Zen - Shooting anamorphic in Shanghai with an Iscorama and $20 lens

[Guest abortabort]

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Hi Andrew, I’m a bit curious about your anamorphic workflow as I can’t really see the supposed advantage to it. This is not a criticism more a lack of understanding on my part, but if I understand correctly, the workflow you have used has resulted in the equivalent of cropping the top and bottom of your frame and shooting with a wider lens?

Look at it like this, anamorphic is designed as a form of optical compression, fitting more (width) information into an existing space, then it is optically decompressed at the other end (in the case of of film through an anamorphic lens on the projector – in digital by the software seeing pixels as ‘non-square’). Theoretically this should give extra (compressed) resolution along the horizontal axis while maintaining resolution in the vertical axis? But in your example you have lost half of your vertical resolution (540 down from 1080) and kept the same standard horizontal resolution (1920). How is this of any advantage to actually just cropping your frame?

You also mentioned that you can use faster lenses in your comments, but you stopped down to F4 anyway. I’m sorry I don’t really understand where you are coming from with this, I did really enjoy your film though and yes I get the look of a nice widescreen aspect, so this question is more about the use of anamorphic not aspect.

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[Guest B3Guy]

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Anamorphic lenses give a certain look that is more cinematic, that comes from the desqueezing process. I assume he has lost vertical resolution because Vimeo isn’t going to support anything wider than 1920 anyhow.

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[Guest disneytoy]

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Andrew, I love the 44M, I’ve used it with a Sankor 16D. For others, I am very happy with my “Big_is M42 adapter”. Was cheap, well made and came with extra screws and micro allen wrench so you could adjust the mount to have your focus markers on top. Mine didn’t need adjustment. Very tight fit, no slop.

Andrew, the 44M has a great look with adapter or alone. But at 58mm its a bit long. Have you tried any other lenses (wider lenses) with a similar look?

I think the problem with modern lenses, say the new 12mm primes, or even my much loved 20mm is the look is very contrasty, and almost too sharp for dramatic filming. But these german designed lenses via Russia are the best.

I kind of love describing to people GH-2 (CHINA), 44M Helios (RUSSIA/GERMANY) Sankor 16D (JAPAN) United nations of photography:-)

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[Guest demetris]

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Thank you B3Guy, your response is much appreciated!

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[Guest Andrew Reid]

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You just need the anamorphic projection lens.

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[Guest Andrew Reid]

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This is only 44Mbit [img]http://www.eoshd.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif[/img] It can go to 176Mbit AVCHD Intra-frame and I haven’t even optimised it with any of Driftwoods patches yet, I wanted all out reliability and after 44Mbit the gains (I think) are smaller…

The GH2 is definitely king of codecs and image resolution at the moment on DSLRs by a BIG margin.

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[Guest Andrew Reid]

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Ah sorry missed the Google Checkout email. I’ve now pressed charge and emailed you the book. Cheers

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[Guest Andrew Reid]

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Thanks. I just find it easier to edit on a normal timeline, 1920×1080 AVCHD 24p sequence (can you set custom aspect ratio like non-standard 3.55:1 for native AVCHD? Not sure.) and do a 50% vertical squeeze on each clip which doesn’t affect playback in real-time on a decent machine. Then export as 1080p with black bars.

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[Guest jgharding]

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Yeah it’s a lot bigger difference than I thought. I usually think I can tell when things aren’t I-frame, but I’m probably tricking myself, this looks sharp as lemon torte! So are the higher bitrate unreliable? Does that mean crashes or recording stops?

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[Guest jgharding]

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When unstretched the picture would be full height but much greater width, here it’s scaled down to fit in a 1920 * 1080 box for Vimeo. The original would have been much larger that 1920..

Some benefits over shooting with standard lenses and cropping are: long focal lengths show a wider picture so you don’t need to find very wide lenses, nice ‘waterfall’ bokeh, nice flares if you want them.

