Caleb Genheimer

I’ll hold my breath until the RAW is confirmed as not being a crop in from full frame, or at least uncropped 4K ALL-I at a good bitrate with LOG. I’m ready for high quality 4K full frame mirror less at a reasonable price, but I’m willing to wait if this isn’t the camera. Whoever does it first for sub-$2K will make a killing.

I’m ordering up a HTN replacement front ring for my Kowa 16-H, to get the variable diopter as close to the front element as possible and to lock it at infinity. I’ll either upgrade to a HCDNA or I will start in on the Vazen lens set with the wide if reviews are positive... whichever is the best option when I’ve saved up.

The three lenses I listed are all identical optics, but with different coatings. One of them has more gold colored flares instead of blue. I think it is the 8Z, but I’m not completely certain. To be honest, I bought mine a long time ago so I haven’t had eyes on pricing lately. A good one is probably near $1,000? Minor cleaning scratches are pretty much expected for a lens that old with those coating types, but look out for internal haze from fungus or moisture, separation of the optical elements, large chips in front of rear elements, and poor body condition (corrosion/lots of missing paint etc.)

That’s good to hear, for 2-3K you will end up with a very useable setup as good as anyone’s. Another thing that doesn’t work well with anamorphics is zoom lenses. There are some exceptions, but I would not start there. You probably already have good lenses for anamorphic just sitting around. 1950s-1980s primes anywhere from 35mm to 85mm are perfect candidates. They’re the one great budget aspect of anamorphics, as most people give them away. You become that person that everyone gives their old SLR kits to that have been sitting in grandpa’s closet for 30 years. Different primes will give you different flares, different contrasts, different color rendering. It’s fantastic to be able to shoot anamorphic in a wide variety of styles. A box full of old primes provide a wide palette of stylistic options. The one thing they hadn’t figured out back then was how to make good fast and wide lenses. Guess what? Anamorphic makes normal lenses wide. Problem solved. It is easiest to have smaller diameter front elements on the lenses that you use, but not critical. I’ve seen a Sankor on a Canon 70-200 f2.8L. Looks ridiculous, but apparently works fine. You won’t vignette, but you may loose some T-stop (light transmission). f-stop should be unaffected. My personal recommendations are: Kowa 16-H, or Kowa 8Z, or Kowa for Bell and Howell Redstan brand rear clamp with support bracket Redstan brand front clamp or an HTN brand lock ring (this second option replaces the Kowa front housing with one that has standard front threads, as well as male outer threads for attaching the common variable diopters. It also locks the lens at infinity which you do when using variable diopters.) Rectilux Hardcore DNA or SLRMagic Rangefinder. SmallHD Focus monitor Beyond that, a 15mm rod/rail setup will help keep everything rock solid and properly supported. That’s the best out there, and the core of what I would advise to have a hassle-free setup. Kit it out further per your preference with cage, handles, shoulder pad, follow focus, mattebox, filters, etc. I’ll double down on suggesting @Andrew Reid‘s Shooters Guide. It will save you more money through its advice and content than you will spend on the guide itself. He has boiled it down to the noteworthy scopes and breaks each one down spec-wise, as well as including a lot of general guidance for using anamorphic lenses.

Yes, my bad. F-stop is focal length versus aperture diameter. So to be most accurate, your 50mm f1.4 remains a 50mm f1.4 vertically. The math is pretty simple actually: 50mm/1.4=35.7mm That is, at f1.4, your aperture is a 35.7mm diameter opening. It gets interesting when considering that your lens is horizontally a 25mm lens. A 25mm f0.7 lens has an aperture of 35.7mm if doing the math in reverse from the known aperture diameter. However, I’m no optics expert, and it seems from my experience that anamorphics maintain an equivalent f-stop while increasing width. That at least would seem to explain the oval bokeh. So it is actually a f1.4 horizontally and vertically, with two different focal lengths. A 25mm at f1.4 has bokeh half the size of a 50mm at f1.4, and that is why it is oval.

