@EOSHD

Are there any relatively inexpensive ways to monitor/frame while shooting anamorphic? Seems like none of the inexpensive monitors (e.g., under $350 or so) do this. What did you use before you had the Zacuto?

Thanks once again to Vitaliy, PTool 3.62d now supports MJPEG frame sizes beyond 1920 pixels wide. I've made use of this new feature to optimize the GH2 for native anamorphic shooting with both 1.33X adapters in HD video mode, as well as 2X adapters in VGA video mode. Used with an appropriate anamorphic lens, these MJPEG modes will produce videos that are automatically played back at the correct widescreen aspect ratio, without need for post-production stretching:

HD mode: 1920x810 videos for 1.33X anamorphic adapters, with peak bitrates of 100Mbps.
VGA mode: 2160x810 videos for 2X anamorphic adapters, with peak bitrates of 100Mbps.

Note that the 2160x810 VGA mode produces an aspect ratio of 2.66:1. For a 2.37:1 aspect ratio, you'll want to crop these videos to a 1920x810 frame size.

No, the anamorphic MJPEG modes do not stretch the frames in-camera, they make it unnecessary to stretch the frames in post-production. The HD anamorphic mode produces frames that actually contain 1920x810 pixels, downsampled from the 12-bit RGB image sensor before they are converted into 8-bit, 4:2:0 YCC MJPEG format. Unlike non-anamorphic modes, these pixels do not need to be stretched or resampled, because the anamorphic property of the lens is precisely inverted by the complementary anamorphic property of the video frame, producing natively square pixels.

The disadvantage of stretching a non-anamorphic frame in post is that you must work with compressed 8-bit, 4:2:0 YCC data, which is inevitably of lower quality than the original 12-bit RGB image sensor data. As for 1080p, a widescreen movie at that resolution would need to be 2560 pixels wide, which is too high a resolution for all but high end distribution purposes. In practice, virtually all Blu-ray quality widescreen movies are letterboxed within an actual resolution of about 1920x810.

@LPowell
heartfelt 1000x thanks for these new settings!

Shot all day thru my (Sorry EOS Andrew) shit generic anamorphic - sharper than any LA7200 Ive seen, dumped in the shoot to his AVID interrupting the new Take That DVD, to really see if Im blind/mad - nope sharper than a sharp thing edge to edge at F2 >> - I may be mad, hence why I shot imported and showed this world class editor what even a cheap old bit of glass (Sorry EOS) can do - and again Im sorry - this man has cut the best shit you've seen and does weekly,and he concurs - my old bit of shit generic is tack sharp - sorry !

Like Hendrix playing a shit old Squier or Beatles using old English EMI Ch
andler cack - don't listen to anyone else, make your own mistakes, experiment, it's not ALL about gear. Have fun make your own decisions. Its only telly or film or ...

Sorry not being antagonistic (to you die hard Anamorphs) but Im looking at this footage I've shot drunk today - focus thru ghetto cheap adapter and Redstan Tokina 0.4 + 20mm 1.7 - looks on a HD monitor in the suite, with (actually equally drunk editor) sharp as a nats chuff - far more edge to edge detail than anything seen from the AG7200 ever - several beers later, this is corroborated by a BBC old sod with us - who funnily confirmed only the Century was accepted by the BBC, hell if that actually means owt?! Hey In the end I point it focus + shoot - no double focus, wait wait wait oh do it again? Ive snooped a whole day with no-one actually knowing my cheapo shit ol rig has ever been there - is it really real world poo - dunno, not going to pixel peep, Im going to give it to an editor who really believes the GH2 cant beat the Canon - hell I can't shoot for shit, hence if he likes it ...:) Might be funny result may not!

thanks for the number, and for the work you do on these patches.

@LPowell
Can you direct me to the discussion topic of this latest patch?
Until now I've only enabled PAL/English Language. I need to see what people are doing with anamorphic MJPEG.

@LPowell
Congrats! Isco's coatings are topnotch!!

I noticed that the LA7200 really doesn't like long focal lengths (>40mm). Is this something diopters helps?

Chris

I noticed that LA7200 lens have dropped drastically in price over the past couple of months. I just bought 2 for under $1300. I also managed to pick up a tiffen +0.5D 4.5" diopter. I might pick up the Redstan achromat for some testing if the tiffen turns out to be crap. Anyone have any brilliant idea on how to attach these diopters to the front of the lens AND still make use of my matte boxes?