dhessel

Dual focus is not that bad unless you are wide open. I haven't tried yet but I believe you can set the anamorphic to infinity and focus only with the prime if you are stopped down far enough. I have had very good luck with just estimating the distance to subject and setting both the taking lens and anamorphic to that distance. I recently did a run and gun shoot of my 2 year old at an indoor play area at f2.0 using this technique and at least 95% of my shots where in focus and the rest were usable for most of the shot.   Also the slr magic adapter is a prototype and not available yet, there is the panasonic LA7200 but that is fairly expensive allows for single focus but is terribly soft on the edges especially on a full frame sensor. Right now if you want single focus your options are very limited.   Unfortunately with most adapters you will need to give up on focus pulls or spend a lot of time practicing.

I did zero sharpening on that footage but I did shoot at 1472x1250 using ML Raw, stretched that out to 2944x1250 then down scaled to 1920x818. Here are some of my ungraded shots, these are totally unmodified except for pixel aspect. I uploaded with the 2.0 pixel aspect so thay may or may not play squeezed. One thing to note is that ML Raw video is very flat compared to standard h264 so I feel that raw video always needs grading. Also I was rushed so I didn't always expose as well as I could have and may have missed my focus as well. It is difficult using the dual focus especially wide open. I can confirm the lens is sharp when I have tested it wide open using a fixed object and tripod and made sure to nail the focus. Here are a few. https://vimeo.com/78834957 https://vimeo.com/78834959 https://vimeo.com/78834964 https://vimeo.com/78834966 https://vimeo.com/78834967 https://vimeo.com/78835842 https://vimeo.com/78835664

Yeah the Helios 40 is my favorite lens at the moment, the 44-2 is nice but vignettes.

I just posted this one yesterday, its a MKII with a Kowa Prominar 16H. Its not a MKIII but should be close enough. Also I used Helios lenses for the taking lenses both of which have swirly bokeh so some of the character of the depth of field is coming from that. Overall the Kowa is a great lens, sharp even wide open, it produces a nice warm orange anamorphic flare in sunlight. An example of which can be seen at then of the video. I picked up mine for $500 since it had focus issues wide open. Turns out the front and rear glass were ever so slightly out of alignment which I was able to fix my self. Just something to keep in mind since both of the anamorphics I purchased of ebay had this same issue. http://www.eoshd.com/comments/topic/3811-fall-colors-5dmkii-raw-anamorphic/

Here is a link to a video I just posted shot using ML Raw on a 5D MKII.   http://www.eoshd.com/comments/topic/3811-fall-colors-5dmkii-raw-anamorphic/

This one was a quick edit and grade, I was experimenting with a look. Shot with a 5DMKII + Helios 44-2/Helios 40 + Kowa Prominar 16H wth ML Raw.   https://vimeo.com/78777356    

I have seen a 4K tv with 4k content and it is sharper and has more detail but a lot of that gets lost once you are sitting back at a normal viewing distance. Several people I know have gone and seen one and cannot tell the difference between 4k and HD. 4k is a logical next step since it is actually 2x HD and is not really 4k 3840 v 4096.    Most people won't be able to see much of a difference between HD, 2.5k, and 4k on a 4k tv so I don't see tech needing to move away from 2.5k any time soon. For feature films on giant screens that may be a different story.

I was planning on picking up some of these clamps for my Kowa, looked into ordering yesterday and it looks like there are no front filter clamps and few lens clamps left. Will there be more in the future?

  I am using a Kowa Prominar 16-H with my mkII, it doesn't vignette with lenses 75 mm or higher. I use a helios 44-2 which is 58 mm with it. It vignettes some but I crop down to a 2.35 aspect which removes most of it. Keep in mind that 75 mm is need to not vignette at a super wide aspect of almost 3.6, so you can crop some away if you want a more normal aspect like 2.35.

I had one of these for a while, massive size, doesn't flare but is sharp. It will most likely work with an 85 mm on a mkII since I have a mkII and I believe it had very minimal vignette with an 85 mm when I used this lens. The biggest issue is that this is not a Iscocarma it is an Iscoptic which is a different beast all together.

  No, if you are not shooting raw then you can only record 1920x1080 full frame.   Only raw shooting enables cropping or different aspect ratios. With raw you could shoot shoot close to 1.6 at 1200x900 for example. I don't have my camera in front of me so I cannot say what resolution you can choose that is close to 1200 across. There are preset ones to choose from in ML so not everything is available.   I know I promised some samples and they are coming, I have only been shooting my kid lately and I don't post those online. I am planning and outdoor shoot soon so I will post some of those if I don't get anything else sooner.   I will say that the detail and the amount of color correction possible with raw is really amazing coming from my 5DMKII, bu t it does take a long time to process compared to h264, and I can only get 20 minutes of footage with 80 GB of CF cards.

