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my opinion on the matter...   these new offerings wont touch the current ones for people like us.  it wont better a century or a la7200 since the guys developing these new lenses dont really understand the reasoning behind why people want anamorphic.  neither will they touch the performance of an iscorama unless they infringe on a patent.   their key failing is in deciding to rework a 'one size fits all' option instead of making people work with a proper solution that has limitations.   the letus option will have only been tested with Canon L lenses the slr magic solution will have only been tested with slr magic lenses on m43   The key to success is to deliver a set of integrated lenses with no user options available.  each lens being sub 1.5k usd.  each being f2.8.  a 35mm, a 50mm and a 85mm.  each covering full frame to allow yielding of the speed booster for that magical f2..   the worst thing in the world is to create a one size fits all front solution that will in 90% of circumstances be fitted to the front of ghastly canon 50mm L lenses.     Set maximum and minimum focus point for each focal length and optimise the anamorphot to suit.     if anything i see these offerings as only a reason for my iscorama to increase even more above its actual value.  and id rather these people put their efforts into something that matched it.  all this computer power we have nowadays.  how can these people not better a 1960's design?

  They mix anamorphics in movies all the time, and mix anamorphic with spherical.  In fact, if you're shooting wide enough, like for an establishing shot, with most of the frame in focus there's little reason to not just shoot spherical and crop.  Wide scenics don't really play to anamorphic's aesthetic  unless you have objects in the foreground to cue its unexpected width for scale/depth character (and, of course, distorted bokeh).   You could, very realistically, since you're shooting on a 5D, shoot all or most of your non-CUs spherical but using ND to open up more than you otherwise would and then do dramatic CUs with an adapter, and maybe for compositions like overlapping medium 2-shots.     Panavision films, during the optical days and then still, for a better part of the first decade of digital film scanning for visual effects, would cut to spherical footage whenever there were effects involved, either Super-35mm, which would be extracted and eventually blown up to go back into the surrounding anamorphic or VistaVision, if they had more cash, which would hold up better, sharpness wise, when put back into the surrounding anamorphic footage.     Then, of course, you have last year's The Dark Knight Rises, where most of the big action scenes switched over to 65mm acquisition.  And somewhere in there was likely the odd 5D stunt shot.  Mixing cameras and formats is done all the time.  It doesn't really matter so much if you can detect the change looking at the transition from a macro perspective.  What's important is getting the shot and how it affects the overall flow.   The only time mixed formats really bothers me is if there's a really drastic drop in quality.  For instance, I recently saw Pain & Gain and there are, a few times, what appears to be (poorly enhanced) old model GoPro shots with Wahlberg and The Rock driving.  It goes from Michael Bay to an episode of COPs in the space of one cut.  Bad.  Plus, really unexpected since he is fanatical about photographic quality and not shy to spend time and money on complicated shooting.  There was no reason to be lazy with the little cameras in this case.

  I think this has more to do with the overly cautions manner and confusing language they're using in the information they're allowing to be released.  There's no reason, really, to expect it to behave any differently with any other 35mm prime compared to their's.  There's no "magic" apart from in the title of their company.  I bet the image of Andrew plugging it into the 20mm Lumix ruffled some feathers over at the company.   Over at personal-view they seemed almost annoyed that Andrew mentioned shooting it at f/2 in his article, because they've been careful to only claim f/2.8 so far and that's all Edwin Lee was allowed (I'm assuming) to post or comment on.  That's the official company line, currently, on acceptable lower threshold of sharpness.  But it's like any other lens.  Their hyper-primes don't perform at wide open like they do somewhat stopped down but the difference is they market and depend their lenses being able to open up that far even if IQ suffers.    They're just being overly cautious because the existing 1.33X adapters have such a bad reputation for sharpness and speed without diopters.  They're focusing only on its performance without additional help.  Likewise, they don't want to get into a situation where they have to contend with the vagaries of other lens manufacturers.  It's safer to just make sure their adapter works with their lenses and let end users work out any necessary step-up/down configurations or spacers for extra clearance with oddly bulbous front elements.

Also, folks shooting with a 5D should likely (borrowing from a comment I made regarding 1.33x anamorphics) make peace with operating in a crop mode, effectively shooting at a Super-35mm or MFT effective sensor size.   What little precedent there is for motion pictures shot in horizontal, 8-perf 35mm there's less for anamorphic in this size.  Where large-format anamorphic exists the squeeze ratios get smaller (think 1.25x in the case of Ultra Panavision).  2x is the domain of 4-perf 35mm with an effective aperture that's smaller than APS-C.  "Filmed in Panavision" means you're looking at an aperture that's between that of a 7D and the GH2, and closer to that of the GH2 (21mm versus 19mm).   In a big way, due to the width and shallower depth of field you get with a 36mm sensor, it's the 5D user who's the best candidate for oval iris inserts and streak filters.       PS> an anamorphic speedbooster sounds terrible.  Just use a wider lens and crop.  All you get is width without character.  IMO, it's engineers creating an expensive, complicated solution to a problem that doesn't really exist (yay engineers).  It won't affect adapters like this in any way.  

