1.79x Squeeze Anamorphic

[Zak Forsman]

something to consider, when the URSA Mini 4.6K is released, its 3K anamorphic mode won't be 4:3, rather, it will be 6:5 so that 2x anamorphic lenses desqueeze perfectly to a 2.39:1 aspect ratio.

[Xavier Plagaro Mussard]

Personally, when I look at all the current cheap and not so cheap solutions, what I think would be cool is a compact, well built, integrated solution. A complete lens you can put into your backpack and use as a normal lens instead of this gigantic piece of almost empty housing hanging in front of a tiny taking lens being held together by a screwmounted clamp.

That's so true, we need a new Iscorama lens set. For people who work alone and don't have a team of assistants, to have a couple of lenses, like a 35mm and a 100mm 1.79x anamorphic with f4 (f2.8 would be better!) would be really nice. A couple of lenses that when mounted on a Sony A7R/S II can give you 95% of the coverage needed... 

[Nikkor]

That's so true, we need a new Iscorama lens set. For people who work alone and don't have a team of assistants, to have a couple of lenses, like a 35mm and a 100mm 1.79x anamorphic with f4 (f2.8 would be better!) would be really nice. A couple of lenses that when mounted on a Sony A7R/S II can give you 95% of the coverage needed... 

30,65,100mm with 1.8x or 35,70,105mm with 2x stretch would be the perfect for me.

[wallpaperviking]

Awesome!!  Some great suggestions in there!

Caleb I agree with all your suggestions, nice work!

 

Brian, I think this sounds great, look forward to seeing some more results

[Frank Einstein]

der chinese will copy you liks before, already dey read wot u wrote.....

[Caleb Genheimer]

Also, Brian... SpeedBooster for Medium Format to Full Frame? I love this type of stuff that gives looks that are usually only Hollywood or pro photographic.

[BrooklynDan]

I think that any true Scope lens must be 2x in order to fit into existing workflows and monitoring capabilities. Best not to reinvent the wheel. Going with 1.79x squeeze in order to get 2.35 from a 1.33 sensor is engineering math. Sensors are getting larger and higher resolution. Judging by where things are going with the Red Weapon 8K, we'll be able to slice out any portion of a full frame sensor in the future and still get 4K+ resolution. It's not just about the bokeh and the aberrations. It's about getting an image that sees exactly twice in the horizontal as it does in the vertical. That's why 2x is a must.

Really looking forward to seeing what Brian comes up with for a set of integrated primes. There's a huge gap in the market between the shiny new Cooke/Zeiss/Hawk glass, and the unwashed masses with their projector lenses and rangefinders. Something to supplement and eventually replace all the odd Russian and Japanese glass floating around out there. Kowas are costing more than what they were worth new these days. The Lomo supply is drying up. Where's the workhorse set of anamorphic primes that any rental house can afford to buy? Surely someone can build a decent set of primes with classical characteristics for $10-15K per lens?

[griplimited]

12 hours ago, Caleb Genheimer said:

Also, Brian... SpeedBooster for Medium Format to Full Frame? I love this type of stuff that gives looks that are usually only Hollywood or pro photographic.

This is on point here. 

[Caleb Genheimer]

Brian, I just had a thought and I'm no optics expert, but does anamorphic feel like a "bigger" image in the same way that a SpeedBooster makes S35 FEEL bigger (more VistaVision), because they ARE essentially doing the same thing, just that anamorphic only does it in one axis? Is anamorphic the original SpeedBooster, but for horizontal only?

[Zak Forsman]

yes, that's the main appeal for me. you have the combination of an increased field of view while retaining the compressed space of the longer focal length. a 40mm anamorphic lens has the horizontal field of view of a 20mm spherical lens.

[richg101]

An anamorphic squeeze of around 1.75x to 1.8x is actually a really nice number.  good levels of defocus, without much loss of sensor area when cropping a 16:9 sensor to deliver a 2.4:1 end result.  It's not about resolution from a big sensor area for me anyway, - it;s all about fov/dof ratio that comes with the bigger sensor area.  to me a reduced squeeze ratio like 1.75x used on a wider sensor delivers a better image than a 2x on a less wide sensor.  a bigger sensor dictates a shallower dof since a longer FL taking lens is selected for the same fov.  the reduced squeeze also allows better image quality over a 2x unit.  16:9 sensors are here to stay.  4:3 is getting more and more rare.  if a camera has a 4:3 mode it's usually a crop of a 16:9 sensor (ursa etc).  The sensors are not tall enough to fully deliver the look of 4 perforation 35mm as can be achieved with the alexa 4;3.  even the new red 8k sensor only just provides enough sensor height

At the moment I see the most exciting prospect within the scope of affordability as an anamorphic system for the black magic micro cinema camera.  this in combination with the 0.58x speed booster and a fast 35mm spherical lens and a high quality 1.75x anamorph will be the ultimate.  global shutter, super low light, smaller sensor meaning easier achieving of image quality within a accessible budget.

