BrooklynDan

Submarine movies should only be shot in anamorphic. Crimson Tide is another great one shot in 'Scope.

The BBC show Outcasts was shot in anamorphic back in 2011. Arri D21 + Hawk Anamorphics. Here's the article in Definition Magazine: http://www.definitionmagazine.com/journal/2011/2/10/bbcs-outcasts-get-anamorphic-shooting-but-not-broadcast.html

Speaking of Die Hard, American Cinematographer just posted a podcast with DP Jan De Bont, in which he goes in depth on the cinematography in that film. http://www.theasc.com/site/podcasts/die-hard-1988-jan-de-bont-asc/ A must for any serious Die Hard fan. Anyway, here's my choice. The opening of Marketa Lazarova. A marvel of widescreen B&W telephoto photography:

Here's a picture of our rig: And what it looked like on my shoulder: It was wonky at best and required constant adjustment and calibration.

That image in your head is thanks to these babies: And the optical design is trademarked and patented, so you couldn't replicate that look even if you tried. The SLR magic lenses tried to replicate that classic blue flare, but it came across as forced and overdone. The successful anamorphic systems out there (including the new Zeiss and Cookes, which have been selling like hotcakes) create their own unique look and don't try to copy the uncopy-able.

I think that these have plenty of character. The lens designers at Hawk know how to build character into their lenses. They don't try to scrub away every trace of personality like Zeiss. In this test, you can see a touch of barrel distortion on the 35mm, a bit of halation here and there, a touch of flare. Sharpness doesn't hurt. Don't forget, these lenses are built for cinema. They need to be sharp on large screens, potentially even IMAX-size screens. You can have all the funk and personality you want, but if it doesn't hold up at 50 feet-plus, it doesn't really work. For all the fascination with all the weird and odd-ball old glass out there, and now with turning adapters into functional prime lenses, if you're shooting a big anamorphic movie (which these lenses are obviously aimed at), you need that edge-to-edge sharpness, which these lenses seem to have down. Only Panavision and Hawk seem to have really cracked this balance between character and sharpness. Zeiss Masters obviously look too sterile, the new Scorpios are duds, and I'm beginning to dislike the Cookes. Soft wide-open, but with bad pin-cushion distortion. Just weird and unseemly. Speaking of Hawks, I was fortunate enough to work with a set of V-series anamorphics once. Crazy barrel distortion and massive breathing. Soft as hell wide-open. Heavy beasts too. I still loved them. I also got to test V-Lites. Better in every way, and half the weight. Hawk has really come a long way from rebarreling Lomos and calling them C-series.

After watching the footage a couple of times, it seems to me that these lenses actually look kind of spherical wide open. But only wide open. As soon as you stop down, the ovals start to get skinny. You can see that 40mm at 1.5, 2 and 2.8 in that video. It actually looks most anamorphic at 2.8. Very unusual and unique, and the opposite of how most high speed anamorphics work. And the fact that they hold focus across the frame at T1.5 is amazing. While high speed anamorphics have been available for a long time from companies like Panavision, Technovision and Joe Dunton, using them wider than T2 was wishful thinking. They never really worked at that stop. Panavision's T1.1 Ultra High Speed C-series looks ghastly wider than 1.8. These MiniHawks look more than acceptable. It's definitely some new ground for 'Scope photography.

In other news at the complete opposite end of the price spectrum: http://www.vantagefilm.com/en/news/minihawks-proof-of-performance-10456 New MiniHawks from Vantage Film. Compact. High Speed. Zero breathing. Super Close Focus. The set includes a 180mm prime at a jaw-dropping T1.5. The video they made contains some of the richest, most stunning anamorphic imagery I've ever seen. They'll probably cost six figures. Per lens.

I too would rather see a full set of traditional S35-sized anamorphic PL mount lenses. Or at least in EF mount so that we could use them with a speed booster on m4/3. If that 35mm could cover Super 35, it would be a big deal. Aside from rental options, there are very few good wide-angle anamorphic lenses out there.

That looks astonishing. I know that the pixel peepers will start tearing it apart, but that's the closest I've seen to an authentic medium format look in digital next to the Arri Alexa 65. The motion cadence is just amazing. And of course, it's way too damn expensive. The lenses alone are several thousand a piece and exclusive to the camera.

Thanks, guys! I really appreciate the good notices.

If your budget is $75K, you have more than enough to rent a semi-decent set of anamorphic prime lenses. Maybe not Panavision or Hawk, but a set of Lomo Squarefronts or one of the many different sets of odd Japanese glass is well within your reach. It'll be much easier to work with than trying to use an adapter like the SLR Magic and you'll get an authentic vintage look.

One of the things that's gonna make medium format cinematography a real issue is focus-pulling. Obviously, at the low-end, we're all gonna be using vintage Mamiya, Schneider and Hasselblad glass. While we've been been getting away with using DSLR glass on Super 35 and full frame sensors, once you step up to that 6x6 format, it's gonna be necessary to do constant focus tweaks, even on wide shots where we could've once just set it and forget it. Because when your wide angle lenses are 40mm or 50mm, even wide shots have shallow depth of field, which of course has been demonstrated above. It's one of my favorite things about seeing movies like The Master and Interstellar. That amazing depth and focus separation. But it will be challenging as fuck. Better start saving up to rent that Panavision 70 glass!

It's a unique look, that's for sure. It becomes really obvious on the longer focal lengths. I'd like to see a test at night or in subdued light. See what medium format is really capable of in terms of depth of field and bokeh.

