2100/IMG_2156.JPG I also bought the LCD magnifier (http://www.schneideroptics.com/Ecomm...D=1460&IID=950) which i really like. It unsqueezes the image to true 16:9 and on top of that it magnifies the LCD. It's really much better then without. I can see a lot more details. It didn't attach it when i shot the current photo's, but i will post one where it is attached later on.

January 28th, 2008, 03:44 AM	#116
Tom Blizzard Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: West Rosemary Beach, Florida Posts: 199	Thanks Chris. I agree, that hood looks great! I followed your link to take a look at the LCD magnifier but it would sure help if I could see how it looks on your camera. I'm looking forward to your picture. Also, just in case someone is interested, here's a link over to the Premiere Elements section and my steps to using the 16:9 adapter with the GL2. http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...=112482&page=2

February 21st, 2008, 09:51 AM	#117
Chris van der Zaan Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 75	Sorry for the slow reply again. I will post a picture this week. I have been so busy the past months. Looks like i was woohooing a bit too early with this lens. I have shot some footage the past 2 months. All looked great on cam. But this week i wanted to edit the footage on computer and I discovered there is -serious- vignetting. It is not visible on the viewfinder or the LCD, but it is visible in the footage when you capture/view it on computer. It is pretty bad. I have to zoom in to at least 2x to get rid of it. This lens is virtually unusable when i am filming documentary. Because i can never see if there is vignetting or not. This wasn't mentioned in the description on SO website. :( It just mentioned something about the zoom through issue, but not vignetting. :( I don't know what to do now. I wanted a 16:9 cam with good low light output. I bought the VX2100 when i saw that great deal, but now i got one which does vignetting. I have looked if there is still a filter/step up ring left on the VX2100. Nope. I have also carefully adjusted the 16:9 lens, but the vignetting stays. Another solution might be to crop some of the image in post. I think i could have better bought the FX1 or something to have real 16:9, but 2 steps down low light performance... I wonder, does the bayonet mount version have vignetting as well?

February 21st, 2008, 11:19 AM	#118
Ryan Avery Sponsor: Schneider Optics Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Van Nuys, CA Posts: 387	Chris, The problems you are having with your Century 16:9 adapter are not representative of anything we have here in the Office or anything we currently produce. This means that your problem should be unique and needs to be fixed. It is possible that you recieved an older stock version (you bought it on an inventory reduction sale) in which we did have an issue with the lens vignetting in underscan or editing but not in the viewfinder at the time of acquisition. We would like to test this lens here at our facility and see if we can duplicate the problem. At the minimum, please post some screen shots or something to give us an idea of what you are looking at. We would like to help you in any way we can. Ryan Avery Schneider Optics

February 21st, 2008, 12:20 PM	#119
Chris van der Zaan Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 75	Hi Ryan. Thanks for your great reply. I have made some pictures, please look at them. I just played around with it some more and it seems the vignetting stays visible until about 4x zoom. (!) Considering the zoom gets blurry at about 6 this is pretty bad. Anything with less zoom shows vignetting. This is what i shot first, before i watched the footage on computer: http://users.bart.nl/users/mvdzaan/v...picture002.jpg http://users.bart.nl/users/mvdzaan/v...ure002_cam.jpg http://users.bart.nl/users/mvdzaan/v...picture004.jpg I did some readjustments tonight, by looking at the image on pc, and i was able to make it look like this. It is night at this moment, so i don't know what it looks like at daylight. (as you see at the other pictures the barrel is clearly visible, while it is black now) : http://users.bart.nl/users/mvdzaan/v...ture005_pc.jpg http://users.bart.nl/users/mvdzaan/v...ure005_cam.jpg This is the best i can get out of it. I have bought two pieces of the 16:9 58mm mount lense and both show the same issue on Sony VX2100 cam. Maybe both are an older revision of the lense? (bad luck) It would be great if we can fix this issue. I can send both adapters to the USA as soon as possible if needed.