eris

BTW: I'd have to say that, though I really like my GH4, I'm tempted to move to either the Blackmagic Mini 4.6k or A7M II for my next camera (assuming the mini 4.6k ever comes out).

gorgeous

These R&D announcements usually don't map particularly well to reality. Often they are more PR than R&D. What Panasonic needs and needs badly in the GH5 is something to compete with the stuff coming from Sony and Blackmagic. They need high quality 96 FPS 4k with global shutter around 30-60 FPS and less photo sites to improve low light. I don't have an opinion one way or another on micro 4/3. If they made it a Super35 sensor that would be great. Micro 4/3 would be just fine as I have Speedboosters.

A well-calibrated Bolex Moeller 16/32 1.5x is probably the sharpest and easiest to use dual focus anamorphic. It's lightweight and has excellent close focus. When you use it with a sensor capturing in HD aspect ratio (1.78:1) it becomes a 2.65:1 -- essentially an original cinemascope recording format which with a 10% crop becomes standard 2.39:1 anamorphic projection. I ran some extensive tests on the 16/32 including maximum barrel distortion (important because excessive distortion leads to anamorphic "mumps") and determining minimum taking lens focal length. The setup was a GH4 in UHD mode with an MD to micro 4/3 speed booster so effectively it was close to a S35 sensor size. The minimum focal length without vignetting was an MC Rokkor 35mm f1.8. It looked great. The wider you go the more you tend to reveal distortion at the edges of the Bolex, but I compared the barrel distortion to the same distortion on super high-end Hawk and Panavision 35mm and it was nearly equivalent. I used the MC Rokkors because (1) the 58mm f1.2 is legendary and I've use it to great effect, (2) the MCs have a good single coating so it doesn't kill anamorphic flare and (3) there's a speed booster for it. You can also easily adapt M42 mount lenses to MD using an inexpensive Fotodiox adapter. That opens the MD booster up to some great anamorphic M42 taking lenses like the Jupiter 85, the Helios 44-2 and the Zeiss Jena Flektogon 35mm f2.4. (I used to avoid M42 taking lenses because they're screw mount and you don't want them unscrewing when you adjust focus etc.) Of course the speed booster drops all lenses down a stop so the 58mm becomes a f0.8. Other good choices are the Canon FD taking lenses, but (a) there is no speed booster for FD and you can't use the EF speed booster without an additional optical adapter. BTW: I did test the Rokkor MC.W 28mm as a taking lens and while it works it starts to vignette on the horizontal, but that might disappear during a crop to 2.39:1. In any case 28mm anamorphic starts looking unnatural to my eye, but might be useful for special shots. A few negatives on the Bolex: (a) They're relatively rare and damn good so they're kind of expensive: cheaper than the high-end Iscos, more expensive than the Bell and Howell's and Kowas I think. I expect that because of the new Rangefinder, the Bolex will stay high in price as the Iscos drop. Expect to pay in the $1500 - $2000 range. (b) Adapting them usually requires an adapter from RedStan if you want to do it professionally. There are some hacks floating around that will still make it work if you can't find a RedStan. One final recommendation: Whichever adapter you go with make sure to send it to Bernie O'Shaunessy for cleaning and calibration. Most of these lenses are 40 - 50 years old. You don't want to drop a grand or so on an adapter only to deal with something out of calibration. His labor rates are pretty reasonable. Good luck. Here's a sample frame from a Bolex 16/32 by Mauri Galliano, a great Spanish DP who has used Bolexes to excellent effect. (The model is his sister).