Anyone telling you that you have to match your sensor aspect with the appropriate stretch factor is a lazy slob. Plain and simple. 1.33X is not a classic anamorphic ratio. It is from the awkward days of 4:3 CCD camcorders and people wanting them to be 16:9. They’re just tools for achieving that without losing resolution because resolution was so low back then. Now we have 4K. Now we have desqueezing monitors. You may be able to use a 1.33X with a slightly wider lens than a 2X, but remember you are not increasing angle width by a factor of 2. You are increasing it by only 1.33X. The 2X lenses in most cases will gain back the difference once you do the math. A Panny LA-7200 1.33X (the widest anamorphic I am aware of) can handle a Tokina 11-16 on M4/3. But the optical quality is just exactly good enough for those CCD chip cameras... so not very good. On full frame it possibly gets as wide (after factoring 1.33X) as 16mm. But you’re better off using a spherical and cropping, because the 1.33X doesn’t look very distinctly anamorphic, and it will give you image quality headaches. 4:3 mode in-camera DOES. NOT. MATTER. You know why? Guess what that is doing? It’s cropping the left and right off of your image to make it a different aspect. It’s the same wether you do it in camera, as if you do it in your editor, as if you do it by cutting the sides off of your printed image with a scissors. It is all the same. Doesn’t change a thing. If you want a 2.39:1 image from a 2X lens, you will be using a 1.2:1 ratio portion of your sensor, always. Doesn’t matter how you arrive there. Yes, being able to record directly in a 4:3 mode in camera does have mild conveniences. Yes, if your 4:3 mode uses more of the sensor’s vertical area, you are gaining some sensor size. But it REALLY doesn’t matter. Are you wondering why people use vintage scopes? Or why they use vintage lenses behind their anamorphics? New scopes are expensive, and still haven’t surpassed (or even caught up to) the quality of vintage projection scopes. The day they do is the day I switch, but it hasn’t happened yet. Anamorphics work best through simple optics. High element count multicoated aspherical modern designs often don’t react well to having an old scope in front. I get by far the sharpest and richest results using good vintage prime lenses, especially pancake lenses. They just work best.

An important thing to understand with anamorphic is that you ALWAYS have to stretch the footage by the multiplication factor of the anamorphic for it to look right, regardless of sensor size or sensor aspect. After stretching, to achieve specific aspect ratios, you crop the image. That is, unless by stretching the footage, you hit your target aspect (which is rare). For example, on the P4K, I am always recording in 16:9 (aka 1.78:1). When I stretch the footage in post by 2X (because I have a 2X lens), it yields a 3.56:1 aspect ratio image. If I want my final video to be 2.39:1 (standard CinemaScope), I have to crop the sides off to achieve this. It is important to note that this cropping is not a negative thing! In fact, you need to understand it if you are going to get the most out of your scope. You see, I don’t care if the lens I’m using vignettes into the sides specifically because I know that I am cropping them off anyway. That’s how I can use a 28mm lens behind my Kowa. If I look at my direct sensor feed, there are large black sections on the left and right sides of the image. But on my SmallHD monitor, I have it set to de-squeeze and then crop to 2.39:1. In theory, this sounds scary, like you are throwing away precious pixels and information. In practice, it couldn’t be further from the truth. Your vertical line count of resolution is still exactly the same, because all the scaling happens only horizontally, so the perceived sharpness is the same. I would also argue that on compressed codec cameras, the black areas take a load off of the image processing, allowing more of the algorithm to be dedicated to a quality image in the center of your sensor. The vignetting is caused by the scope’s limitation, and correlates to a specific angle of view, regardless of sensor size. Mine would be approximately 28mm M4/3, 38mm S35, 56mm Full Frame. Those are the widest without vignette that the scope allows on each sensor size, without vignetting, when the final target is 2.39:1 aspect. And if shot side by side, they would appear as essentially identical/equivalent focal lengths. You can’t make any scope wider by changing sensor size. And remember: it is a 28mm lens in the vertical axis, but horizontally it is closer to a 14mm. It’s kinda one of my pet peeves when people say that 2X is “too stretched,” to be honest (though I understand you’re just learning how it all works.) That’s just not even a real thing if you understand how scope lenses work. 3.55:1 is obviously too wide a ratio to be using, but you just crop it. It’s as simple as that. You don’t loose anything by cropping, and in fact (as hopefully I’ve explained decently), you actually gain angle of view. You gain out of focus compression. You gain robust flares. You gain character. Because you crop more off the sides with 2X, you can shoot with more vignette and then completely get rid of it. Of course, if you are shooting with a 4:3 camera, that ends up as a 2.66:1 image when stretched, and to arrive at 2.39:1, you don’t crop off very much at all. But as I already ran through with focal lengths, you will arrive at the same maximum angle of view regardless of what size or aspect of sensor you shoot on, and you will always stretch it by a factor of 2. Cropping doesn’t impact that. There are some 1.5X lenses that get equivalent angle of view to the top dog 2X lenses, but guess what? Those are going to be the top dog 1.5X lenses like the Iscorama 36, and other even rarer lenses. The really good 1.5X lenses are much more expensive than the 2X ones, so if you’re on a budget, best of luck. The variable diopter allows you to take incredible blocks of vintage anamorphic glass and use it for filmmaking. It doesn’t matter that the glass is originally for projection, in fact, the image quality expectations for projection are, if anything, a higher bar. Some people see the dual-focus thing as an instant non-starter, but they are missing out on a look that otherwise only exists inside rental houses for very high day-rates. The new anamorphics are good, but not the same. A Kowa, Elmoscope, Moller, Sankor, etc. built in the 1980s just does that “thing” that made anamorphic famous in the first place. Those lenses are cut from the same cloth as all those lenses that shot (and still shoot) our favorite films. You should see if there is someone local to you that would meet up and let you test drive their 2X lens rig, so you can take the footage home, and play around with it. It’s much easier to wrap your head around all this by just using it, versus trying to explain it. It’s a wide angle adapter, but only horizontally. Vertically it has no angle change. To give you numbers that relate somewhat to your system, my Kowa with a 38mm lens on your S35 sensor camera, would horizontally be about a 19mm lens. Not quite the 17mm you are referencing, but not far off either. If you have a 19mm spherical lens and add black bars top and bottom in post so that it is 2.39:1, you’d see very close to what I see with my setup. Someone else can enlighten me if I am wrong, but I specifically have my lens because it gets as wide if not wider than pretty much every other projection scope out there. Genuinely not trying to be a downer, but scopes don’t go quite as wide as you’re hoping... at least not for prices that mortals can afford. They still go satisfyingly wide though, and at super wide angles with deep depth of field, the differences between anamorphic and spherical footage are hard to spot. Just shoot spherical and crop it to 2.39:1 if you need a specific shot that wide. There are flare filters, oval bokeh filters, and distortion in post if you really need your spherical shot to look the part. It is far more important to compose a good shot that serves the story you are attempting to tell, than it is to fret over exactly what pieces of glass you are shooting it through.

