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Hi, I was just sitting here, eating my mince pie and drinking my tea when, I had what alcoholics refer to as "a moment of clarity". It was sparked by an advert on the TV for Lambrini, which is truly the worst thing I have ever seen. (For those who don't know what Lambrini is, it's a cheap wine mainly consumed by women on hen nights) (If you don't know what a hen night it, its a bunch of hysterical women drinking too much and behaving like promiscuous idiots, under the guise that their friend from work, who they don't even like is getting married) This advert like so many others has jumped on the anamorphic band wagon. Which is not a bad thing in itself, they have just done so in the most horrible way possible. Probably shot on spherical with some tacky flares, but that's not the point and I digress. I love anamorphic as much as the next man, but it seems the world has gone mad. I know the topic of price has been a hot one on this forum so I will choose my words carefully. After all who the hell am I to tell another man what to sell his lens for. With the introduction of the new anamorphic adapters, love them or hate them, they have brought about interesting eBay auctions with low start prices. Perhaps it was inevitable as people clamber to raise cash to follow in Andrews footsteps as one of the first adopters of the SLR Magic. :rolleyes: Interestingly I have seen Kowa 8Z's go for around £250, that's a great buy for whoever bought it. Lots of lenses for sale = cheap prices for all. Here comes my point, these auctions give us an indication of what these lenses are actually worth at this present moment in time. I'll pause there..... Don't get angry, keep reading. After all you can put your scope lens on eBay for £1200, cross your arms and stubbornly claim that's what its worth, that's your business, I'm not knocking anyone for doing that. You won't sell it. But again, that is your prerogative. There are people selling lenses on eBay who have no idea of what they are actually selling, let alone if it works or not. But alas it has some bent glass on the front so they slap it on eBay with a description reading "Anamorphic lens" and they convince themselves it's "worth" £1000. There have been lenses for sale on eBay for as long as I have been looking, that have never sold. Why? Simple, no one wants to pay the price they are asking. Basic economics. So is that what they are really worth? The simple answer is...........(say it in your best Chris Rock voice) "Naaaat Really". There is a big difference between something being rare and valuable and something being a piece of old tat. I suppose people will realize that eventually. There have been arguments on this forum about inflated Iscorama prices. "They're not worth this, They're not worth that". What I would say is; they are worth what people are willing to pay for them. That's it. Personally I don't have $4500 to spend, but if I did, I would have been really tempted by "Macgregor's" 2004 Leica delight. What a lens, what pedigree, what a luxury. Someone said "worth every penny", yes quite possibly. The photos he posted were truly breathtaking. Thoughts start to run through your head, "if I had that lens I could capture images like that!" Hmmmm maybe, but there's a lot more at play here than just a nice piece of bent glass. Location, lighting, talent! I have seen images captured on Iscoramas that were very ordinary, I have seen images captured on a £300 Samyang that were truly beautiful. Look at what happened in this thread started by robtilbury Guess the camera and morph lens! This is a strange example. We all thought the video was shot spherical. We agreed it was a great looking piece with really nice shots, I personally really liked it, but there wasn't any anamorphic "character". Turns out it was shot on an Iscorama, the holy grail of anamorphic. I know a lot of this was down to wide lenses and stopping down to f8 but still we called an Iscorama spherical. So back to my "moment of clarity". For me my frustrating journey of looking for a bargain lens has come to an end. What I have found is, there are no bargains, if it seems like a bargain it's a scam. If it's worth anything, someone will have bashed its name into eBay using their ham fists and come back with a ridiculous price from another listing, which they will demand until they turn blue in the face. I could save like mad, spend £3000-6000 on a lens, cross my fingers and hope that it works. My girlfriend would leave me and I would have to eat baked beans for a year, but I could do it. Then I would have something truly amazing to shoot photos of my cat with. (no offense to those who shoot pictures of their cat, I do it all the time) Or.... and here is where it gets interesting, I could use that money to travel the world, see things, beautiful things. I could buy grip and lighting, I could finance (all be it very cheaply) a short film, I could photograph it all on a £300 boring lens, it doesn't matter. I could hone my skills, learn my trade. I have become bogged down in lenses and kit over the past few years. No more. If you have an Iscorama, or a Lomo roundfront, that's great. Shoot with it, do great things with it, share them. I think the early adopters of the DSLR anamorphic resurgence did so to add something different to their work. Just like we are all trying to do. They hunted for bargains and forged a new path. Is that still the case, is anamorphic still as "different" as it once was? Has that Lambrini advert killed it? I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not. Are the new anamorphic lenses that are coming out turd, who knows. All I know is, I will no longer be obsessed with finding the perfect lens, for me it doesn't exist. I'm going to buy a spherical Samyang, put tape across the top and bottom of the screen and wonder the Earth like Ryu at the end of Street Fighter II (If you're 18 and don't know what Street Fighter II is, it was an arcade game in the early 90's) (If you're 15 and don't know what an arcade game is, you haven't lived) Congratulations if you made it to the end and thanks for reading. :)