Here are just some notes I made regarding anamorphic recording resolutions on the GH4, crop requirements, general lens requirements and pros/cons. Feel free to correct me, but I think this might be useful for entry-level anamorphic people. GH4 Widescreen Modes / Resolutions for 2.39 Cinemascope / External Recording — GH4 1.5x Anamorphic, 10 bit out UHD at 3840 x 2160, recordable by any external 4k device. 10% horizontal crop gives 3456 x 2160 so each source frame contains 7464960 pixels. 1.5x de-squeeze yields 5184 x 2160 at 2.4 ratio. Pros: Recorded source material has the highest resolution, good anamorphic feel, available lenses are high quality and can be light weight and easy to focus, single focus anamorphics available. De-squeeze yields full cinemascope (2.66), slight crop to 2.4 standard. Cons: entry level 1.5x anamorphics are pricey, more work than DCI 4K + crop. Uses: A lot of entry level anamorphic work can be shot using 1.5x (Bolex, Isco, etc) as long as you can tolerate slightly higher rig complexity. Bolex can be handheld. For more of a stylized look, check out the 2x anamorphics. — GH4 DCI 4K, 10 bit out is 4096 x 2160, Ratio is 1.89, Cropped to 4k 2.39 scope is 4096 x 1716 so each frame contains 7028736 pixels. Pros: Easy setup, single focus, very good choice of lenses, lightweight rig, best horizontal resolution, acceptable total resolution. Cons: No anamorphic effects in flare or bokeh or other anamorphic effects. Recommended for: Crane/Jib shots, Wide angle, remote / drone (DCI 4K external recording requires at least PIX-E5 or Atomos Shogun or 7Q). Note: Internal Recording @ 8 bit can be used here but be careful for sun, sky, flare banding especially with flat recording modes (Cine-D, VLog) — GH4 2x Anamorphic, 10 bit out is 2880 x 2160 with black bars on sides. Each frame contains 6220800 pixels. Expand with 2x anamorphic to 5760 x 2160, reduce to 4096 x 1716. Pros: True 2x Anamorphic look and feel, wider range of anamorphic lenses, increased anamorphic “effect”, some lenses have fantastic blue flare. Cons: Considerable loss of resolution in post, less expensive 2x anamorphics are dual focus and difficult to use in production. Some good midrange 2x and excellent 2x single focus lenses for rent or purchase (if you have unlimited cash available). Recommended for: Anamorphic night and sun shots where flare is more obvious and beautiful. Car lights, flash lights in the dark etc. (Any good 4k external recorder will work here).

Andrew, If I use Filmconvert with the GH4 profile won't that automatically perform pre-compensation so that all footage (GH4, A7S, Alexa, Red etc) is mapped into the same color space before applying the LUT? Would this buy me anything there? I can see that if you're applying external LUTs (which assume SLOG) to the footage it might be useful. eris

This is all very cool, but if it has a rotating front element it means that it almost demands a matte box, but the second you place it within the matte box you can't reach the focus ring gears, right?

Awesome work Sony. I can hardly wait to see the A7SII. Strangely this is awesome news for GH4 owners as: 1) Panasonic is always pushing the limits in this market also. 2) They've been dragging their feet on releasing VLOG. This announcement is probably just the kind of thing that will spur their product development and engineering people to finally push VLOG into a public firmware release. If they've been wondering whether they should wait until the GH5, it's time to stop waiting. As far as I can tell this puts Sony and Panasonic into the lead with Samsung behind them and Canon and Nikon getting their asses kicked. The A7R/A7SII and the GH5 (and Ursa Mini) will officially be the end of Canon in the race. Sad to see once great Nikon becoming completely irrelevant. Things I'd like to see in the GH5 would be: 1. Micro 4/3 mount 2. Dual format S35 and Micro 4/3 sensor 3. Global shutter at 24p 4. Improved low light and some sort of raw video It will be interesting to see what's next. The price gap between prosumer mirrorless and pro motion picture cameras is getting very narrow. Currently I used a GH4 for personal projects and I'm pretty happy. If I need a serious boost in performance for pro projects I'll just cough up another $2000 or rent an Ursa Mini and a Zeiss or Rokinon Cine lens set. Laissez les bons temps rouler! eris

​Good find, Tito. It is indeed more detailed and informative. I still like the video

It's one thing to put together a good anamorphic rig, but you'll eventually have to understand widescreen composition. David Boardwell's video is a fantastic introduction to widescreen technologies and composition.

​Cfreak: I like the guys at vid atlantic, but their anamorphic adapters are pretty cheap. I got one free with my Sankor. The set screws tighten directly into the lens barrel and it scratches it. Since they have no alignment inner/outer rings it doesn't screw onto the lens and it's really a PITA to align on camera (and off for that matter).