The top dog 2X projection scopes will give you the widest angle. You have to remember that you double your field of view horizontally. 1.33X/1.5X scopes may be compatible with similarly wide lenses, but they don’t increase your field of view by as high of a factor. On M4/3 with my Kowa I can go as wide as 28mm. That’s 28mm vertically. Horizontally it is 2X factor, so almost a 14mm. If there was something wider I would have bought it by now. The SLR Magics definitely aren’t. If it is the stylistic aspects of wide angle that you enjoy, rejoice! Anamorphic does similar things at all focal lengths. Slight barrel distortion, curved focal plane and bokeh field distortion. As others have said, don’t sweat the “single focus” crap. All anamorphics become single focus with a variable diopter. I run and gun mine all the time with an SLR Magic Rangefinder in front. The focus throw is long like a cinema lens, but that makes for smooth focus pulls. You are of course free to try a 1.33X lens, but in my experience they disappoint. They will not give you pronounced oval bokeh and always have thin flares. AKA what even is the point? It remains that if I need an ultra-wide lens for a specific shot, I just shoot spherical and crop the top/bottom to 2.39:1. I rarely need to go wider than my anamorphic allows though. Part of the beauty of anamorphic is that vertically it can be a portrait lens (50mm), while horizontally being a wide (25mm). They’re essentially a big hot mess of both at once. If you’re really in love with a spherical wide look, anamorphic might not be for you. It almost always looks “portrait-y,” even if the field of view is quite wide. The exception maybe being if you’re focused to infinity with nothing out of focus in the foreground, but in that use-case you would be hard-pressed to spot the difference between anamorphic and a spherical with some barrel distortion. I guess one question I have is, what is this “wide” you are in love with? What focal length on what size sensor? Wide is a general category of lens focal length, and can vary as much as anything.

I am fairly confident that you are not limiting your taking lens if what you are talking about is depth of field. If you are talking about actual light transmission, AKA T-Stop, that may be a different matter. If you have both lenses, you’re in a good position to check yourself in a controlled light environment.... locked off tripod shot comparing lens A to lens B, with and without the anamorphic mounted. You may even be able to test it by stopping down your same lens and comparing... but this would only work if your taking lens front element is bigger than your anamorphic front element. f-stop is a ratio of front element diameter versus aperture diameter.

