QuickHitRecord

I really haven't had much of a chance to play with this lens, unfortunately. But if our Government remains closed next week, I may have a few days off and perhaps I will get around to it.   It really does seem to be the full package, at least for my purposes. I think that mine looks pretty great at f/2.8. In my opinion, it has more character than many of the more popular and sought-after anamorphics out there.   (And by answering this, I am losing my '666 posts' status that I have been hanging on to for a while. Rock and roll.)

That was beautiful!

Lomo spherical lenses are great, if you can find a good one. But they aren't cheap, and adapters are very expensive too.   If it were me, I would go on eBay and look for a cheap fixed 135mm lens in good condition. Pay close attention to the filter thread size, because that is also an indicator of the size of the front element. The smaller it is (49mm, 52mm and 55mm should be good), the better chance that you won't be run into problems with vignetting.

Well, it's a trade off. You'll be getting 1080P resolution out of either camera.   For anamorphic shooting, the greater the crop factor (1.5/1.6x APS-C, 1.86-2.0x Micro Four Thirds, etc.), the lower focal length you can get away with, and the smaller the taking lenses that you can use (for instance, the Helios-44 is much more compact than any 105mm lens that I know of).   That being said, full frame will give you better low-light performance and more shallow depth of field, but you will need a longer (and larger) taking lens to go behind your anamorphic, and your rig will be bigger and heavier.   Hope that helps!

Yes, this is a result of the full frame sensor and the wider field of view. You are seeing the sides of the inside of the Hypergonar in this image. But if you do your 2x stretch and then crop to a 1.5x (2.55:1) image, you may be able to get rid of the vignetting.   If you really want to shoot without vignetting and keep a 2x stretch, you will need a much longer lens... maybe as much as 105mm or 135mm.

This is really cool stuff. I wonder if it is possible to use this technology to watch and record actors and 3D motion capture virtual actors interact with one another in real time. I seem to remember reading that James Cameron did something like that for Avatar.

Make sure that the image stabilization is turned OFF on your lens.   But I suspect more that it's a side effect of shooting at 24 frames per second. If an object takes less than about seven seconds to pass from one side of the screen to the other, then you are likely to experience motion judder when viewing on a 60hz monitor. It is one of the limitations of that frame rate.   If you really need smooth motion, you may find that 30 and 60 frames (especially 60 frames) per second are better for your purposes.

I'm not sure why you'd want both the GH2 and the G6. They are similar but unless there has been a firmware update, the G6 does not allow monitoring via HDMI.   Unlike either of these cameras, the GH3 has a problem with moire.   I have heard rumblings that the GH5 is right around the corner, so it may be best to wait.

These are definitely some of the better flares that I have seen from a flare filter. Still, there's something special about real anamorphic flares...

  I think that a score of 0 is ideal though, right?

Personally, I prefer the Nikkor 50mm AI-S to the Helios-44 for pairing with anamorphic lenses, but it's purely subjective.

Everything was focused carefully. If you own a sharper copy of this lens than the one that I had, consider yourself fortunate.

At the same time, this presents an interesting optical setup that is still somewhat uncharted. If it is a signature anamorphic "look" that you are after, not too many people are going through the trouble of doing this.

  Why is it a poor example? I think that it reinforces what you said about the lens being usable at f5.6 and smaller.

After setting it up and calibrating it, I feel that the AC7 is the ultimate anamorphic monitor. You can switch the anamorphic mode I mentioned above on and off with ease, and the image that you get is so large that it is really easy to check critical focus, especially by assigning Focus Assist Max to one of the buttons. This monitor breathes life back into my GH2, which does not allow the camera's magnified focus assist to be used when an HDMI cable is plugged in. I could never tell what was truly in focus. But now it's become my primary anamorphic camera again.   I only wish that it had waveform monitoring, but the false color feature is pretty easy to use.   I saved some money (and weight) by buying the HDMI-only LCD version, but I can always send it back to SmallHD in the future for the SDI upgrade. 

I just got a response to my comment from Convergent Design:     I went ahead and ordered the SmallHD AC7. It has a built in 2x-stretch-and-cropped-to-1.5x" anamorphic mode that I have had my eye on for a while.  

I'd also like to know what this is, if anyone can answer Caleb's question.

This should get you started:   http://youtu.be/6l7KTDHla5k   And then you should consider buying this: http://www.eoshd.com/anamorphic-guide

This is a very useful post. Thanks for posting!

Okay, I think that I have it working. Pulling up the ML menu seems to freeze the image. Sometimes it becomes unfrozen right away, and sometimes it takes a little while.   One thing I have learned by experimenting with the 5x zoom/crop feature (hoping that it would allow me to use a shorter taking lens) is that it's really not that great for anamorphic with a focusing anamorphic like I had hoped. Every microbe of dust was visible as I changed focus. Usually I am focusing past most of that. Oh well. It is still a useful feature.

  I wonder what I am doing wrong. I seem to remember that Andrew's Raw Shooting Guide suggests that using the regular Canon menu and setting it to 640x480 30fps, but that seemed like it would conflict with the ML software. Maybe I need to do that.   This is wishful thinking, but with the current build is there a way to get a true 2x stretch either on the LCD or output via HDMI?

I have a 5D Mark III with the July 17 build, and being able to shoot at different aspect ratios is pretty nifty for anamorphic lenses (I know that I am late to the party on this). The one thing that I am having trouble with is HDMI monitoring. Every time that I have tried to do this the image freezes on my monitor.   Has anyone been able to successfully plug an HDMI monitor in for anamorphic monitoring? Is there a "sweet spot" resolution that frees up enough system resources to make this possible?

  As the originator of that particular post (and other posts about anamorphic discoveries), here is a question that I pose to my fellow forum members: if someone finds an interesting anamorphic and there hasn't been much written about it online, should he/she:   [A] Post the information so that other people may also enjoy the lens, at the risk driving up prices? [B] Share it with a select group of people via PM or email? [C] Keep the information to him/herself?   I am curious to hear your thoughts.

  They are probably just curious to see if anyone will buy it at this price.

Hey everybody, please let Convergent Design know that we want anamorphic monitoring on their new Odyssey monitor:   https://vimeo.com/72494555   If they add this feature, we will have a big, fully-featured, waveform-capable, anamorphic-friendly OLED monitor (and a great external recorder as well) for about $800 less than the SmallHD DP7.   Please leave them a comment!