​Itimjim: Have you tried applying distortion correction to your footage? I know it can be done in Premiere, but the thing I noticed is that after distortion correction it will probably slightly warp the borders which means that you'll have to crop the footage to remove it. After un-distorting and cropping you may find that you're at the same effective angle of view as a non-distorting 50mm taking lens. There's no free lunch.

The Redstan adapter screws don't touch the Bolex at all. It's a 2 piece adapter with an inner/outer ring. The inner ring screws into the Bolex directly and the outer ring screws into the taking lens, both with the possible assistance of step rings. You then loosen the alignment screws and turn the Bolex and inner ring until it's properly aligned. Then you tighten the set screws in the outer ring which prevents the inner ring and Bolex from moving. Do not just use step rings. Considering the amount of cash you probably paid for the Bolex, the additional amount of cash for a good RedStan adapter is negligible.

I suppose Metabones is going to have to step up it's game. Obviously the speed booster has the advantage of increased IQ and speed with decreased crop, but AF becomes pretty important when you're going run and gun or using a stabilizer (thinking Fig Rig plus multi-axis gimbal). Currently the Speedbooster just barely edges the Kipon out for what I do, but if I were doing more stabilizer work it would be obvious. Come on Metabones! Get your AF working.

If it has IS, Aperture Control and fast AF then it's a slam dunk to control my gathering dust Tokina 11-16mm and intriguing to use for a Sigma 50-500mm uber telephoto.

FInd a Sankor 16D. These are pretty inexpensive and good for trying anamorphic. They also have the most beautiful blue lens flare -- rivaling the Lomos. The guys at vid-atlantic are cool, but don't get a anamorphic fake filter. If you're going to do that you can buy anamorphic simulation plugins for Premiere Pro. I'm assuming that's not what you want. It's not the flares that people want so much with anamorphic. It's the fact that you're getting a view that's about twice as wide with the same focal length characteristics (depth of field, bokeh etc) as you get with a normal lens. Lens flare and oval bokeh is just sort of the icing on the cake.

God that thing is huge. Glad I found a Bolex. I just use a little lens support I got from Lanparte and probably don't even need that. It just takes a little weight off the filter threads and lens mount and makes it much easier to focus.

Interesting update to this discussion. I was analyzing the distortion on my Bolex mated to the 35mm Rokkor and when everything is aligned correctly the distortion on the Bolex (not the Rokkor) appears to be barrel. It's not severe and it appears that even super high end Hawks ($40,000 derivatives of Lomos) have barrel distortion at 35mm that looks almost identical to mine. Here's a test of both a Hawk and I believe a Panavision (C-Series) at 35mm. I think the degree of barrel distortion on the Bolex is similar to the C-Series lens.

​Yes. Well I guess you can have everything. If I knew what kind of distortion it was it might be possible to correct for it. Simple barrel distortion possibly? Yes. Canon FD is usually the preferred taking lens. I thought about going either with the FD or Nikon speed booster and came to the conclusion that I wanted anti-reflective coating, but an absolute minimum of it so as not to kill the flares. I've used the MC Rokkor 58mm f1.2 with my Sankor 16D and it retained the 16D's gorgeous flares. The MC Rokkors usually had a single layer of quality anti-reflective coating where (from my research) both the FD and Nikons were using mutiple layers very early on. The MC Rokkors solve a complex set of requirements: (1) have a speed booster available for micro 4/3 (2) have very high optical and mechanical quality (3) have a single good anti-reflective layer (4) have a bayonet mount instead of a screw mount (don't want things unscrewing) (5) mount to my MC Rokkor 58mm f1.2 bokeh monster Note for those following this path: Even though the speed booster is supposedly for Minolta "MD" mount, the mount is actually called the SR mount and in fact mounting the MD series (right after the MC series) can be troublesome because a number of the MDs have protrusions that prevent it attaching properly. I send all of my anamorphic calibration (Bolex, Sankor) work to Bernie O'Dougherty at Super16 in New York. He's the man and very cool. His email domain is "super16inc.com" and his user name is "bernie" so I think you can figure out his email address. You can also just go to super16inc.com on the web and get all the latest info. He might be on vacation right now.