Everyone will have a slightly different opinion on this, but I would pretty much say if you’re after anamorphic in 2019, it is for the stylistic optical idiosyncrasies historically associated with Hollywood’s long-standing use of 2X squeeze factor lenses. 1.33X squeeze factor lenses will get you a very mild/watered down version of that look, and in most cases will end up being almost as expensive as 2X options, or will be poor quality optically. 1.5X lenses can be great, but there were never many made, so they fetch a high price. Good 2X adapters are well-regraded at this point, and you’ll be hard pressed to get one for a truly “budget” price. But there are still a decent quantity of quality examples floating around. All this being said, they are priced as they are because the resulting look is absolutely worth it, and they are still priced low enough that they are accessible. Your best compromise is probably a smaller 2X, for example, a Sankor or Kowa 16-s. You won’t be able to use as wide of back lenses without vignetting, but the image quality is still top notch. If you decide to jump right in, the top dogs would be the Kowa Bell and Howell, Kowa 16-H, and the Isco Ultra-Star. If you are seriously shopping, get the @Andrew Reid anamorphic guide, and watch @Tito Ferradans YouTube channel. To use these projection scopes reliably, you need good clamps. Redstan are top of the line for Kowas, and HTN has a great locking front replacement lens body that gives you standard threads while also locking the focus. The budget variable diopter is the SLR Magic Rangefinder. It resolves excellently and increases vignetting minimally, but the coatings produce flaring that some find difficult to work with. The king of variable diopters is the Rectilux Hardcore DNA, but it is priced accordingly and is only made in small batches with a waiting list. You are going to want one of these two. Double focusing is a pain and almost impossible to get perfect. It can be the last item you buy, and you can get used to anamorphic without it, but you will need one. Expect to spend at least $1500 by the time you have a scope, clamps, variable diopter, and a prime taking lens that plays nice with your scope. That’s scraping the bottom of the barrel and getting lucky, but as lens prices go, that’s really not crazy money. $2500 or maybe a couple hundred more should be enough to get you into a good Kowa with a desqueezing monitor and all the extra goodies. There is a new line of 1.8X primes coming out that’s running just over $3000 per lens. I’m planning on transitioning to a set of those, but they’re for m4/3 sizes sensors. There’s a certain economy about the projection adapters, considering the same anamorphic block can be attached to your prime lens of choice for the various focal lengths, but at a certain point, dealing with countless clamps and adapters can get tiresome, and the lens rigs can get long and heavy. Ultimately, projection scopes are not well-suited to a truly professional style production. They’re perfect for passion projects and style-centric work like music videos, short films, etc. A crafty person who has good problem-solving skills can absolutely DIY some of these things and potentially save a little bit of money, but as I’ve pointed out, there are tried-and-true solutions already on the market for reasonable prices. I for one would say you’re lucky, even if the prices are now higher on the actual scopes. when I got into it, Redstan was the only good clamp option even though they didn’t have support brackets back then, and variable diopters weren’t even a thing. There were no affordable monitors with anamorphic desqueeze. now you can pick up a SmallHD Focus (which I would highly suggest you do), and it will serve you well in all your production, not just for anamorphic desqueezing. If I have one serious piece of advice, it is that cheap clamps will make your experience miserable. Get a lens clamp that can clamp down to 15mm rods. Sloppy loose lens rigs make for unusable footage with jolts in it, and clamping to rails ensures that, once aligned, your anamorphic will remain aligned. No “parallelogrammed” footage.

I don’t know that it has an f-stop in a conventional sense, as it is not a complete optical system. I suppose you could still technically define one based on the size of the front element versus the size of the smallest opening within the system, but it doesn’t really lose much light. Your question is similar to asking what the f-stop of a diopter is. The Kowa is an optical device, but it’s not an entire lens on its own. Since it is compressing by 2X, it may even technically be adding almost a stop to whatever lens you put it in front of, but I’m not a technical expert so I am not sure about that.

@Awcine I’ve always understood this, but yours is the most clear explanation I’ve ever come across.

Dang, I didn’t realize they’d all been snatched up! I guess I made a good investment buying a 16-H 7 years ago. I guess it about doubled in value.

