Anamorphics designed for smartphones, drones, …used on other cameras?

[Joerg Polzfusz]

Hi!

When browsing through eBay, Amazon, Wish, …, you’ll easily stumble across very, very cheap, new Chinese anamorphics that are supposed to be mounted onto smartphones. I bought two of them for 30-40€ each (including shipping) - one with a factor of 1.33x and another one with a factor of 1.55x. They are working fine on my iPhone 7, especially in combination with FilmicPro. But when I tried to mount them onto other cameras, e.g. Fujica P2, I noticed that they cannot be used as they are causing vignetting. Anyone succeeded in using any of these cheap optics on something else than a smartphone, e.g. by removing the plastic on their rear?

I noticed that there are also cheap anamorphics for some drones or some „GoPro“-cameras. Would they be larger and hence large enough for another camera?

 

Edited November 25, 2022 by Joerg Polzfusz

[Johanan Pandone]

I don't think you will have much luck. They're usually not designed to cover anything larger than a 1/3" sensor. You might be able to make one work with a long lens (85mm or more) from an old rangefinder stills camera as they often have a filter thread diameter of around 40mm. There are anamorphic attachments for smartphones with a 35mm rear thread if you manage to find all of the above along with a filter thread adapter that steps down to 35mm you might pull it off but the end result probably isn't worth all the effort. You're better off adapting a cheap anamorphic projector lens to a 50mm (s35/aps-c) or 85mm (full frame) the adapters are readily available