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Anamorphic lenses on digital cameras. Why?


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It seems to me to be the latest craze. Anamorphic lenses on digital cameras for a digital release.

 

My question is: What do you like about using anamorphic lenses vs. cropped spherical lenses for 2.39:1 release.

 

I understand that one gets a few more pixels when using a 4:3 sensor with anamorphic lenses, but 4k (or even 2k) spherical /cropped capture looks pretty darned sharp and noise free.

 

Is it the distortion in anamorphic capture that you like?

 

Is there a difference in the field of view of the vertical vs. the horizontal? IOW, comparing an anamorphic lens to a spherical lens that captures the same horizontal angle of view, is there a difference in the vertical angle of view?

 

I ask this because now that we're capturing on digital devices vs. the film of the old days, the difference in technical quality is not great (sharpness, noise/grain). So it must be something else.

 

For me, sometimes I like the anamorphic effect, sometimes not. But I rarely feel that the difference is so great as to make a great difference in the experience of watching the movie.

 

So why is there so much desire to shoot with anamorphic lenses and the extra size, weight, focus, and possibly lighting requirements?

 

I'm truly interested in your thoughts. Thanks!

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I think it is mainly for the optical artifacts, for various reasons -- one is nostalgia, they remind the filmmakers and perceptive viewers of classic anamorphic movies that they grew up with, and the second is that shot at wide apertures, there is a softening that takes the curse of "too sharp" digital images.

 

You can suggest the expanded horizontal field of view though to me that doesn't make much sense when you can just use a wider-angle spherical lens. And unless your digital camera has a 4:3 sensor that is the same size as 4-perf 35mm then odds are that you'll be cropping the sides of your anamorphic image shot on a widescreen sensor just to get back to 2.40, but at a loss of horizontal width, plus your focal lengths and thus your depth of field will be closer to what you'd get with a spherical lens.

 

And as for depth of field, with the newer high-quality T/1.4 spherical lenses out there, it isn't hard to get a shallow focus on the level of the T/2.8 anamorphics out there.

 

So for me, it boils down to the artifacts, the stretched bokeh and the horizontal flares. And I think in a crowded field of competitors, some people feel that having some odd optical artifact helps them stand out from the crowd.

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I second David's theory. A lot of my friends who use anamorphic on digital, are using it for the lens flare and other optical artifacts. One of my friends uses anamorphic's exclusively and his stuff is really pretty.

 

If I had my druthers, I would use the Hawk 1.3x anamorphic's on a digital feature without question. The idea of matting down the top and the bottom to get 2.35:1, doesn't really interest me as much. Even though for that aspect ratio, the digital projector will be cropping the top and bottom.

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I think its all about texture and style, it gives a very unique quality to footage. I did a project with 1.3x animorphic and we were forced to shoot one angle without the anamorphic due to mechanical issues, and no matter how hard I tried I was never able to make that angle feel like it fit with the rest of the shots, it just felt sharp and boring.

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I just want to say that I think that David nailed the answer.

 

In today's digital cameras people are trying to break the "digital" look by using filters, old lenses, shooting wide open and such.

 

Anamorphic lenses on the other hand offer different artefacts and flaws that spherical lenses don't, not only that but also there are some anamorphic lenses which nobody would have used in the past because they were considered very bad (like the Cineovision lenses wide open), however on digital cameras they create a look which is less digital and hence acceptable or desirable and they are very in demand.

 

I do think that anamorphic lenses have a different feeling that spherical lenses can't achieve even if you shoot wide open with spherical lenses.

 

Of course, if you want to be very close to your subject without any kind of diopters.. anamorphic lenses are not the ones!

 

 

So for me, it boils down to the artifacts, the stretched bokeh and the horizontal flares. And I think in a crowded field of competitors, some people feel that having some odd optical artifact helps them stand out from the crowd.

 

It definitely helps in some fields, like the commercial one! :)

Have a lovely day!.

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Technically speaking a spherical lens will far outperform an anamorphic in pretty much every way, and the finished image in terms of pixel count will be roughly the same. If anything, anammorphics cost you more technically since you're also recording more data (and paying a lot more for a lens rental!)-- but to be completely honesty, technical I think should be secondary to look and feel. No one in the viewing public will really care what lens you shot on, but they will care about how the images make them feel, so trying to get the feeling appropriate to the story and how you're telling it is generally why we should, at least, tend towards one lens set over another.

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I just finished shooting a short that the producer was dead set (for texture reasons) on using anamorphic. We wound up using the C100 (16x9 s35 sensor) and the 1.33x anamorphot adapter with the just the 24-105L to eliminate lens changes and to try and keep the frames sharper. I also have the Odyssey7 which allows a live desqueeze on set. I was happy to see the image was larger than the C100 sensor once properly ran through post production to get the 2.39:1 (2.36:1 technically). The final output is 2554x1080 and it looked MUCH better than the cropping hack I've done up until this point. I also liked getting the 25mm field of view with a 50mm look. I am now officially converted to loving anamorphic and would really like to try a proper PL mount setup (or even m4/3) to see how those old beasts really drive! The adaptor is cute and it works, but focus was certainly finicky.

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