Shooting with Anamorphic Lenses on Arri Amira

[Marcus Taplin]

Has anyone shot on the Amira with Anamorphic lenses? I know it can't shoot 4:3 like the Alexa XT or the Alexa Mini but just wondering what the process is. I have a project coming up where I would like to shoot with my Amira on the Cooke Anamorphics but still trying to work out all the tech details on it. Delivering to 16x9 but pretty sure client is still onboard for having it 2:39 aspect in a 16x9 space. Any tips or links with info on what I should research more for on set framing or how the post workflow works, planning to do a test in the next couple of days also.

 

Thanks guys!

 

~Marcus

[Shawn Sagady]

You could look into 1.33x anamorphic lenses which will give you the 2.4:1 ratio on a 16x9 sensor. I have done this and loved it, but it will not be as pronounced as if shot with a 2x anamorphic lens. You can still use 2x Anamorphic lenses on 16x9 sensors but you will have to crop off the sides and throw away some resolution. That might be alright if you are starting with a high enough resolution.

[David Mullen ASC]

If you can shoot 3.2K ProRes, then you have some flexibility to crop the sides if using 2X anamorphics on a 16x9 sensor to get decent resolution for a 1080P master. If you are going to crop all the way to fill a 16x9 HD image without letterboxing, then the 3.2K ProRes recording is 3200 x 1800 but cropped to 1600 x 1800 and then expanded horizontally back to 3200 x 1800 to get rid of the 2X squeeze and then rescaled to 1920 x 1080.

[Marcus Taplin]

Thanks guys for the suggestions! Tested everything out and on shoot day everything went smooth. Can't wait to shoot with some anamorphics again!

[George Kenwyn Tyler]

Thanks guys for the suggestions! Tested everything out and on shoot day everything went smooth. Can't wait to shoot with some anamorphics again!

 

Hi Marcus,

 

I'm looking to shoot anamorphic on an Amira as the B_Cam to a Mini. Obviously I will be fine on the Mini as it can shoot 4:3. I was wondering if you could send me step by step how you achieved the above results with the Amira?

 

Looking forward to hearing from you! Thank you in advance.

 

George

[Mark Kenfield]

If you can shoot 3.2K ProRes, then you have some flexibility to crop the sides if using 2X anamorphics on a 16x9 sensor to get decent resolution for a 1080P master. If you are going to crop all the way to fill a 16x9 HD image without letterboxing, then the 3.2K ProRes recording is 3200 x 1800 but cropped to 1600 x 1800 and then expanded horizontally back to 3200 x 1800 to get rid of the 2X squeeze and then rescaled to 1920 x 1080.

 

Have you used this combo much David (2x anamorphics with the 16:9 Arri sensor?

 

Given that (shooting in 3.2k ProRes) you end up using significantly more 'real' resolution (1600x1800) than your 1080p deliverable, I'd assume there's enough of a downsampling benefit that the end result is still pretty solid. Have you found that to be the case?

[David Mullen ASC]

Haven't done it myself.

[Abdul Rahman Jamous]

On 6/30/2016 at 7:07 PM, Marcus Taplin said:

Thanks guys for the suggestions! Tested everything out and on shoot day everything went smooth. Can't wait to shoot with some anamorphics again!

Hi Marcus, may I know what you ended up doing? Just curious

[reid petro]

If anyone is still look at this forum. I found a huge helping using https://frameline.tools or https://tools.arri.com/flt/ to help create custom guides for the Amira using 2x. In the "Lens" and "Lens Squeeze" sections make sure you choose 2x then your desired output aspect ratio and it does the work for you!