Cheap anamorphic lenses for m43

wilcovdakker

Best patch for anamorphic filming? I just bought myself a Kowa B&H and want to do some experimenting. I use the FlowMotion patch but looking for a stable hack to shoot anamorphic style. Any advise/experiences? Thanks!

kclem

Has anyone considered making an anamorphic adapter out of wedge shaped prisms like seen http://www.zuggsoft.com/theater/prism.htm on this guys projector? It seems very easy to construct. I imagine the chromatic aberration will be bad but very predictable perhaps making software correction a possibility.

AlbertZ

@kclem very interesting diy project!

kavadni

@kclem .. I have found the crystals you need.

I am just waiting for me to have the cash when they have their storewide discounts http://www.surplusshed.com/pages/item/l9113d.html

OzNimbus

Hey all,

Been working pretty hard with a Century Anamorphic adapter & various taking lenses. I managed to find a Century with a 58mm thread in mint condition.

I've worked with numerous taking lenses, everything from 50mm down to the Olympus 12 (which is unusable because of the Vignette) .

50mm works great, 37mm mir is great too. Most of my Super Takumar stuff falls apart in the sides & the CA can be horrendous.... especially with a 20mm lens. The Canon FD 20mm 2.8 isn't as bad, but the focus mechanism moves the filter ring (and the attached anamorphic) so forget about pulling focus.
The best taking lens I've used so far with this is the 14-42mm kit lens. It's over-sharp look works wonders with the Century in front of it... the two seem to balance each other out. Unfortunately, to avoid vignetting, it has to be zoomed in to about 25mm. I'm curious as to how the Panasonic 20mm pancake would work.

Close-focus on the Century is outsanding, you can really get in tight with this thing!

I'll have to post a demo reel later this week just to show how everything works.

johnnym

@kclem I've been looking into it. Basically all you need is to make something like the old Delramas. The sharpness can suffer in my experience, but if you stop down the taking lens enough, you can get great looking footage.

Nowadays there's not really a comparable design that's being made. I contacted Thorlabs to find out if they sell 1.5x anamorphic, but it seems the closest they sell is 2x, which is less interesting : http://www.thorlabs.de/NewGroupPage9.cfm?ObjectGroup_ID=149 I'm not even sure these would work well for photography.

By the way, I've seen a few Delramas on ebay today. I don't know if i can place the links here. I'm not the seller. I mention it for anyone who's interested, cause the price seems ok.

Would be nice to startup a new line of prism anamorphics that have both immense quality and at a very low price, for all those indies who cannot afford Schneider-Kreuznach or Iscorama anamorphic attachments.

kclem

@kavadni The guy from the link I posted was using crystal wedges normally used for awards but without any engraving. Supposedly they are optically clear and can be purchased here http://www.crystalgiftsengraved.com/standupawards.html (scroll to middle, called "Optic Crystal Wedge Award") and I'm sure many other places. Depending on the size of your front element you might be able to buy 1 and cut it in half.

Another wild idea I had was using a conically shaped mirror. The camera would be pointed 90 degrees more or less from the subject, straight up would probably be best. People often grind their own mirrors for telescope making to incredible specs in their garages, and a conical shape would be an easy shape to achieve. They grind them from glass then deposit vaporized aluminum on them to create the mirror surface. This would probably be too much work for a one off product but the benefit would be no chromatic aberration or other lens created distortions or internal reflections

_gl

Long shot, but do any of you know of any small anamorphic 2x (or ~2.1x) lens elements?

I'm trying to add one to the Panny Lumix 3D lens. It shoots 3D with two tiny lenses that are spaced only 10mm apart. A 3D adapter like that should be anamorphic so you get normal-sized images, but Panny didn't bother and so you're stuck with useless portrait format.

I want to try a single anamorphic element placed over the two lenses. Hacking a massive old projection lens seems overkill & expensive. There is a cheap small anamorphic add-on for iPhones (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/moondoglabs/133x-anamorphic-adapter-lens-for-iphone-5-5s), but it's only 1.3x.

BurnetRhoades

I had previously been convinced that a few 3D movies from the '80s were shot anamorphic but they weren't. There basically isn't a precedent for 3D anamorphic.

The inter-ocular of the 3D Panasonic lens will likely create very strange distortion with the anamorphic adapter because neither "eye" is down the optical center of the squeeze lens.

You're looking at headache city, if it works at all.

_gl

It's not to get an anamorphic look, it's to recover the sensor aspect ratio. An adapter like this divides the sensor, each side stores an eye view - so each is in portrait format (see pic). And that also divides the hFOV.

With a 2x anamorphic squeeze you can recover the 16:9 aspect for each view (and fov).

I'm also wondering if just the anamorphic front lens element would work, rather than sticking a whole multi-lens (usually two right) adapter on there. Ideally I'd want just a small (~2cm) anamorphic lens element. Others have used eg. a single wide-angle adapter to cover both lenses on dedicated 3D stills cameras and it worked for them.

BurnetRhoades

Your intention is academic. The optics are gonna be weird and likely cause unnecessary eye strain. Even with a dual-camera setup and optics properly aligned the risk of creating an uncomfortable image is great enough nobody has done it with anamorphics (yet).

Any flaring would create a sort of depth paradox as well.

Who knows though, you'd have to try it and see if it gives you a headache. Odds are it will but having worked on a few stereo films the brain really wants to reconcile both images into a single coherent scene.

_gl

You're guessing. And I've been shooting & processing (with my own code) high-quality dual-body 3D for a while, it would not be hard to shoot anamorphic with two cams. You're right about flares, but they're an issue without anamorphic anyway.

BurnetRhoades

Nobody is questioning whether it's possible. Whether or not you're shooting footage that makes your audience want to scoop out their eyes with a spoon is the question.

None of your experience has anything to do with shooting off-axis through a compressed lens either.

_gl

If you're an optics expert and you know for sure that it can't be done, even with say another corrective lens element, fine. I don't think you are.

Let's not labour irrelevant points about stereo and drag this thread back on topic - is anyone aware of a small ~2x anamorphic lens element I can experiment with?

Lavalamp

Hello, I just ordered my first lens, Sankor 16C

I'm still doubtful if GH4 or a7s, but since I have the Voigtlander 25mm and slr magic 12mm, I might just go for the gh4 instead of selling the glass and change to Sony. Wait for the GH5! Anyways:

1) What kind of adapter must I buy to put in front of the camera rear? Is there any cheap free-shipping-from-china version I could use for that?

2) What size of Diopters would I need? I heard they can be more expensive than the lens it self! (most likely, lol :p)

3) I've seen people using something called "Hoya +1, +2, +4 (or something like that)". Chromatic something... What does this do to our anamorphic lenses?

4) Why sometimes your videos/stills look "so filmic" in terms of that weird-beautiful distortion you see on the sides/backgrounds. But sometimes, other videos are not so distorted, and just look normal (beautiful, but normal), not with that amazing "vintage effect" anamorphics are known of.

Does it have to do with the aperture you shoot, or...?

Thanks a lot for any help guys :)

maskare

Iscomorphot 8/1.5x is nice one. It is mentioned here before but I have to vote for it also :) size is perfect, not so expensive and single focus. Cons are: soft until f4 or f5.6 (but this might be advantage if u like dreamy like look), quite hard to find.

I haven't had enough time to use it but shot one film with it. I love the dreamy like image and used it as advantage with this lens :)

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