Using 2x Anamorphic on Panasonic S1H mirrorless: pixel count, aspect ratio & cropping - question

[Bill Stone]

Hi, I'm looking to use - and convince the director to go along with it - a set of 2 x anamorphic on a production company's Panasonic S1H mirrorless camera(s) for a production down the road.  I like Panasonic colour, and this camera can output 12 bit color to an external recorder.  I'm a bit confused with understanding the anamorphic workflow, however.

First, I should say I don't have access to the camera right now for tests. 

The S1H shoots anamorphic 3536 x 2656 onto its Super35 sensor, so 1.33.   My thinking is that, de-squeezed, I end up with a 7072 x 2656 frame @ 2.66 x 1.  Considering the anamorphic is 2.4 x, I'm guessing I'm cropping the image to ~ 6348 x 2656 (losing 362 pixels per side) to give a final 2.39 x 1 ratio.

I suppose then we down-scale the 6348 x 2656 into a 4K frame ?

I haven't been able to get a clear answer on this.  Thanks, BS

[Chris Burke]

Have you considered using 1.8x, 1.6x, 1.5x, 1.33x squeeze lenses? Little to no cropping with those depending upon the format you shoot in

I recommend shooting at the highest resolution the camera can offer and yes, down sampling to the required deliverable resolution. 

[David Mullen ASC]

Anamorphic is traditionally 2X, not 2.4X. But often the final delivery aspect ratio is 2.40 : 1. Which means the actual area of the sensor used is 1.20 : 1. You look at the pixel count of the recording and take the vertical number of pixels and multiply by 1.2X to get the number of horizontal pixels that will be used for 1.20 : 1 image area.

But in terms of the post conversion (desqueeze and crop), there are a number of paths.

[Joerg Polzfusz]

4 hours ago, Bill Stone said:

The S1H shoots anamorphic 3536 x 2656 onto its Super35 sensor, so 1.33.   My thinking is that, de-squeezed, I end up with a 7072 x 2656 frame @ 2.66 x 1.  

Hi!

You have got three options:

a) double the width

b) halve the height

c) leave the resolution as is and only alter the pixels‘ aspect ratio: 

(Okay, you could also do a combination of a) and b), and e.g. end up with 4096x1525.)

Edited April 9, 2023 by Joerg Polzfusz

[David Mullen ASC]

If you record 3328 x 2496 (4:3) with a 2X squeeze, you end up with a 2.66 : 1 desqueezed.

But how much you crop to get 2.66 to 2.40 depends on the delivery specs -- is it a 4K DCP or 16x9 UHD (3840 x 2160) with a 2.40 letterbox?

Because with the DCP, a scope image area is 4096 x 1716 (2.387 : 1).  With 16x9 UHD home video / broadcast, you can letterbox "scope" to whatever you like: 2.35, 2.40, 2.39, etc. 

[Bill Stone]

Great info, thanks to all.