There's no comparison. I own the LA7200 and it smears so badly at the left and right edges. The SLR is sharp all the way across the frame. That alone is reason to get one. Also you can just screw on diopters is just awesome. I've dropped so many diopters from my LA7200 with all the crazy taping/rigging I can't tell you...

Chris, congrats for breaking through this spiral of desire for gear! There is a lot you have written which is very true and is also a subject of debate in other threads ("is better/more expensive gear necessary for a good movie"). We want more, better and newer gear. This is also what this blog is about. There is at least one new camera or lens or whatever being tested every week... But it is also a lot of fun: to play with some new toys :) And they don't have to be always expensive: Although I have Iscoramas I bought a €100,- Moeller 32/2 which are usually very cheap and I really have a lot of fun with that thing... However I wish I will become a bit more sensible about spending money - like you! In any case very good food for thougth. PS I haven't seen the commercial in question but it can not be more annoying than the latest Star Trek !

(The anamorphic footage starts around 10 seconds in) The new SLR Magic Anamorphot jointly developed with the help of EOSHD is still in my studio and I've shot the above video with it. This should give you an idea of how the flare moves around during a shot and the general anamorphic aesthetic you are able to get with the adapter. Also part of the fun of the adapter is that like the Iscorama it sings with certain lenses, which all have a different look. I've been trying it out with a bunch of them... Read the full article here

No it was in dollars not yen, look - http://www.forbes.com/profile/fujio-mitarai/   More from Canon...   Interview, mainly about mirrorless - http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fdc.watch.impress.co.jp%2Fdocs%2Fnews%2Finterview%2F20131209_626786.html   Sparkling career but please retire guys and let some young blood revitalise the company.

  I still have my LA7200 and yes it is soft at the edges. I'll do a comparison vs the SLR Magic as I know a lot of LA7200 users are thinking of making the switch. If you move quick enough you might actually save money as the eBay price for the LA7200 has been hyper inflated for a while now. Can't see it staying up there above $1000 for much longer.

Its the lowest i've got at present & am really more interested in the speedbooster, than wider lenses.

Out this coming weekend.

  I haven't tried this lens but it may well work. Ideally though you should be keeping it mated to a lens with a smaller rear element than 50mm, to match the 50mm rear of the anamorphic. Such large glass as F1.2 - i.e the Canon 50 and 85 L lenses, are HUGE! It certainly won't be sharp at F1.2. At F2.8 you should get outstanding performance but like I say I haven't tested the 50mm.   I have tried it on the Olympus OM 55mm F1.2 and it does play well stopped down to 2.8, whereas the Iscorama vignettes a bit.

Great piece Andrew! Loved the group, they have a very cool sound -- made me think about Crosby Stills & Nash.

Nothing more. It's just different. I removed the pan bar and I pan and tilt directly with my two hands on the fig rig. I can switch very quickly between monopod shots and walking shots. For walking shots I down the monopod to minimal length and it comes something like a conterweight. And a last thing in outdoor situation. I can attach my jacket on my FigRig with a simple clip and hide my face and viewfinder to sunlight like guys who used to a view camera. Sorry for my bad english.

i was gonna say.. the multiple flares are definitely caused by the multi led spots. this aint gonna replace my century 3 element and iscorama, but I have to say they nailed the flare colour bang on. I'd love an iscorama that flared in this colour and with such prominence. Very 'Die Hard'. Please please please put a 1.5x oval in your FF58 and show us the results of this anamorphic with some ovals!

  Maybe because you've been following in the wrong place :)   The multiple flares are because there's multiple light sources in one LED panel. If you flare it with a single light source you get nicer flare.   Similar thing happens with an Iscorama and nobody complains!   I do agree there's a difference between the dramatic 2x stretch lenses and this, but SLR Magic wanted to keep the aspect ratio to 2.39:1 from 16:9 which is a Cinemascope standard. 3.55:1 isn't.   Again 1.3x is pretty close to 1.5x but nobody complains about an Iscorama's image.   Personally I like it. If you look at the check list of features and get factual about it...   My footage looks nicer than the Letus stuff I've seen so far. It has the uncanny anamorphic out of focus areas both foreground and background. It has the stretched ovals bokeh and it has flare very similar to a cinema Panavision (which also always flares blue). It is bloody sharp edge to edge and has the ease of focus as the Iscorama, which is rare on an anamorphic for this price. It has soundly beaten the LA7200 and that was capable of some pretty nice results to begin with. It's exceptionally small and light. The price… it compares VERY favourably to the other practical single focus options out there. The minimum focus distance is half of an Iscorama and more like a LOMO cine lens.   Facts are facts. I just feel SLR Magic have some years to go before people can get over the brand not being Leica and the lenses not being made in West Germany.