I’ll be saving up but waiting for the 28mm to start the kit off with the wide. Definitely in that magic “sub-$4K” price bracket that nobody has done well yet. That’s the price of a flagship DSLR body, which really is pretty reachable/attainable. I’d bash them for not being S35 compatible except for the recent explosion of the Pocket 4K. Truly a cinematic beast of a camera, and a set of (near) 2X anamorphics would punch it WAY above its weight class. I’m sure the smaller sensor size is one big factor in the reasonable pricing. If these are actually decent cine glass, they’ll keep m4/3 alive in my heart pretty much indefinitely. Don't get me wrong, medium format is inevitably coming, and it’s glorious. It definitely will have its place in the spherical realm... but smaller sensors work better for front element anamorphics. The glass doesn’t have to be ginormous to work.

Thanks!

Does anyone have experience on how these two compare in terms of vignetting with wider angle taking lenses? The HCDNA looks to be bigger diameter but that’s not the only factor I’m sure. I have a Rangefinder and am trying to figure out what I might gain by switching.

The one and only Redstan has a host of new products out on their website which I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere yet. For those that don’t know, Redstan have always been the OG maker of snug slip fit projection Ana clamps. Especially exciting to me are the clamps with support feet, as they allow you to tighten things down to a set of rods and eliminate mount/adapter slop. Some things are listed as limited runs, so I’d snag em quick if you’re interested. http://www.redstan.com/index.php?route=common/home

I will! Got a lot going on this week but I’m hoping to squeeze in a test video.

Hey all! I’ve been doing some soul searching lately... they say the camera lens is the window to the soul, right? Anyway, seeing as my current cameras both have multi-aspect micro four thirds sensors (GH5S and Pocket 4K), I’ve been planning to update my taking lenses for anamorphic. I use a Kowa 16-H which is fantastic, and the SLR Magic Rangefinder, which works well in most cases. I messed around some with old primes that I have kicking about, and determined that the right 28mm lens just MIGHT squeak by in anamorphic mode on the GH5S, and would probably work perfect on the Pocket. I was also after a native mount pancake, because let’s be honest. On gimbals, the typically long and front-heavy anamorphic setups just don’t work well. I have a Ronin M (not a small gimbal by 2019 standards), and I have to add a lot of ballast to BARELY make the Kowa work. The gimbal strains hard and can’t tilt to vertical. Well, a short google later, and I ordered a Meke 28mm pancake on Amazon. What the heck, it’s really cheap, doesn’t hurt to try it right? Well, it just showed up, and it works PERFECT. If you have a Kowa 16-H/8Z, I highly recommend snagging one of these. As with anything on the wide end, it vignettes pretty hard with the Rangefinder mounted, but with just the Kowa, it’s clean as a whistle (cropped to 2.39 of course.) This will be my new go-to for gimbal work and for wide establishing shots. I have yet to test it on faces, but it’s probably perfect for that near fisheye mumpy up close look. If I get in a tight corner, I’ll be relieved to have this (literally) in my back pocket. My only gripe is that they don’t also have a 35mm/40mm/50mm pancake set, because a range of pancakes this small would be gamechanging for anamorphic adapter users. I never thought I’d have a Kowa setup as small as this. It’s crazy. Until a new anamorphic beats the Kowa for width and quality, I’m sticking with it.

The main challenge is the length and front-heavy nature of projection anamorphic setups. You have a modern lightweight camera body, with a vintage prime on front. Off of that, you hang a clamp, and a heavy anamorphic adapter . . . and then on the front of that, a heavy single focus solution and a wireless follow focus next to it, all the way out front. Most gimbals might be able to handle the weight in compact distribution, but with it elongated and front heavy, the torque demand on the tilt axis (and a lesser degree the pan axis) are pretty hefty. I would shy away from single handle gimbals and get a decent mid-tier two handle gimbal, like the Ronin MX or something.

I would almost argue that the Pocket 4K is $1K, considering it comes with a software license worth $300. The mind-blowing practicality of BMRaw cannot be overstated either. I dare say it cuts faster than h.264. People dock it points for having deficiencies that require it to be kitted out for serious use, but that’s just the pedigree of a typical cinema camera experience. If anything, it is easier to rig than bigger, more expensive cine cams. I have a cine cam now, and money left over for other things like wireless follow focus and monitoring solutions that can quickly make professional production methods a reality, even on small projects. My plan is to get a quality cage with lens adapter support, and a positive-locking EF Speedbooster to transform the Pocket 4K into a rock solid full frame RAW sensor block. The image quality I’ve been pulling out of this little thing without even trying is already punching obnoxiously close to Alexa territory... and we’re talking hand-held selfie vlog shots with an SSD dangling off the grip. Borderline idiocy. This camera gets me into the cine environment on the cheap, and there’s a whole lot more to that besides the end image quality. The UI and general handling are a whole other workflow. I can kit up the necessary accessories, and almost all of them will be useable in the future with yet-unreleased camera bodies. Gear like v-mount batteries, Nucleus-M, Small-HD Bolt, rods, quick release systems, mattebox and filters, shoulder rigs... Sure, you have to kit it out, but once you do, you have that kit forever. Resolve 16 is a beast. I’ve spent 10X as much time in Resolve the past month compared to time spent in my old haunt, FCPX. The NR is magical and very natural if you know how to dial it in. The wait for the new FilmConvert is agony right now. I’m ready to leave the baked in film print emulation of the current version in the dust. I’ve been using the status-m workaround lately, and while cumbersome, it makes FilmConvert pure magic, doubly so when you give it BMRaw to work with.

