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Picked one of these up as in impulse buy from the BVE show last week.     Obviously not a new idea and there are loads of similar things knocking about and,yes,its basically a reusable tie wrap with a piece of metal but I have to say that it works really well.   Of course its not going to replace a real follow focus setup but at £12 its a lot easier on your finances, a lot less hassle to set up in a run and gun situation and takes up infinitely less space in your bag than a full on system with rails.   I'm definitely going to get another one to use for zoom control and will certainly still use it for that purpose even when I'm using a real follow focus.   Also, because you can determine the position where the arm goes it might be possible depending on the focus throw of the two lenses in question to gang the arms to come up with a limited simultaneous focus solution for anamorphics.    Full details here http://www.cameragrip.co.uk/acatalog/fzl_hague_follow_focus_zoom_lever.html   On a broader note, for anyone not familiar with Hague, they produce a broad range of equipment that is a bit utilitarian in appearance but is usually of decent quality and decent value for money particularly if you're in the UK where the import duty/VAT bumps up the price of the US gear. They do quite a lot of interesting bits and pieces for mounting cameras and fixit solutions that are well worth checking out. They are nice people too.  

Few years back, I was messing around with the concept of a variable oval aperture to replace the one inside say, a Helios 44.   Its a tricky technical problem , but I did manage to come up with a proof of concept (see pics)   I am putting it out there if anyone wants to run with it, there is more work to do obviously, but its a start  

  Weird isn't it... The BMCC's sharpness and dynamic range seems to work against it in this comparison.   It just seems too smooth and broadcast like.   The Ikonoskop is a bit quirky and not just when it comes to the image, which is why I love it.   But it is VERY hard to put your finger on exactly WHY the image is so cinematic.   We used a very nice Zeiss 16mm lens on it which will contribute, but the colour and feel of the image is mainly down to the camera.

If everyone's patient and quiet, how will they be aware of the issues? It's a petition, if you don't find it important then don't sign it, ignore it, move on. If enough people do sign it though, it might shift their priorities, most companies do care about keeping their customers happy, and we're talking about a simple software upgrade, not a cumbersome hardware change that would affect manufacturing. If they don't want to do it then they won't, but the least one can do is try to open up a dialogue, nobody's saying it's a bug that needs to be fixed, nobody's demanding them to do anything, he's just asking nicely, why all the hate?

The Schneider has a small knurled  knob on the front you turn to focus it is very very smooth and precise - great German engineering . The glass is the best I have ever seen in an anamorphic - a different league to anything out there.

Axel Censorship is of course a neccesary tool. Your cry for freedom from censorship and artistic licence to create what you want is what you use to bash me with so you dont have to confront the moral issues.   Leang's film was very well done and still used extreme violence and included depraved characters and their conversation was quite chilling. We didn't know much about the two characters and not asked to follow either as a main character. The pedophile gets shot and although not something we do as a society we can empathise with morally wrong charactr getting his come uppance the guy that shot him may very well be a bad guy who obviously has a sense of right and wrong He may even turn out to be a tortured anti hero.   However he didn't as a hero scalp all the victims nor torture and maim while playing the good and just main hero character.   Recent times a few British and American soldiers tortured innocent civilans to death. They are dealt with by the courts. This is not something to consider as right and those guys were fighting for our freedoms But there is a moral code that is there they must abide by. Unless there is some moral reasons we can understand IE Like the soldier reacted after the insurgent come out of a crowd and blew his mate up and he reacted in the moment But we do not make heroes out of soldiers who torture maim and kill in a fun way. That is a reflection of our society as it stands today.   I'm sure many war crimes are commited and go unpunished but when they are found out they are prosecuted. A film maker may show war crimes being commited but the main hero character must be a moral person and not in a religious sense but a way we know is right. You just cant have a hero that an audience roots for and by nature of the hero main character sees the film through their eyes and empathises with as a character that commits war crimes and a sadist torturer.   There is a clear line here that film makers naturally adhere to. Tarantino though blurs those lines.   Of course when you watch you see the main character doing bad Getting away with it then getting the rewards You think OH WOW this is different This is new. This is exciting. The man is a genius. He is not He is blurring the lines. We as a society take for granted our laws and rules, Not all do. We break our moral values at the risk of our own freedom. Let alone the encouragemnt of this being copied in real life just as many violent acts from films are copied. And although violent acts will happen without film and at a worse level. IE Gaddafi's golden gun. Film still has a responsibilty not to teach new tricks that break moral codes.   It's really not worth it.   Why have I bothered to write all this. WELL. My hope is others may realise that writers do have a responsibility and  films will be made with a moral framework and recognised as video nasties when they're not. At the very least know what you are doing and why.

You turn the round knob in front.  There was a discussion about this lens a while ago with bigger pictures of it, too: http://www.eoshd.com/comments/topic/1352-schneider-kreuznach-anamorphic-projector-lens/

i've actually been enjoying the contax zeiss lenses, only have the 35/2.8, 50mm/1.4 and 135/2.8,... but the 85's and 100's are meant to be nice too.   they're affordable for the slower 2.8/3.5 versions, US$300-400, and are loverly to shoot with, sharp and contrasty,... almost too sharp, but they complement the not as sharp or micro-contrasty helios, mir and jupiter 9 i also enjoy shooting with.   it depends on what you're looking for,.. the russian stuff is more filmic/cinematic, but the contax zeiss, being sharper, is a bit more modern looking. here's a still from a project i'm working on,... the 50mm on a GH2:     the 135/2.8 is affordable,..about $200, not as good a reputation as the others, and you need to stop it down a bit. but other than that, the 85, 100, and up are all meant to be pretty decent.   i've found them no harder than anything else to focus with, but then i normally stop down to f2.8 on the GH2,... might be harder to nail focus on 5D at 2.8 maybe, shallower dof? the helios is very easy to focus with though.   the zooms, while nice, have a front that rotates while focusing which could make it a pain for anamorphic,... i'm still trying to decide on how much of a masochist i am,... :P

  The cameras could turn out to be pretty bad, or not work at all, and they could decide to can the entire project, then no one would get a camera. It's a possibility on any project of this nature, backers should be ready for it.   However, if they do finish the camera and deliver the 100 or so kickstarter pre orders, then I don't see why they wouldn't keep going. They're probably not making any profit with the first cameras, but once all the R&D is complete, making more of them is much easier and quicker, and that's what would start creating some profits for them.   I agree 260k is not much for a project and team of this size, but you're assuming that's all they've got. They've said before they have a silent partner/investor, it's not just the two of them running the company. Also, they're working with another company for all the electronics, etc. and it's possible that they're working at a cost or even at a loss in trade for a share of the profits in future sales. These are all common practices in startups such as this one.   Then again, this is all speculation, I have no insider information, and as far as I'm concerned it could turn out to be a success or a failure, no way to tell, but none of it strikes me as grim as many seem to make it.

Zeiss DigiZoom 17-112mm T1.9