Anamorphic Primes / Zooms

Jayson Crothers · November 11, 2004

Hey All~

My upcoming show just went to anamorphic; while I'm obvioulsy thrilled, I also have very limited experience with this format and given the brief time we have left before we shoot, I won't have the proper test time (the story of our lives).

I'm looking at the Hawks based on some tests I did a while back for something else, but I also need a few zoom shots. Does anyone know how the following lenses fare in terms of optical quality and possibly intercutting with the Hawk primes (but not within the same scene).

34-204 Angenieux T4.5

50-500mm Angenieux T5.6

50-500mm Cooke T5.6

Also, having never had much use for Diopters, what are some of the disadvantages I might run into when using them (since I have a huge number of inserts as well).

I'm also hunting around for specs like size and minimum focus on these. Any help is appreciated.

Thanks everyone! And as so many have said already, digging through the archives these past days was such an overwhelming education and amazing resource - did you all know we have literally HUNDREDS of pages of information on anamorphic buried within the archives? Astounding......

I love this place.

David Mullen ASC · November 12, 2004

I know this is very unscientific, but generally you can tell how good a zoom is by the rental price.

Anyway, the Ang. HR 50-500mm is probably slightly newer and better than the Cooke 50-500mm, but even the Cooke has a Mk II and III version (the Mk III version weighs 19 lbs!) The Ang. is probably the lightest one you listed.

My other general rule is that the shorter the zoom range, the less glass, and therefore it is probably a better zoom, although the 11:1 Primo is apparently better than the 7:1 Primo zoom, so go figure...

So if it's very expensive to rent and it has a limited zoom range, it's probably the best quality zoom!

I also don't see needing to zoom tighter than 204mm in a lot of situations. I've never been a big user of the 10:1 35mm zooms anyway...

Diopters are sort of a must-carry anyway, but if you can, I'd also find a macro anamorphic lens. I usually use the 200mm macro Panavision anamorphic. Clairmont has a 200mm Todd-AO macro and a 400mm Nikkor macro listed under their anamorphic lens list.

Edited November 12, 2004 by David Mullen

Jayson Crothers · November 12, 2004

Thanks David!

The only reason I'm looking at the 10:1 zooms is because of two very long lens shots the director has in mind - we don't have the resources for a specific long prime or for two zooms, so the 10:1 is a compromise on my behalf - he also has two zoom shots that are of paramount importance.

Max Jacoby · November 12, 2004

If you are shooting with the Hawks, then another option would be using the Hawk 46-230mm T4 zoom. You need to be aware of however that you need to stop it down a couple of stops for good performance. Wide-open it is a bit soft and the contrast is less good. When I used it last time, I noticed that on the long end the corners get a bit darker than the centre.

It does macro as well, but otherwise there are 65mm and a 120mm close-focus Hawk primes too.

Adam Frisch FSF · November 12, 2004

Irreverent Adam again: they don't have to match. What can't be corrected in grade such as sharpness and artifacting, is not visible to a viewer. An edited film doesn't match anyway - every edit is subliminally a "new" look to the brain. Complete consistency would be futile to try to achieve - those efforts are better spent elsewere.

Peter Martin · November 13, 2004

Jayson,

We are ready when you are! Vantage would be happy to ship the Hawk V-Series 46-230mm/T4 zoom lens or the V-Series 300-900mm/T4 to your favorite rental house for your evaluation. It is wintertime here - so you can expect low rates for a possible rental deal (we do not charge tests anyway).

Some of our V-Series Primes are focusing down to 2 feet. The V-Series 120mm/3.5 Super Close Focus prime lens gets its own front element in focus - if you want.

All the Hawks are working very well with diopters. We are producing SLIDE DIOPTERS that are covering the wide primes as well. They are fitting in the Arri LMB-4 Matte Box.

You can call me at any time for further questions. ;)

Please find more information and contact details on our website: www.vantagefilm.com

Peter Martin

Vantage Film - Hawk Lens Design

Jayson Crothers · November 15, 2004

Great input everyone; thank you very much!

mattuhry · November 18, 2004

Hi Jayson,

Both the Cooke and Ang. 5-1 and 10-1 zooms are converted by putting an anamorphic module behind the primary lens much like putting on a 2x extender, except it just stretches (extends) the vertical. These modules can vary quite a bit in quality. You'll typically see the problems in a soft band at the top and bottom - less acceptable to me than the slight falloff in definition that you get on primes which tend to be a little soft on the sides instead. Lenses converted in this way also lack the distintive anamorphic bokeh and flares that anamorphic shooters like, but tend to also have much less barrel distortion than the wider anamorphic primes tend to have.

IMHO the color matching of the lenses is really not a big deal. There are very few situations that I've encountered where I had to shoot with both the prime and the zoom and I could not time it to look 100% correct to my eye. ( Not even talking about the genereal public! ) The lack of contrast in some of the older zoom lenses however could be a problem.

A few zoom lenses have front anamorphic elements, such as the Panavision 40-85 t2.8 ( not manufactured yet ) the Panavison ALZ ( a bit of a rarity ) and some of the Hawk lenses. These lenses have characteristics more like the primes.

Good luck and let me know how it goes.

Matt Uhry

matt@fuzby.com