Proctor: One other thing. At 35mm and below the lenses are beginning to "see into" the distortion area of the Bolex. Straight horizontal lines at the bottom of the frame have a slight curvature in the center. This is the area of older anamorphics that might have what are called the "mumps". Since I know my MC Rokkors are nearly distortion free in these areas I think it's a non-linearity at the very edge of the Bolex. I haven't checked, but I have every reason to believe that the distortion increases slightly with the 28mm lens.

Proctor: Glad you're getting good results also. That Bolex isn't cheap but it's pin sharp for an anamorphic. Since it's a 40 year old lens I also sent it in for calibration . That made it even sharper. What's another $300 for calibration when you've already spent $2000 for the lens and diopters. You're right. I think 28mm is as far as I dare go since even that requires a small, but acceptable crop to achieve 2.39:1 aspect ratio. Do you have any sample shots on Vimeo or anything?

Just in case anyone was curious. I've been doing some experiments with the Bolex 16/32 1.5x and the MD to Micro 4/3 Speedbooster on the GH4. Mostly I just wanted to verify the possible angles of view and vignetting that might occur because I'm trying to approximate the rough lens selection that Tarantino uses on his productions. From research on the web Tarantino likes to use 50mm, 40mm and occasionally 28mm when shooting anamorphic (eg: on Django). Occasionally he'll also use longer lenses when appropriate. This is for super35. I did some calculations and using lenses widely available for taking lenses (and ones I happen to have on hand), I decided that given the GH4 UHD crop factor (2.4x) that if I used a 50mm, a 35mm and a 28mm that would bring me close to the effective super 35mm equivalents area of views of 58mm, 40mm and 35mm. During experiments this is what I found with the Bolex. 50mm Rokkor f1.4 speed boosted becomes a 58mm f1.0 with no vignettting 35mm Rokkor f1.8 speed boosted becomes a 40mm f1.3 with no vignetting 28mm Rokkor f2.8 speed booster becomes a 33.5mm f2.0 with a little horizontal vignetting. Since a 1.5x de-squeeze on the Bolex yields a 2.67:1 ratio you can use a small crop and still fit within standard 2.39:1 anamorphic cinemascope. I could go down to Tarantino's 28mm anamorphic equivalent, but a couple things make that unattractive: 1) 33.5mm is plenty wide for anamorphic already. Close subjects feel *very* close even at 33.5mm anamorphic perhaps because of the already widescreen view. 2) You would have to use a 24mm lens to achieve an S35 28mm equivalent and I know that would create heavy vignetting that would ruin the shot. 3) You can't use floating lens designs for anamorphic taking lenses because their filter rings also rotate and obviously that would make the anamorphic rotate. Not a pleasant sensation. Also all Rokkors below 28mm are floating lens designs except the 24mm Variable Field Curvature and that one usually goes for about $800. Nuff said. I'll post some footage samples when it warms up. Also really looking forward to the anamorphic and vLog updates to the GH4. I could break out my 2x Sankor 16D which has beautiful blue flares and shoot some night scenes. eris

Honestly I think some people need to either cough up more cash or quit whining so much and learn the benefits of patience. VLOG will come out or they wouldn't be beta testing it now with these guys. Panasonic knows how important it is. If they didn't they will know it when they look at the Ursa Mini. The price difference between an entry-level Mini and introductory price GH4 is so low that they have to be worried. If you think that VLOG is mandatory you either have the wrong camera for the job or you haven't learned how to expose properly. The most impressive VLOG demo in that video is the side to side comparison outdoor with a bright background sky that's blown out. Go get yourself an ND grad. Jesus. You have to learn how to work within your limitations no matter what camera you bought. I bought a GH4 for personal projects because for the most part it's easy to use, has 4k and looks pretty damn good out of the box. For my high-end projects I do the same as everyone else - work out the budget and part of that is renting high end lenses and cameras. When your looking at a multi-million dollar budget, the cost of renting your cameras comes to practically zero. Now stop whining and go create some awesome stuff with your GH4, A7S, Pocket Camera or whatever. It's all good. Remember that the Wachowski's could have made millions even if the only version of the Matrix they had was an iPhone video.

So on the first day of NAB 2015 the major news story is a sensor that won't be released until almost 2016? Can you say FUD?