I call it Arrival Syndrome. Good lord, to intentionally choose to limit your whole film to about 50% of the available tonal range?! It’s moody on an Instagram photo sure, but oppressively fatiguing on a 2 hour cinematic. I’m of two minds on the audio. People absolutely have TV systems capable of producing cinema dynamics in a clear manner. It would be better rather if manufacturers of audio equipment would integrate dynamic volume of some sort.... If you have your volume down, compress everything more so you can hear quiet stuff, and bump the center channel a touch for dialogue retention. When you crank it, use the dynamics of the source. It is a bit hypocritical to bash for wasting dynamic range on one hand, and complain about extreme use of range on the other. Device-aware playback is the answer. Or, Devices which analyze the content and adjust to reproduce it satisfactorily. If you’re on an iPad, the pad should be smart enough to detect high dynamic audio.

If you’re delivering to cinema, it hardly matters. Most festivals still ask for 2K DCPs or even Blu-Ray. On a good cinema projector, a 2K DCP looks exceptional if you master it properly. I’ve been shooting 2X for almost a decade, before there were affordable monitors, 4K/high DR DSLRs, or single focus solutions. Composition rules apply even if the image is squashed. Wether you crop the sides or not, stretch 2X or 1.5X, the vertical lines of resolution remain the same. Perceived resolution is a funny thing. It’s infinitely more important to get a sharp scope and a taking lens that works well with it... and then to nail your focus. I prefer a 2X scope for the look, and the potential inconveniences are easily solved. The single most helpful tool with any anamorphic is a good monitor that can desqueeze and crop your image. Do yourself a favor and grab a SmallHD that runs the latest firmware. It’ll desqueeze and crop to any configuration. Anamorphic is just something you have to jump into and learn for yourself. It’s comparatively easy to do these days. Pick a scope and start experimenting, learn your rig and adjust your setup as you encounter things you want to improve.

Yeah, voight 40 or Konica Hexanon 40... and ditto on the Kowa 16-H/8Z. It’s the best of the 2X projection scopes.

Andrew, I think that your asessment of H.265’s adoption roadmap versus the arrival of new RAW codecs is very astute. I was having a conversation with one of my company’s Videographers about exactly that: the timing is too late. H.265 gave me a huge leg up in the NX1 for several years (especially after the hack), but now it’s too little too late. I predict it will be the “Pro” codec in everyone’s flagship models for maybe two more product cycles, then everyone will one by one start to one-up each other with RAW integration. What that RAW format ultimately proves to be remains to be seen. ProRes compression, while tried and tested, is a bit old hat, and while I don’t doubt that applying it to a Bayer pattern signal produces fantastic image quality (ProRes RAW), there probably are more efficient possibilities out there at this juncture. In the limited time I’ve had to play with BlackMagic RAW on the Pocket 4K, I’d say it is more closely representative of what may be possible. Perhaps we will see H.265 compression applied to a bayer pattern signal. That would probably be a very flexible codec for the size indeed! The emphasis shift that I hope to see in the long run is away from codec flexibility and dynamic range, towards quality of color science. In two years if the dynamic range of most cameras is high enough to be a non-issue, and RAW in various forms also exists across the board, other issues like color shift over the range of exposure, and dual pixel autofocus will hopefully be pushed to the forefront. The Alexa remains unthroned for a reason, and it’s not just that it shoots RAW. Canon protects its Cinema cameras with that great AF. RED has had a monopoly on good compressed RAW with REDCODE, but not for much longer. The FS5 has that brilliant internal electronic variable ND! There is a lot of tech out there right now that single manufacturers provide. Hopefully it all spreads around soon just like RAW.