When I spoke about gearing I was talking about the relationship between the throws of the two optics, not necessarily toothed gearing.   The slotted approach is a well tried and tested solution.   I would advise you to accurately plot the throw of the scope and the lens on the same axes, to see the difference in the focus profiles. Set up some targets from 1.5m to INF at say 0.5m intervals, to get a high resolution plot of this behavior to assist you with the design of the slot. I would be surprised if it was not some snaky shape as you illustrated above.

Anamorphic speedbooster would not be the same as a front anamorphic. You would not get the oval bokeh. I read that rear anamorphics do not produce these since the spherical elements are in the front.

When you are just starting, lesson 1, let raw be lesson 101, second volume. You can start with just about every camera. If I lost my whole equipment in a fire and just had so much money, I'd be torn between those choices:   1. GH2, used (latest biddings in € on ebay), 500 €, with SLR magic 12mm and SLR 25mm, cheap tripod, cheap but well chosen shoulder rig, Tascam audio recorder or the like. 2. BlackMagic Pocket, new, 880 €, SLR magic 12mm (wait for other aproved lenses), cheap tripod, cheap but well chosen shoulder rig, Tascam audio recorder or the like.   and, if I was into photography in earnest: 3. 5D M2, used, with kit lens 24-105, ~1800 €, external EVF via HDMI, able to zoom in the 5D's output, peaking, that means Zacuto or this price class, ~800 €, Sachtler ACE, 550 €, relatively cheap, but VERY well chosen shoulder rig (let's say, 300 €). Tascam or the like.   Why not the ACE in any case?    Because, I wrote this before, the main duty of a tripod is to stand motionless. Many tripods under 100 € will do with light cameras. Only if you wish to make very good, smooth pans, the fluid head needs to be of high quality. And still it's a craft only mastered by few, most pans have either the wrong speed or are unnessesary und uncinematic.   But why the ACE for the 5D then? Because it is relatively small and lightweight, yet built well enough to carry the 5D. You get heavy weight, low duty junk for ~150 €, but it's not worth the shipping costs. And besides this, the head allows for good pans.

You haven't seen the real look since the footage that's been posted doesn't have the coatings they'll be using.  Also, there's only one shot in the footage I've seen that really looks soft and the shooter has already said that was his bad, not the adapter.  He only had access to it a couple hours and wasn't comfortable with the close focus system yet.     Let's see what Andrew shoots as I'm curious to compare the other video to him shooting this latest model and see what f/2 looks like.  I don't know what you would have to be stopped down to on the LA7200 at 35mm for anything close to acceptable sharpness but on the Century Optics it's at least f/4 if you're not using something like the Tokina doublet or stronger diopter.  The doublet appears to buy about a stop or so.   It's already much faster than either the Century Optics or LA7200.  It's sharper than the LA7200 and sharper than the Century Optics at the edges with less CA.  And that's shooting naked.      Folks who can't make peace with the 1.33X pretty much made that decision well before this lens was introduced so it changes nothing for them.  They can have their tiny 8mm adapters and dual focus systems and then there's the lucky few with their LOMOs and big dog Iscroramas.  There isn't likely going to be any new product for them until mainstream cameras re-introduce 1.33:1 aspect ratio for video and they're going to need more of a reason to than some fringe anamorphic shooters with a bunch of old lenses.  Catch-22.  

  From SLRmagic @ personal View it will have a 77mm front thread:     http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/4466/most-wanted-anamorphic-lens/p28

Why did you pixelate your espresso on the right??   The SLR anamorphic looks very promising. Probably will ditch most of my old projection lenses for this, if the quality is good. Would love to see some samples with the 5D III + 50mm fullframe combo.

    the image they're getting is no better than I remember getting for a rehoused century 16:9 + 28mm olympus zuiko.  shame these guys don't put their r+d efforts into something proper instead of messing around with reworking technology that was developed for grain of rice sensors.  shame    

The phone has two "new" NSA features the motion sensing and finger print reader. Even tho those features can be used to benefit the user as well. The sensor size is a needed improvement even tho a modest one. 8 Mpix is plenty enough.   The pureview camera in the Nokia 808 will likely still be the absolute king in image quality even tho processing might pull the image quality above it in special situations from the Nokia 1020.   Then again Nokia phones are no longer owned by Nokia so I will never buy one again. I'm from Finland and I certainly dont take it lightly when it comes to Microsoft phones and Elop the MS agent.  This iphone 5s might be my next phone.   That would be my first proper smart phone. ;)

cost for new PC approximately 1600.   If you ever plan on shooting/editting raw, you need at least a 2GB graphics card. I'd go 4GB GTX 780. USB 3.0 or thunderbolt ports to offload the SSDs Raid configured hard drive, or SSD  for read/write speed while editing. Intel I7-37** or above for encoding.   There is no need for multiple SSD if you are doing work in the studio. Just get a caddy with USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt and you can offload you footage pretty quickly. 480 GB is plenty for shooting in the studio.