Gábor Ember

This animation is almost what I had in mind: http://www.pierretoscani.com/images/echo_shortpres/Figure-18-anim-UK.swf   www.pierretoscani.com/images/echo_shortpres/Figure-18-anim-UK.swf   The main difference is that I wanted to put the Cam Ring on the outside, not the inside. http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/media/2013/01/helicoidsml.jpg This is how i planned it.   The anim represents a single focus system.   My friend does magic with aluminium so once I have the design he could probably machine the parts in a week. I am open to any suggestions about the project.

http://megafile.hu/swf/rajzos.html   This flash sketch shows the basic layout of the glass groups and their movement. The camera would be on the right side.   Front lens group: Sun front   Rear lens group: Sun back + Helios   The front focus ring moves the front group while the rear focus ring moves the rear group. This drawing just represents the position of the glass elements related to each other. The aperture mechanism is currently not in the design, I'll see how can we implement it.   The exterior design will not be a simple tube of course. I am currently looking at a bunch of cine lens photos to find one that looks right for the job. The interior is just a tube so the exterior can be shaped freely. I don't plan on using geared focus.   Every custom part will be made of aluminium.   Oh and maybe 58mm filter thread will be too small, because the Front group will move to the inside of the lens so it might vignette.

I have been thinking about a rehousing project for a while now. What I want to do is rehouse the taking lens and the anamorphic adapter in one lens body. Originally I though about converting to a single focus system , calculating focus distances for each lens and adjusting the two helicals or grooves so that the Helios and the SUN would move together with the turn of a single focus ring. Now the calculation and the actual creation of at least one nonlinear helicoid would not be an easy task so for now I am designing a lens body for dual focus.   There should be two lens groups that move separately: Front group is the front lens group from the SUN Back group is the back lens group from the SUN and both lens groups from the Helios   This way when I turn the rear focus ring not only the taking lens focuses, but also the distance of the two SUN glass parts changes (the anamorphic part focuses in the right direction, but not exactly the right amount). The front focus ring would only need minor adjustment.   Goals: Two lenses in one body Easier focusing Reversing the focus ring turn direction on the SUN glass part Reduced minimum focusing distance Tough, durable body (probably an inner shell from one piece of aluminium) Very small amount of parts (harder to machine so we'll see) No alignment issues Canon EF mount Built-in tripod mount (proper balance on a tripod) non-rotating 58mm filter thread (the current mod has a rotating thread)   I will post some drawing to clarify what I wrote above.

These shots made me realize that my SUN is not that crappy. For my taste these ovals are too much.

http://vimeo.com/73882911   Canon 550D, Helios-44M without the aperture mechanism (so full on wide open), SUN Anamorphic and a buttload of CC.   I really need to shoot at daytime because photos taken at 100 ISO are really nice, but high ISO-s really kill the image.

I'll post a video of the same place that you can see on the photos above.   Until then: http://vimeo.com/73414560

I took these tonight with the SUN on a Helios-44M that has the aperture block removed. Some minor editing. [sharedmedia=gallery:images:681] [sharedmedia=gallery:images:680] [sharedmedia=gallery:images:682]  

For me the 1.5x look better. Well actually something in between 1.5 and 1.33. 1.5x seems just a little too wide, 1.33x is too tall. It's hard to judge because I don't know how the person on the image looks in real life :)

The white vignette is the reflection off of the inner parts of the anamorphic (inner glass or inner tube)

I don't think that grinding is needed for that setup. 50mm on a GF3 should be good.

Your problem is that the front and rear glass elements are not aligned  to each other properly. It is enough to adjust only the front part or only the back. I don't have a kowa but it looks as simple as a Sankor or Sun so there should be only 2 glass groups. I had the same problem with my sun and adjusting the front glass (rotating it so that the image was sharp) solved it. You can usually use a caliper to rotate glass elements.

You should rotate the ISCO 90 degrees. At least the sample shots show that they are squeezed vertically instead of horizontally.

What camera will you be using for anamorphic shooting? Will the 50mm taking lens be long enough?

The minimum taking distance is around 1.2 meters. The scale says 1.5 but I find that it can go a little closer. If I need to focus that close I use a +1 diopter to be able to focus at short distances correctly (you can see in my previous post that my Sun has a modded front to accept 58mm filters)

If you want to fix it on a lens, then stepdowns can be alright but you will have to glue it or something in the thread. Otherwise the whole thing will unscrew when you focus the anamorphic.

Here are two pics with the Jupiter-9 at f2.0 and f8.0 respectively. At f8.0 it is very, very sharp. I am now sure that my Helios was the culprit before.   [sharedmedia=gallery:images:650]   [sharedmedia=gallery:images:651]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/embergabor/8559139339/ Avoid this! :)

The sun has a 40.5mm back thread. It can be attach with for example a 52 to 40.5mm step-down ring. But you can't adjust it properly that way.

The step ring idea is not good. I personally only used it to check if the lens works at all. I didn't want to get a clamp made until it proved itself.   What taking lens are you using? If you use the taking lens wide open, the vignetting would disappear.   If you want to get the best focus, just for testing, you can to this: Unattach the SUN, just have the taking lens by itself Focus it precisely to your target Attach the SUN without disturbing the focus on the taking lens Now you just have to focus the SUN to get proper focus   This is only for critical focus testing. For actual use you have to guess the distance, set it on both lenses and then finetune it by eye.

I don't mean getting correct focus, I mean that great sharpness.My SUN can't get that sharp no mather how I try it :( I disassembled it a few times and aligned the elements correctly for the best sharpness but it is still a bit hazy. I guess there was some mess on the inner lenses and I could not clean it off properly. Well... I still love the lens' character.

How the hell do you get an image this sharp? Very nice.

I just use MPC-HC and the numpad 4 and 6 varies the width of the video (the aspect ratio is displayed at the bottom). It works when multiple files are dropped in.

I don't see a reasont for the 15mm rods (other than follow focus) if you have both the taking lens and the anamorphic in the same body. Instead I would build a tripod mount on it. The camera body can support its own weight. Possible the best way would be a lower part that has 15mm holes plus a standard tripod socket at the bottom.   It would be so great to have access to a 3D printer. It would be so awesome to test out what I designed on my PC without having it made from aluminium. I will clean up my drawings and post my rehousing thread too :)

I have tried different filters on my lenses without the anamorphic attached and the filters usually add flares or ghosting or haze if the filter is cheap. If the filter is good, then it did not add any light errors, but the original flares remained.   On all of my lenses if I stop down just a bit, the flares are reduced dramatically. On the anamorphic setup when I stop down the taking lens the falres became smaller but they have harder edges.

In my experience putting filters between the lenses does the opposite. You add more glass, so you possibly even add flares instead of removing them. The best case would be that the filter does not add flares, but I don't see how it could eleminate it.   Usually stopping down the taking lens works.