Stopping down anyway was an artistic choice by the looks of it, to keep more monks in focus! Ideally you set aperture to get the DOF you want, and if you’re forced to open it because of low light, so be it. A strange perception has popped up since the advent of DSLR: that it’s best to be as wide open and shallow as you can all the time, just because you can, even putting ND filters on to keep things insanely shallow in good light. But a film made of all shallow focus is as boring as any dish with one flavour [img]http://www.eoshd.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif[/img]

For reference I’ve been shooting some product video recently, closed to f8 or tighter most of the time to keep things in focus. I have to mix in more than the fair share of shallow DOF shots though, because the subject is not visually stimulating. With lovely architecture and detailed scenes it’s quite nice to have so much in focus I think, deep focus is underated…

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[Guest B3Guy]

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Not at all! I’ve been using the high nitrate GOP1 (read: INTRA) hack settings with absolutely no reliability issues whatsoever. It burns through card space like a mother (12 minutes on a 16GB), it runs only on highest quality class 10 cards, and the files do not span after the 4 minute file limit mark, unless you use a lower bitrate. But it is Sooooo worth it. Killer image.

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[Guest jb_CinC]

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Stunning camerawork. So CineaScope-like…

Really impressive movie-making. I take it the GH1/2 are the real stuff to use with the anamorphic. I have a Sankor 16F (which I can’t part), and a Canon 50mm lens, and hope to get my sights on Helios. Do you think the Helios is idea (since they are cheap) for digital movie making with dslr cameras like the Panasonic GH2 or Sony Nex 5?

I’m new here.

Thanks and Happy Holidays

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[Guest Simco123]

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New GH2 firmware is out

http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/dsc/download/fts/dl/gh2.html

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[Guest alexyorch]

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This is fantastic. Thank you for letting us see, and more importantly, experience something we wouldn’t have been able to without your work. Excellent storytelling, and a spot-on song choice. Cheers

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[Guest abortabort]

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That is what I was asking – whether the original was ‘wider’ than 1920 square pixels (obviously there are still only 1920 pixels they are just represented as non-square). I was of the impression however that Vimeo supported up to 4k resolutions which is why I was curious as to whether Andrew was actually working that way or essentially losing half the total resolution available?

Also I am aware of the current trends of shooting wide open ALL the time and the poor effects that has on filmmaking – I personally loath it. It was more that it was listed as a benefit of using anamorphic lenses yet wasn’t utilized (once again talking only about this particular video). Presumably the wider angle effect of using an anamorphic lens would cause an increase in death of field anyway? And yes I prefer the way this is shot in terms of DoF compared to shooting everything wide open.

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[sam rides a mtb]

[quote author=Andrew Reid - EOSHD link=topic=53.msg53#msg53 date=1323215244]
I am now exclusively using Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 instead of Final Cut Pro and I have not yet found a way to crop the video to 1920×520 anamorphic when exporting out, oddly the crop feature doesn’t seem to do anything. But I have found that I prefer to have the black bars than the silly looking slim playback window on Vimeo when it is uploaded to there. So the video is actually 1920×1080 in full with borders rather than anamorphic sized.
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If I am not mistaken, files to be uploaded to Vimeo, YouTube or most video sites ask for square pixels.  Really simple solution here.. in Premiere, every new sequence has its own settings.  you can very well, take your existing project's sequence (s) and drag or copy it into another sequence of completely different parameters.  Create new sequence: File, New Sequence: click the next tab that second appears (in CS5 it is called 'General' - might be called somethings else, then select 'Desktop' which I think is also now called something else: at this point you can input your own custom resolution (1920x520 and everything).  Now you can drag/copy what you created in the 1920x1080 project/sequence into new one.  You can then choose to export a file - H.264 with any resolution you choose (with some options for anamorphic pixels, which you don't want to select - select square pixels) and input your custom res here again.  Done.

If you want to maintain the full res... first edit in 1920x1080 - interpret your footage in Premiere as 1.5 or 2.0; then drag over to new sequence with custom resolution where you multiply 1920 x 1.5 or 2.0 depending on which adapter your using.  Might not be able to play back video too well from sequence.  Go to export like above with again square pixels and input custom res.  Hope this helps.

[Stéphane]

Hi Andrew.
I have to choose between 2 setups:

A. roundfront 75mm lomo with a PL mount on a Canon 5D mark II ;
B. iscorama centavision in front of a nikon 85mm on the same Canon.

My problem is, I would have to crop left and right edges with the lomo, because there is some vignetting.
But I guess the centavision is not as sharp (by far?) as the lomo.
I love 3.1 ratio but I can't seem to find a lens that produces this ratio and that is super sharp, a lens that I could mount on a 5D.
Your opinion?
Thanx and keep up the good work!
Stéphane

[bangalorbob]

hi,did you mean you attached an anamorphic lens to your hvx200 camcorder?i have the dvx100a,also a x2 35mm anamorphic lens,i wanted to clamp the lens on and shoot wide.is this what you di with the hvx200??thnx.