  With a Nikon G adapter. The aperture is controlled via a mechanical lever on the back of the Nikon mount version. On the Canon version it's entirely electronic.

I think it's cool. I love the ergonomics and look of some Super 8 cameras. If you paired it with this it would make them far more useful. Mine are only used as ornaments and I use the lenses on the Pocket camera!

I am really liking the size of the GM1. The low light noise performance is amazing (better than my GH3). Here it is with a hoodman attached, it just fits!

I use the FigRig for this short. I use it on a monopod or sometime for walking shots.

  Absolutely spot on.   Let's ponder why. They have a top level management whose job it is to deliver ever larger increases in profit, year on year. It's a pressurised business environment in Asia, Japan especially, it makes Europe look quaint. When you are a large company, massive profits are just not enough. Success is relative. If you're only making $2.5bn profit on $40bn sales you need to be making $5bn profit on $80bn sales or better still $40bn profit on $80bn sales!! Where does it end? Canon's management have figured out how to go after this profit and until now figured it out pretty well... in the short term.   In the long term they are a mess because they are ignoring the products, their selling points in a shifting marketplace, rapidly evolving technological progress and the demand of their customers.   Their compacts long ago could have morphed into an online photo sharing experience. Canon could have bought Flickr and YouTube in one stroke and included a one touch share button on all of their compacts. They could have done this if they'd had the future vision and foresight to do so, before Google snapped up YouTube. Canon just didn't see it. Their ageing management mostly didn't even use the internet in 2005. Canon's buck stops with a CEO who is nearly 80 years of age. I am sure with some careful consideration and thought, Canon's combined talent could have come up with something far far more compelling than I just thought of in 5 seconds on a forum post with the benefit of hindsight, but for whatever reason they were content to churn out the same product again and again in tiny incremental steps until the market had shifted completely away from them and onto smartphones.   Sounds familiar?   DSLR video was a golden opportunity. You can't say it was a flash in the pan or inconsequential, a niche. What it did was launch a multi-million dollar business division at Canon which didn't even exist before the 5D Mark II. What's even more incredible is that where Blackmagic purposefully targeted and nurtured a new market, Canon accidentally stepped into it. If it wasn't for live-view on the 5D Mark II, they would not now be in the cinema business. End of story. They would be churning out small chip camcorders or XL1 successors with fixed zoom optics. They'd have been no opportunity to add mark up on their EF lenses by creating Cine versions. No opportunity for a halo effect to spread to their consumer business from Hollywood DPs actively shooting and endorsing their Cinema EOS cameras and DSLRs.   Canon had no video capable CMOS in development planned for cinema cameras. They had live view capable CMOS sensors in stills cameras that just happened to be the same thing.   It's about time Canon actually THANKED the enthusiast DSLR video community for the manner in which we embraced Canon and allowed them to grasp the opportunity to launch Cinema EOS.

nothing but.. the scam mainly works and exists and perpetuated by people that do not have the lens. they rely 100% on other peoples fotos. they are usually ignorant of foto and lens talk type questions will say i am not at home for a few days so cannot get to the lens. nothing wrong with bank transfers nothing wrong with money transfers ebay and paypal are just as corrupt as any scumbag thief. they take 100s of millions of dollars from honest listings and fake ones they still charge the saint and the crook. check sellers past sales any foto stuff any history in that area what are the other sales. video confererance call skype whatever video on mobile or dealing with known people i suppose helps. the scam survives based on other peoples fotos. it relies on quick ebay listing giving out email address or hacking of dorment account for the listing. speed and natural greed of humans 2 iscoramas for the price of one for fuck sake come on folks. proofs of iscorama life fotos shot with it proof other than ad type stuff is all that is needed holding it up in front of a ipad already. or do what i do do trading.. i have an iscorama 42 ex nasa if anyone has a castle in estonia or hungary or the czech republic i will even throw in a tokina achromat and a lens cleaning cloth only used a couple of times the cloth that is top quality materials the cloth that is.