Gábor Ember

I was working on my Sun+Helios combined rehousing idea. I tried the emachineshop software. It is hard to create complex shapes (I don't know how to do it yet). I thought I could design a body with only very few parts, but these few parts would have been too complex so now I am redesigning it to be like a Lego set :)   I am trying to figure out if it is possible to convert the dual-focus system to single focus. I know the lenses do not have linear focus measurement, but still... If that does not work on paper, then I will do a rehousing with dual focus system. but the two lenses will still be in one body, prealigned.   Once I will have some proper cleaned up drawings, I'll make a thread about it.

You can set up any resolution you want, you have to unlock the height and width and they can be set independently.

Check the diopter thread.

One thing to consider is that if you use 1920x1080 sequence and interpret footage as 2x aspect then you will not be able to use things like warp stabilizer because the footage does not match the sequence settings. Other than that it is a good way to do it.

Upscale it then. Use 1920*2 as width and 1080 as height when you create a new sequence and set width to 200%.   If you want a not that wide aspect, then set the sequence to 2538*1080 (2.35:1 aspect) and scale width to 200% (this should be always 200 due to 2x anamorph). This way the extreme edges of the frame will be cropped (out of the frame).   Edit: I prefer using 1920*1080 letterboxed anamorphic because my anamorphic can't resolve that much so I don't want to blow it up.

In that case 85mm is the lowest without vignetting. Get a Jupiter-9, they are solid, can hold the Sankor, and they can be very sharp even wide open. Or crop your images/videos. But you will get the same field of view that way and worse image quality.

Also you should push the anamorphic as close to the taking lens as possible to reduce the vignetting.   I think FD lenses are used on GH2 and such M43 cameras (they can't reach infinity on EOS bodies), that is why they don't have vignetting.

You have to use longer lenses. You may have better luck with a Helios-44. It is 58mm f2.0. It is just a little bit longer but it MAY just be enough to eliminate vignetting. It depends on the amount of vignetting. You may need a 85mm lens to get rid of it totally. The Anamorphic Guide has a part where you can see which is the widest you can go on which anamorphic.    Sankor 16C / Singer FF - 135mm APS - 85mm M43 - 50mm   This means the Sankor 16C vignette below these focal lengths (Full-Frame, APS-C, Micro 4/3 respectively) What camera are you using?

I took apart my SUN again. Wiped down all the grease I could from the focus helicoid (it was very thin, almost liquid, so it went a bit everywhere but it still dampened the focus) and the barrel of the front glass group. Now the focus is much much lighter, I will not turn the whole anamorphic in the clamp when I try to focus. I still love the simple construction.   Last time I cleaned the rear glass from the inside and I was shocked that what I thought were air bubbles in the glass turned out to be grease from the lens barrel and the bubbles were formed in it.   This lens looked very good when I bought it. I can only image how many faults can there be on lenses that look bad on the outside.

I still think that the best is to find a Sankor/Singer/Sun/Kowa for about $100 max. There are always some on ebay for that kind of money. I think it is not a big investment, you are not throwing away a lot of money and you will not be stuck with a lens you don't like because the market is very busy right now, so even if you don't like the lens, you can still sell it.   I bought my SUN for about $100 on a local auction site. I am not blown away by this lens, but I like the overall look (it is not sharp but the out of focus parts are very pleasing for me), I like playing with optics so I know I will never sell this lens although I know I will only use it occasionally.   I was so interested in anamorphics that reading a lot about them was not enough, I had to try one. If you are so interested, just buy a cheap one (and make sure not to buy a huge projection lens that needs support rig) and try it out, see how hard it is to get proper focus. Try the whole workflow, how to properly stretch the footage.

Because Schneider anamorphics usually have to be focused by a screw. They were meant to be set once for projection and left alone. They are really not designed for easy focus setting. And it is a dual focus system.   At least that is what held me back. The prices are alright.   Edit: you can see the screw on the front of the lens on the images in Andy's post.

Use a longer taking lens so that the light source is not visible in the shot but the light can hit the front of the anamorphic. Use some bright LED flashlights and experiment, The white vignetting is apparent on the Sun Anamorphic too.

I really appreciate that you make these guides although I missed the actual "shooting" tips from the anamorphic guide (mostly anamorphic composition). Don't get me wrong, the info that's there is very helpful, it aided me in getting into anamorphic.

It depends on the lens' coating. In this video the Sun Anamorphic has blue flares, mine has clear white flares on all my taking lenses. There were more variations of these old anamorphic lenses with different coatings, some MC, some not, also the coatings have different colors.

Sankor 16c ANAMORPHIC LENS (Xenon) w/ ISCO 115mm 1.7 Cinelux - KA298  in this config the Sankor is the anamorphic lens and the Isco is the taking lens (not anamorphic). It has 115mm focal length. I don't think that you can mount that Isco on a camera. You can mount the Sankor 16C on a normal photographic lens though. The Sankor is small enough, should be easy to mount.   The Kiptar 2x is big projection lens.   I think it would be best to buy just a Sankor and use it on your own lenses or buy a Helios-44 for it as a taking lens.   BTW if that video with the 35mm ISCO Gottingen Anamorphotic Kiptar 2x is considered sharp, then my Sun is incredible.

I agree that for information gathering this thread is good.   Everyone who is really interested in finding anamorphics on ebay can add the keyword to their feed and all the new "anamorphic" listings will be shown on the front page. At least on the .com site it works, I use it constantly for stuff that I'm interested in.   Once you have something that you are interested to buy, come here and ask away.

This type of adapter is not very beneficial for anamorphic. Usually anamorphics need long lenses (50 or 85mm on APS-C sensor) because they vignette heavily. Now there are some focus-through anamorphics, like the Panasonic, that can be used with pretty wide lenses but as far as I know it needs the lens to be stopped down to be sharp. The only benefit I see is the light gain, that could balance out the light loss caused by the anamorphic lens so if you have an f2.0 lens + anamorphic + lens turbo/speedbooster you would still be around f2.0.   This is just theory. I'm still interested in the speedbooster though.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Iscorama-anamorphic-lens-/200926249978

Best would be a pentax-forums style user review system too, but that must be complex :)

I think this "Anamorphic directory" must have a first pinned topic that only consists of a big table that contains the basic info we filled out but in one combined table. Just so that people could compare the anamorphics very easily and then when they are interested in one specific lens they can go into the lens' own topic.

I've posted some images here: http://www.eoshd.com/comments/gallery/album/56-wide-angle-adapter/   All were shot from the same position using a Canon 550D + Helios-44m + Sun anamorphic adaptor.

Envelope icon at the top of the site -> Compose new -> start typing the recipient's name and it will show you the available users.

For that price difference you could buy a mirrorless camera and mount the lenses on it (Sony NEX line) and it won't have problems with mirror chamber cause there isn't one.

It is not specially the anamorphic. If I use the Fotga on the Helios-44M by itself, it produces the same errors. So the problem with the anamorphic setup is that the taking lens is too long (focal length), I guess. Canon 50mm 1.8 and Jupiter-9 are bad too but my friend used the Fotga happily on his Nikon 18-55 kitlens. So it is not about the elements but the focal lengths.   Wide angle adapter is for wide but not that wide lenses I think.   There are relatively cheap chinese adapters out there. Buy one that you may be able to use on another lens, if the anamorphic gear doesn't like it.   I'll recharge my batteries and I'll make some pics.

Well straight away the Zomei is crap. Says 0.45x and I bet it is around 0.9x... and it messes up the focus completely, MINIMUM focus becomes infinity so it needs a diopter behind it to be able to focus closer than infinity :)