Get a GH2. These lenses are cool toys, but the GH2 is amazing! (I've used the "king DLSR" 5DmkII, and it is no contest).

A great book about film cinematography is called "Masters of Light" (a collection of interviews with several top cinematographers such as Gordon Willis, Haskell Wexler, Conrad Hall, Vittorio Storraro, etc). It's not about anamorphic per se, but several of the DPs talk about shooting anamorphic. By the way, one of the best 2.35 scope films I've ever seen is "Klute" shot by Gordon Willis. Worth studying. The films of Sergio Leone, especially "Once Upon A Time in the West" is also worth a look or two.

The Sankor 16D is good. @B3Guy you should read this http://www.eoshd.com/anamorphic-guide :) Don't make a mistake and buy a paperweight lens.

The projection lenses cannot be taken apart and made good. The elements are designed to work in one configuration and they are sealed in tight. Also like all lenses the alignment of the elements has to be perfect down to the last microscopic measurement otherwise the image will be completely blurred.

The LA7200 is not a typical anamorphic lens, it is far more simple in construction than a focussing Isco or Kowa.

@EOSHD Right... :-) but the SANKOR 16D looks good!?
@Roberto You are 100% right here! And I'm trying to do the same! Thanks you for this words..
.. of course the first step is croping the shots :) (btw. I'm really looking forward to try out the RED EPIC at 5K.. and 2.35:1 shots ..:)
@stonebat Ohh.. 2560x1080 ... we really don't need this at this point I think... give it time...

Avoid the Ultra-Star! Or any other gold anamorphic projection lens. They're cheap for a reason.

Oh my god! Thank you for all! Such a helpful informations here! Well.. I'm looking into SANKOR 16D or ISCO ULTRA-STAR .. and I will try to experiment with this later... btw. these 1,33x/1,5x anamorphic lenses are little bit overpriced ..

bleach551

Thanks for the links.

bleach551

Sad to hear that about Redstan54...I also bought some anamorphics from him and always considered him good to deal with. Unfortunately Ebay/Paypal is very buyer biased when it comes to disputes...

Yes it's easy to crop 16:9 to whatever ratio one desires (with resolution loss) for pseudo anamorphic ; or to scale down 2x anamorphic acquisition to cut with 1.5x. I've made up several presets in Edius to do this...but it's just more work when dealing with hundreds of clips. The advantage is that excellent, very affordable 2x adapters can then be used.

The LA7200 is a lovely anamorphic which works well on my GH13's from 14mm to about 150mm. I have three semi-permanently mounted on: 20mm Nikkor; 50mm Zeiss Contax and 100mm Canon FD Macro. It's a 1.5x which produces a pleasing 2.65 aspect ratio. For my work this is a superb anamorphic which allows very close focus and even works with AF. Image quality is excellent. I actually like this adapter better than the over-rated over-priced Isco 1.5. However I'm not the only one to discover its merits as I notice the prices have gone from about $300 when I bought my lot to over $1000 on Ebay now.

I also use a couple of Century adapters in my underwater housings since they are very compact. However the image quality is not as good as the LA7200...and I'm currently trying to adapt one of the latter inside the housing's large glass dome for when my Pana 14mm arrives.

I have a few 2x Kowas, Sankors Isco and misc types...but they do stretch the image a bit too much. Fun to play with but a pain to use (dual focus) and can't get very close...better for use with longer lenses.

Another superb but rare anamorphic I love to use (since it cuts well with the LA7200) is an ISCO Inflight 1.5...now probably selling for around $1000, but worth it if you can find one. Mine is permanently clamped to a Nikkor 24mm...needs a matte box as it picks up flare around the edges. Just so happens a Croziel 3x3 fits it perfectly and allows the use of grad filters, etc.

The very best anamorphic clamps were made and sold by "Redstan" in the UK...hope he starts selling them again on Ebay... I really need some more.

Although it's been a few weeks since this was discussed, I'd thought I'd say something that seems to not get mentioned enough as a drawback in using anamorphic adapters: you can't use wide angle lenses!!!!! Nor can you use normal focal length lenses!!!

You're basically stuck with telephoto, and, it's hard to think of a film that you'd want to make restricted to this lens choice. (Yes, you can move your lens back to get a particular object the size you want, but you can't replicate the perspective of wide-angle or normal lenses.)

Most anamorphic filters, with the exception of the century and the LA7200, don't allow you to go any wider than, say, 40mm max (usually 50 is recommended) on something like the GH2. If you do go wider, then you have major vigenetting. Even the Cinemorph filter has this problem.

You can go wide and normal with the Century adapter, and, it seems, the LA7200. But the problem with doing so is that you either get really blurry (and ugly) edges or you have so many work arounds and limitations that it's a pain in the ass to use.

Until we get adapters that work across the wide-normal-telephoto lens spectrum (and that are not a pain in the ass in terms of double focusing and using clamps, etc), I think shooting an actual film on anamorphic on a dslr is a dead end. Unless, of course, you have the cash and can find a set of normal-range Lomo lenses.

@ed_lee83 The actor looks familiar. Is it you?

Nice color tone

For a Century, it does not require focusing, but in my case, I put it on a Nokton 50mm f1.1, as it conveniently has the same thread size of my Century Precision Optics 58mm.

However, with Anamorphic lens, you have to rotate the lens and adjust it to the correct position, otherwise the image would look "skewed", and it's not very easy to find the correct position.

But then because of the thickness or "thinness" of the Nokton's filter thread, I have been unable to rotate the Century after it has been screwed firmly onto the taking lens.

With other anamorphic lens, especially older ones meant for projection, there are simply more difficulties, like finding an appropriate anamorphic lens clamp(usually overpriced) is also not easy.

The point I have been trying to make is one would run into all sorts of unexpected problems and inconveniences, and the results and burden required may not be as rewarding as one would expect.

Color correction in post could help achieve the film look that we all love, flares could be cool in 1 shot or 2 max, but anything more than that would be very irritating(i.e. who wants a torch pointing directly at his/her eyes all the time?). I guess it's about the objectiveness of considering the way our audience would like to receive the message we try to express.

But you are right, in the mean time anamorphic lens are for "controlled shooting", however definitely not for shooting in guerilla style, not without a good shoulder rig at least IMO.