Drew Veeneman

Hey, dual focus is not wrong. It's harder. For the Ultra Star it's worth it. Bobwertit, I've done a fair amount of shooting with these. You'll see quicker results if you give the taking lens the first turn, then the Anamorphic... lastly fine tune the taking lens for best results. I strongly recommend getting the focus assist zoomed in while your doing this. You'll get the hang of it. Also, in practice the ultra star stretches more like 1.8 than 2x... and the stretch varies a little near the edges like a old fashion anamorphic. Keep that in mind when editing your footage. For best results I recommend cropping it down to a 2.66 aspect ratio most of the time. Anyway, hope you enjoy the ultra star and shoot some cool footage!

Thanks for posting Richard. What video mode did you originally shoot this in? 1080p or 4k?

I found this long video from Sony covering the XAVC codec. It shows how the 8-bit XAVC-S consumer format fits in, and compares with regular XAVC.

Ok, I apologize Mr. Barlow. You are an expert on the ES models. 3 meters it is.   Anyway, here's rough footage from the Cinieux Super WA: https://vimeo.com/71066605 vignetting in the bottom corners is probably due to user error...

A 6 ft. minimum focus with smaller new Schnieders isn't unrealistic.The ISCO projection lenses Schnieder makes with the blue star are popular because they are small and have a minimum focus distance of 5 ft. You can read a good write-up of those here: http://444-films.com/the-last-iscorama-anamorphic/   Vid-Atlantic is selling these for $850 right now (http://www.vid-atlantic.com/lensshop.html). Their demo footage is impressive.   I'm not sure about other versions, but the 80mm Cinieux Super WA MC model would not be ideal for a FF sensor. To avoid vignetting, it would probably only work from 85mm and up.

These Schneider projection lenses caught my interest and curiosity. Following Andy Lee's advice above, I got one with a big focus ring... the 80mm Cinieux Super WA MC model. I'm waiting on some longer rods and haven't shot any video, but I thought I'd share my initial thoughts.   Positives: This thing is SHARP. Very sharp. It also seems to work fine at fast f-stops, which is really nice. The focus ring on this model is smooth and professional. I was able to use a 45mm on a gh2 without vignetting. Lastly, it's a good fit for my cavision 4x4 matte box.   Negatives: This is a a big beast of a lens... big and heavy(think of a Canon 85mm 1.2 lens).The minimum focus distance seems to be around 8-10 feet(3 meters). I'm not sure if this is common, but my anamorphic lens has a .5 magnification factor written on the side. That could make a difference. I tried a +2 diopter and the results were extreme. The focus distance turned into roughly .2 meters, like a Macro lens that didn't move much. A +1 diopter should work better for close-ups. With the diopter, the bokeh did look amazing.   More details to come...

Ok, here's the apefoscope anamorphic adapter/canon fd 28mm in action: https://vimeo.com/69635411

28mm Canon FD with GH2 Works!   I took a second look at my 28mm Canon FD lens today with the Apefoscope adapter. With normal adjustments I could frame shots with no vignetting... none. I'll try to get some 28mm footage online in the near future.

https://vimeo.com/67083744

I recall researching these and finding they don't work so well. I think the sharpness was real dodgy.

Two new Apefoscopes for sale... 1.33   http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2047675.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0&_nkw=Apefoscope&_sacat=0&_from=R40

Used a DYI Lens Test Chart on a bunch of vintage lens paired with the Apefoscope and a gh2. https://vimeo.com/66986122

Since I'm waiting for Nikon V1 to get exchanged(see previous post), I decided to give Zach Daniels raw stills a try. https://vimeo.com/61939526 This is the same footage from Zach's original video: https://vimeo.com/61863569 I edited the raw files directly in Sony Vegas Pro. Twixtor worked as you would expect, stretching the clips... I also did some motion cropping, which worked nice. With that much resolution you can make some big moves. The second clip feels somewhat like a crane shot. Lastly, I did some aggressive color grading to see what the raw can do. Needless to say, the raw photos grade beautifully... I was able to pull out plenty of detail.

Gah... I got a bad refurbished V1 in the mail today. The 10-30mm kit lens kept giving me the "Lens Error - Return to Nikon Service Agent..." on the screen. These electronic lenses are annoying. Back to KEH it goes for an exchange...

Nice. I'm curious if lowering the resolution or jpg format can stretch out the buffer cache to 2-3 seconds... but 4k Raw for 1 second is still awesome. I like fast cutting anyway. Losing control of exposure etc. doesn't seem like that big of a deal if your shooting raw. You'll have so much to work with in post that it won't matter. Does anyone know if high shutter speeds would still cause a strobing effect when your working directly with a still image sequence in your video editor? Aside from the impact on individual photos, I'm not sure the shutter speed would matter either... My $200 Nikon V1 is on the way.

Here's some more test footage using the Olympus Pen F 38mm lens. http://vimeo.com/61398964

Behold, the first Apefoscope customer review...   https://vimeo.com/60924232   Test footage was shot with my hacked GH2 and a few prime lenses identified in the video. Aside from changing the footage to the 1.33 aspect ratio, none of the footage was altered.   Extra Notes: One of the shots with the Canon FD 24mm was at a 1 foot focus distance(the sink shot with water dripping). Unlike most anamorphics, the focus distance is really good with this thing.

impressive. The GH2 is among the best.

Sweet! Thanks