Leaderboard

i have the mod and yes its expensive but im glad i got it. besides the metal housing protecting the lens, it makes it much stronger, so im not so worried about the plastic shrinking, deforming when focusing. i think it can take much more abuse. you will need lens support. it does get heavy enough that i think itd rip out a m4/3 mount, and stress out an ef mount. close focus at 3'7" rocks. you still need a diopter to achieve the nice bokeh i feel, but now ive got so much more flexibility. i do think the weight and increased throw makes it become less of a one man crew lens when using it. and if youre using a follow focus, you need to use use a thick gear and a speed crank to take care of the long throw. metal focus gear on metal focus gear will make noise. (im looking for a rubber focus gear on my follow focus.) the front element extends long enough you can probably forget using a mattebox. but this is all how i feel about the 54 anyway. both a rehoused 36 and 54 are amazing lenses but in my opinion they still produce different results. i also agree w tferradans in that i wouldnt have rented out the plastic version just because i dont think its robust enough. (i havent rented mine out yet and dont expect to until i figure out how to protect my investment in case someone says "it's lost"). and yes i think the resale value goes up. unless van diemen can crank out the mod in a week, youre not only reselling the lens, youre reselling the amount of time it took to get the mod in the first place which is a few months and seems like some people need/want the iscorama urgently enough to pay for it. i say if you seriously get use out of your 36, shoot a lot, and you have friends/crew that can AC for you, then get it. i absolutely love mine, its on my camera 95% of the time. if youre iscorama is nice and greased up, youre only shooting tests and youre a one man crew and really not using it that much, i dont think think the mod is worth that money.

I agree. Plus I think it's worth it purely for aesthetics, Van Diemen rehousings look awesome! Pure lens porn. ;)

I'm going around in circles guys - all options seem to have their benefits. Like I say, I edit H264/AVCHD (from D5300 and G6) converted to prores in FCPX. I grade in FCPX. I use Neat Video a lot, but my Mac can barely cope with it (inadequate graphics card I think). I would like a system that can deal with the above very easily (e.g. quickly render, analyse clips and add effects). Ideally I would like the Mac to be somewhat futureproof (for example, ability to upgrade it and/or run resolve smoothly would be nice). I'm mainly torn between a 27" iMac with top spec customisation, and a base spec Mac Pro. They work out at about the same price. Perhaps a Mac Pro is a little overkill for what I'm currently doing, but seeing as I'm spending that amount of money anyway, wouldn't it be the better investment? How upgradeable are the new Mac Pro's? It would also mean that I can buy a single monitor (just one for the time being) that can be properly calibrated. Why buy an iMac when I can get a Mac Pro for the same price, and vice versa? Advice appreciated ...

It's really, really not. It's very competitively priced against similarly specced machines. And when you pay as much or more for a system with this level of power, chances are it isn't going to be this small. It's an incredible feat of engineering.

I dont understand the hype with those mac's. There is nothing special about the hardware and the software is a pain in the ass. You always have compatibility issues. Whats the point of having a software that works if most things wont work with it? And its WAY overpriced. I own an Apple display, and thats enough Apple on my life. I cant live with a system that creates that amount of boundaries

Yes, the beauty of anamorphic isn't just about flares, though the LA7200 flares will likewise be influenced by both the type of light source being photographed as well as the taking lens, same as all adapters. Watch any anamorphic feature length motion picture, which is the ultimate reason for this enthusiasm and why all this bent glass exists, and you will see shot after shot that are impossible with any projection lens(*), decent, excellent or trash. Waxing poetic about the sublime beauty of a single shot, the bloke who designed the glass or some historical bit of trivia might be all some folks are interested in. Other people need solutions that are actually functional and useful. (*) unless you're one of those two, three maybe four fellows now that have designed little, laggy robots to slowly spin two lenses at once at pre-calibrated ratios that may or may not allow lens swaps + re-calibration shorter than a crew's meal break.