From what I understand, the AnamorphX came in several different versions, each with different grades and layers of coating in order to give users an option for how much fireworks they want in the frame. The type and amount of flaring you'll get is determined by which version you have at hand. That said, the Letus has a really big front element, so it shouldn't be hard for it to catch some stray light at almost any angle.

The stuff shot in broad daylight at deep f-stops looks goods, but the stuff shot in dimmer light looks questionable. Also, in the latter half of the video, you can see some clear examples of mumping. Looks like 1954-era CinemaScope.

The SLR Magic would have a slightly more limited range of possible focal lengths than the Letus. The Letus, after all, is huge with a massive 114mm front diameter. I heard somewhere that I can even fit on a 14mm. You'd have to ask around to figure out what the limit of the SLR Magic is on the wide end. I reckon somewhere around 28mm or 35mm.

From the tests I've seen, the Letus never really worked. Besides being only 1.33x squeeze, it's also that sort of weird single focus/dual focus design where you adjust the focus ring to either near or far modes and then you have a "range" within which it's possible to do some rudimentary follow-focusing. But then, it's never really sharp. Also, it suffers from mumping at close focus ranges. This test shows pretty much what to expect: I think that especially when taking price into consideration, I think that you're much better off going for an SLR Magic 1.33x plus a Rangefinder. At least then you'll have a single focus ring effecting real focus changes, and not locked into a certain range determined by the adapter.

I'm totally on board with this. While the previous Rokinon cine primes were great owner-operator lenses, these can make a great inexpensive rental option for when you need true cinema glass. If the optical and mechanic quality is there, they'll fly off the shelves. Here's hoping that they release a set of anamorphic glass next. Just like there's been a huge price gap between DSLR glass and cinema glass, there's an even bigger gap between the under-$1000 lens adapters and the over-$20000 prime lenses that nobody besides SLR magic has really addressed.

This is amazing. Thank you so much for sharing your set-up, Art!

I just watched Rogue Nation and studied the underwater scene in particular. Honestly, it didn't stand out to me as looking different from the rest of the movie. The liquid between the lens and the actor takes the edge off the sharpness, the scene is clearly heavily augmented with CGI, and also all the bokeh is elliptical, like in the rest of the movie. They probably did this in post in order to match the rest of the film. That said, this movie is like porn for anamorphic lovers. Every shot is dripping with stunning oval bokeh, night scenes are shot with achingly shallow focus, crisp blue flares accentuate the action scenes, and much of the camerawork is very wide-angle (in the 30mm range), showing off a touch of barrel distortion. It really goes all the way with the look while using the real creme de la creme of Panavision glass. I loved it just for that reason. Also, Tom Cruise runs really fast in it.

The real stand-out for me is that Canon managed to put in two motorized ND filters, despite the small size and massive full frame sensor. So, if you want, you can shoot this camera in daylight. As we move to full frame 4K sensors with larger pixels and massive sensitivity, internal ND filters will increasingly become a necessity. Stacking ten filters in front of your lens just to bring your camera back into exposure range is just not practical. I remember having to scrounge for every ND I could find to shoot in broad daylight with an FS100 and still winding up at f16. Really wished for an FS700 then....

Monet (the most famous of the Impressionists whose distinctive style is often evoked when trying to describe the peculiar qualities of anamorphic lenses) painted his garden over 200 times. It was the chief occupation of the last thirty years of his life. And each painting is different, in ways both subtle and epic. The artist is the environment and the environment is the artist. It's supposedly coming next year. Gonna be the first in a set. Priced at well under $10,000 per lens. We're talking Lomo squarefront territory here. Apparently will cover full frame. The prototype looks like the rangefinder and the Anamorphot 2x welded into a single housing along with a simple prime lens. Really hope that they change the mechanics. A proper cinema lens needs to have a stationary front. Or at least one that has a lip for a mattebox, and not the focus gear all the way at the very front.

I'm liking the quality. The character of the breathing is very pleasant. The Schneider looks a hair sharper and seems to have a more even squeeze ratio across the frame. The Kowa, of course, has more character.

This article makes me kinda sad. Sad over the fact that Canon cameras clearly have so much potential, and yet much of it has been left in the dust thanks to their ultra-conservative marketing tactics. Shit, for all the beef Andrew has with Canon, even he can't deny when they produce something magic like the 1DC. And Magic Lantern proved that if you unlock the power of Canon's sensors, they can stand toe to toe with cameras costing hundreds of times more. Why do people continue to use 5Ds and 7Ds despite the fact that Sony and Panasonic have them absolutely creamed on specs? It's that mojo, that warmth, that friendliness to the human face that the competition just can't seem to nail. I have used both the A7S and GH4 in recent weeks, and while each camera has its charms, I wasn't really feeling the image that much. Too digital, too plastic-y, not enough soul. And while much of this can be rectified by recording externally and doing color-grading, Canons are much more pleasing straight from the camera. And this is by no means recent. I remember when I was in school, working on prosumer cameras. We had Panasonic HPX170s and Sony EX3s recording HD on solid state memory cards. Variable frame rates and everything. Real futuristic shit. And yet I always skipped 'em and went straight for the ancient Canon XL2, shooting standard def to DV tapes. Why? 'Cuz I thought it looked more cinematic. Had more character. Made me look like a better filmmaker than I really was. Would I do it again? Fuck yeah.