Native 2:35:1

[Chris Hurd]

I don't get it either -- just how is that effect related to shooting anamorphic?

[Michael Krumlauf]

What you are refurring to i think is what people do when they shoot Super 35mm is they crop the 2:35 image from the square frame.

If you wanted to do anamorphic with HDV cameras u just do what i do with the Xl2 which is using an anamorphic lens in front of the camera's lens. I would love to see someone try that with a high def camera.

I mean u could get true 2:35 with a varicam or cinealta when using the anamorphic adapter! that would be cool to see!

[Jack Barker]

This was actually a query about another Mike's post, above.

[Chris Hurd]

It's this one:

Originally Posted by Mike Tapa

The real beauty of Anamo (anamorphic) shots is the distortion of the out of focus elements of the image and the effect of focus pulls.

[Jack Barker]

Thanks, Chris! I coulda, shoulda, oughta done that myself.

[Cole McDonald]

Here's an explanation of the focus past half zoom (search page for astigmatism):

http://www.gthelectronics.com/anamorph.htm

[Adam Bray]

Michael, so you just put on the adapter and shot in 16:9 mode on tha XL2, then unsqueezed in in FCP? How does the footage look in the viewfinder? Any problems there?

[Ryan Mueller]

The only reason for doing this is if you are going to be viewing the final product on an extremely large screen, am I mistaken? Personaly, I hate a letterboxed image! You pay all this money for a widescreen tele only to fill up a small portion of the screen.

The thing that is beneficial about shooting anamorphic in the first place is the ability to take advantage of the entire real estate of the widescreen television. No?

Sorry, this whole letterboxed image thing is driving me nuts right now. I have noticed that on a specific cable movie channel, not mentioning any names, they are actually taking movies that were manipulated to 4:3 and then letterboxing that image! Now, not only are you missing the picture on the sides, but now the tops of peoples heads are being chopped off too!

I guess my point to this rant is that it all depends on the application, right? If the target audience will be viewing on a traditional television shoot 4:3, widescreen Anamorphic, and then 2.35 on the projection film screen. Please correct me if there is something that I am missing.

Thanks,
Ry

[Adam Bray]

Originally Posted by Ryan Mueller

The only reason for doing this is if you are going to be viewing the final product on an extremely large screen, am I mistaken?

Thanks,
Ry

I would say you're mistaken. I see 2:35 TV commercials all the time. One example is the Priceline.com commercials. Though I'm not sure if it's just cropped.

[Jack Barker]

Hmmm. This rather begs the question, why on earth would anyone want to do this in the first place? Not many of us are going to see our work projected on a 2.35:1 theater screen. The future of television is 16:9, and it's been a struggle to get that aspect ratio. My suspicion is that for some, it just looks cool, but I also suspect that it has no practical value.

Am I wrong?

[John C. Chu]

A couple years back, before DV cameras put a high quality 16:9 mode as standard, I sought to take advantage of my new widescreen TV.

The Century Optics 16:9 anamorphic lens for DV cameras was too expensive for me, so I looked for other options.

After reading Ben Syverson's widescreen page, [which is no longer available, but you can read it on the Wayback Machine]:

http://web.petabox.bibalex.org/web/2...een/index.html

I went ahead and found a film camera/projector Bell & Howell 2X squeeze lens on eBay for like $80 and was able to mount it with a Series 7 to 46mm thread adapter.

The anamorphic 2X squeeze len---which squeezes only in one axis-- doubles the width of the 1.33 frame, so you get--voila---2.66 full scope!

Since the lens is made for a film camera, you had to zoom in to remove vignetting, and I had to back up while shooting.

But the results were fun and quite amazing.

I had to scale/letterbox the full image onto a 16:9 DV frame show and then make a anamorphic DVD out of it.

Of course, there are many problems working with this "format". You had to make sure your horizons are level. You have to make sure your lens is completely vertical when mounted on the camera or you will get your fun house mirror effect, where everything is tilted.

The best part of the lens is the cool "effects" inherent in this type of lens. Light flares, bumps and mumps, when you pan across a room. Just like how "Die Hard" looks on film.

In essence, with that 2x lens, I was shooting "Full scope"

I did eventually buy that Century Optics lens, and later I did get a PDX10.

And yes, I briefly tried the double 16:9 trick with the Century Optics on the PDX10--and it definitely works---but I don't think you get the kind of the distortions like a real 2x squeeze lens.

It was fun shooting my "Cinemascope" home movie "masterpieces", but ultimately, it was pain in the butt.

Attached are frame grab examples.

[Michael Krumlauf]

I am posting my method on this thread for easier reading, so u dont have to travel to another post to see what i do, also in the past few days i found an error in my method and have the method updated here anyway so, its all good.

I just recently got the Panasonic Anamorphic Adapter as a gift. As most of you know that lens was made for the DVX cameras to let the DVX100 shoot was the Xl2 already shoots natively, but in my experimenting and research i found that if you attach the anamorphic lens on a native 16:9 camera of any kind, you can get the aspect ratio of 2:35:1. Here is my method for shooting and editing it.

1.) When filming you will see that ur image is anamorphicly squeezed into the 16:9 frame so focusing may be a problem in some tight shots. Also note that you can only zoom in about half way then after that the focal lengths are just blurred.

*I USE FINAL CUT PRO 5 FOR EDITING!!!*
1.) Import the clip as u would a 16:9 image

2.) Depending on what frame rate you shot it at, drop the footage in the --fps timeline which should be set for 16:9. Now in the motion tab, go to distort, aspect ratio, and set that to -32, and there you go, proper 2:35:1!!!! Now because say on a DVD it cant properly show 2:35, i just export the clip as i would a 16:9 file! Looks great and is amazing.

Now a guy on YouTube said that this was not 2:35 because he said the footage had barrel distortion which if you where smart and have shot anamorphic on 35mm that in wide shots there is barrel distortion. so just to clear that up ;).

Mike

[Nic Smith]

While Mike talks about having no "resolution loss" with the lens, IMO there actually is really not any advantage over just a simple cropping of the 16:9 footage. From looking at the anamorphic footage, you may get a slightly wider angle than when cropping footage from the original lens, but this is not much of an advantage, simply because of the output. I'll explain.

Because the XL2 is a DV camera, most people would only ever output to DVD. Because DVD only supports 16:9, and not 2.35, the 2.35 footage from the anamorphic lens is going to end up having the same resolution as footage that has just been cropped, because 16:9 is the widest aspect supported by DVD.

You could argue, what if the output was to something of higher resolution. If that's the case, the next thing up is HD and you would be better off with a native HD camera to do that.

You'll note that the detail of something shot on 35mm film has the same detail as something shot on an XL2 when viewed from a DVD. The film footage might look better, but in the end it is the detail and resolution gains of an anamorphic lens that most people find attractive, and because of the SD output of the XL2, there is hardly any point bothering with an expensive lens to get 2.35 when the output is going to be exactly the same resolution of a simple cropping from the original lens.

Sorry if thats a bit long. Hope you understand it... :)

[Stephan Loehr]

Nic you are absolutely right!

[Michael Krumlauf]

please watch http://youtube.com/watch?v=IuV2USTFOvg

This explains everything, i did a test and my theory came out right, you have a better image with the adapter then cropping it. Cropping the 16x9 frame losses resolution with the anamorphic adapter your not loosing anything.