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Anamorphic Super 16mm


Brad Grimmett

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I worked on a music video the other day and we shot with a SR3 and Panavision anamorphic lenses. I didn't ask too many questions about the reasons for this on set, but I'm wondering what the advantages are. Has anyone done this before? What was your reasoning behind it? Also, I'm wondering what the aspect ratio is. It was pretty darn wide, but I haven't attempted to figure out what aspect ratio it actually was. It was certainly a fun challenge keeping good horizons all day on steadicam. I only used three different lenses....the 28mm, 35mm, and 50mm. I believe they were C series. Since these are all pretty wide lenses I'm wondering what the distortion will be like on S16mm. Will it be less pronounced than in 35mm?

OK, I think that's enough questions. I'm interested to hear what you guys think.

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The aspect ratio will be 2X the normal horizontal width of S16, so 2 x 1.68 = 3.36 : 1.

 

But they'll probably trim the sides.

 

While a 28mm anamorphic is really wide-angle and distorted in 35mm, in Super-16, it would be more like using a 50mm anamorphic in 35mm, only moderately wide. Of course, if they trim the sides down, it becomes even less wide.

 

The only real advantage over simply cropping spherical Super-16 is when you want anamorphic lens artifacts.

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but I'm wondering what the advantages are.

with frontal light you get this nice horizontal flares that only anamorphic lenses do, like in this squarepusher-video cunningham did some years ago...

 

and due to the longer lenses you get less DOF

 

It was pretty darn wide, but I haven't attempted to figure out what aspect ratio it actually was.

 

it doubles the width, so 2x1.66 is 3.32, that's pretty panoramic, :huh:

 

cheers, Bernhard

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The aspect ratio will be 2X the normal horizontal width of S16, so 2 x 1.68 = 3.36 : 1.

 

But they'll probably trim the sides.

 

While a 28mm anamorphic is really wide-angle and distorted in 35mm, in Super-16, it would be more like using a 50mm anamorphic in 35mm, only moderately wide. Of course, if they trim the sides down, it becomes even less wide.

 

The only real advantage over simply cropping spherical Super-16 is when you want anamorphic lens artifacts.

3.36:1....yikes! Now I'm getting scared to see how my horizons look! :o

I'm sure they'll trim the sides, but I don't think they know how much. They certainly didn't make it clear to me on the day.

I realize the lens artifacts are a reason someone would want to shoot this way, but I was under the assumption that there were other reasons. We did let things flare here and there, but I never got the impression that that was the only reason for using anamorphic lenses. But I never really got any reason for why we were doing it, so it may have just been "one of those things".

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