They are hard to find but definitely stay away from lenses with a rotating front. I have one that rotates for focus and not only do you have to realign the anamorphic every time you change focus but the weight of the anamorphic is enough to cause slight rotations even with only moderate movement of the camera. 

I had a similar issue a while back with a projection lens that was a 2X but turned out to be more like 1.8X. In my case it was caused by the lens being offset from the taking lens. I was using a vid atlantic clamp and the further the anamorphic was from the taking lens the less stretched it had.   I would recommend shooting footage of a circle straight on and using that as a guide for determining what the actual stretch is. I shot a circular object, brought a still into Photoshop selected the circle using the elliptical marque then cropped to my selection. You can then use the dimensions of the image to determine the factor.    Example:   W x H = 516 x 1003   the the factor is   H / W = 1003 / 516 = 1.94     EDIT: Sorry I missed this but I left my post up as reference for anyone else.

Yes if you record normal at 1200x900 then it would be 4/3 and 1.6 crop. I am not certain if that actual resolution is available though. By the way it may be a little confusing but the 5x crop in ml is actually 3 crop if you are recording full HD, the 5x refers to zooming to 5x in the live view. In any mode when you decrease resolution you are croping in on then sensor. for the mkii normal recording uses the whole sensor but records every 3rd pixel, in 5x it crops in 3x and records every pixel instead. In some ways it is similar to a digital zoom with no quality loss.

I have a Kowa 16-H off ebay for $500. It is a great lens, sharp flares nicely. When I purchased it I got it cheap in part because it had focus issues.   The front and rear elements were slightly out of alignment, it was any easy fix that took about an hour. Just rotated the front glass and final adjustments where made in the alignment of the cylinders. It is a very simple lens so not much to it.   It is my recommendation but I have only used this one and some massive ISCO's.

I have decided to shoot 1472x1104, 1472x1076 in 5x crop, for now. This way I can shoot both at roughly the same resolution and continuously.   In post I am cropping everything to 1440x1080 with a 2x pixel aspect (2.67 aspect unsqueezed), this is the highest resolution I can do before it starts to vignette. Seems like a good compromise, it is a 1.4x upscale to 4k, 1.33 upscale to UHD (4k tv), and a 0.67 downscale to HD or I can crop it to full HD.   I am working out my post workflow at the moment, but I will try to post something soon.   @Julian 1600x1200 is a good resolution if you can use a lens that is 75mm and up, it is definitely worth it to pick up a m42 adapter. The anamorphics like older lenses and I have been able to pick up a 58mm f2, 135mm f2.8, and a 95-205mm f6.3 for a total of $60 bucks at used camera stores and they work great. None are multi-coated since they are so old so they flare nicely.   Also you are limited in resolutions available in ML after 1600, 1472 is the next option.

I have been using ML on my 5DM2 for a while now. I primarily use it with a helios 44-2 58mm and a Kowa 16H. It has been very stable and reliable for me.   My results so far all at 24P, with a 2x stretch, FYI max vertical resolution in 5x crop mode is 1076 on the MKII.   1472x1076 (2944x1076): Continuous recording, can fill the card,this is the 4/3 max resolution in 5x crop mode.  1600x1200 (3200x1200): ~35 seconds before it stops. 1728x1250 (3456x1250): ~12 seconds before it stops.   Also the helios and Kowa do not vignette at all on my FF even at full HD, non raw shooting, its just barely completely out of frame. The two of them flare nicely together, once I get my act together I will try to post some samples. It took me a while to get things worked out my Kowa wouldn't focus wide open. Turns out it was an easy fix just the front and rear glass ever so slightly out of alignment.   Edit: It does in fact vignette at 1600x1200, I was shooting wide open so I didn't notice.

Thanks for the advice, this one is a little trickier. Some I have done have some screws that you loosen and then you can rotate the rear element. This one has a tube that wont allow them to rotate independently. Looks like I may have to rotate the rear glass. It appears to be mounted on a threaded ring with 2 notches in it, any advice on how to rotate that? 

It appears so, I disassembled the lens so I could adjust the focus and rotate the front element independent of the rear. Doing so I was able to get near perfect focus using my 85 mm at 1.8. At this point I am not sure if its an issue with just the rear or the front since the front appears to have more than 1 piece of glass. Can anyone confirm if that is the case with the front piece. Thanks.

I am new here and want to say hello before getting into it.   I've just got my Kowa shooting on a Mark II and I cannot get it to focus wide open or anywhere near wide open. I can only get soft focus at f6.3 and higher. I have tried it on several lenses including a Canon 85 mm 1.8 and all show the same problem. If I get something focus as close a possible the defocused parts of the image that are beyond the focal point appear to be skewed to the left. I am wondering if maybe the optics are out of alignment a little bit. I had a giant ISCO projection lens that displayed similar artifacts and the front and back lenses were slightly off, visually it doesn't look like the Kowa is and I can look through the back of it and it looks sharp to my eyes. Any advice on what might be going wrong?   Thanks.