 

I think an anamorphic speed booster would also be a wonderful thing to behold!  the a6300 looks to be an ideal candidate and will no doubt get the speed booster type adaptor sales booming again thanks to its aps-c sensor

 

 

 

9 minutes ago, Zak Forsman said:

yes, that's the main appeal for me. you have the combination of an increased field of view while retaining the compressed space of the longer focal length. a 40mm anamorphic lens has the horizontal field of view of a 20mm spherical lens.

yep.  it's that feeling of width while also maintaining the defocus separation of the longer lens I love.  

[chris24g]

The 1.8x looks promising, but I do think 4:3 and other "square-ish" ratios will be available in the future. The other thing to consider is that people will still use film (16mm and super 8 will come back for short form productions). Non super 16 cameras and super 8 cameras would require the 2x compression. Super 16 could still benefit from 2x since you could safely frame shots without worrying about dirty edges (digital guys scratching their heads right now).

I think 1.8x would definitely work in the short term, 2x would be future proof (since you cannot change the history of anamorphics).

But if you're going to do 2x you can skip the multicoating, or just do a single coating like the old lenses. It has to flare. We can buy flags and black wrap and learn to control light better.

Finally, there is one lens artifact that I have not seen reproduced by any "ownable" lens, and that is the prominent circular red halo around light sources (eg. The Thing (1982)). I can only guess that it is some internal relection/refraction in the spherical optical block behind the anamorphic, but maybe you can explain what it is and if it can be duplicated.

I bought one of the very first speedboosters for my pocket camera, so I am very excited to see what you will come up with. 

 

58 minutes ago, Caleb Genheimer said:

 Is anamorphic the original SpeedBooster, but for horizontal only?

speedbooster is a lens behind the taking lens which concentrates light into a smaller area, anamorphic is in front of the taking lens, so it doesn't get more light into the lens, just a wider horizontal fov.

 

[BrooklynDan]

The red circle is caused by the old magnesium fluoride coatings on the spherical components. And considering The Thing used Panavision Super Speed lenses, the spherical components might've been from the 60s or 70s when such coatings were prevalent.  The old Todd-AO 35 anamorphics as well as the Dyaliscopes had similar artifacts. If you want to reproduce it, you should pay special attention to the taking lenses you use. Maybe something like a Super Takumar, or even older glass would make it happen.

[chris24g]

Great info, Dan! I always wondered why the ring was red. Science! Magnesium explains that. 

I do happen to have a 50mm f1.4 screw mount Takumar and I did notice that it produced the halo with a bright enough source. It wasn't as prominent/obvious as the panys. The lens has yellowed some due the glass being radioactive, so maybe that affected it. 

[Brian Caldwell]

The responses here have been very thoughtful, and have given me much to consider.  I may modify my product direction a bit, but on the whole, it seems that my ideas aren't entirely crazy.

[eris]

Brian,

Interesting analysis.  Some time ago I did a comparison of the tradeoffs between resolution, anamorphic effect, cropping etc.  From that posting (I could look it up), it became clear that at least on a GH4, 1.5x in UHD gave the best combination.  UHD in 1.5x gives a 2.67:1 ratio which is wider than standard anamorphic, but doesn't give you the "periscope" effect.  Cropping to 2.39 is simple without losing excessive information.  In fact this brings up an interesting point.  Historically scope was shot at a 2.67:1 recording ratio and only projected at 2.39:1 because they needed to include soundtrack information on the projection negative.  Your mileage will probably vary.   I often change between 1.5x and 2x because my day-to-day anamorphic is a Bolex 16/32, but I love night shots with the Sankor 16D which has blue flare to die for.
 

On February 5, 2016 at 8:01 AM, BrooklynDan said:

The red circle is caused by the old magnesium fluoride coatings on the spherical components. And considering The Thing used Panavision Super Speed lenses, the spherical components might've been from the 60s or 70s when such coatings were prevalent.  The old Todd-AO 35 anamorphics as well as the Dyaliscopes had similar artifacts. If you want to reproduce it, you should pay special attention to the taking lenses you use. Maybe something like a Super Takumar, or even older glass would make it happen.

I've seen red spherical flares on old Jupiter and Helios taking lenses.  For great flares (not necessarily the best optics) check out jupiter and helios taking lenses on Sankor 16D anamorphics.

[tweak]

My main concerns Brian are:

1 - Although a 1.75-1.8x squeeze lens is quite useful and makes sense on paper I feel it may become less useful and more obsolete in the very near future. As Zak Forsman points out, new cameras are coming out all the time with updated ratios and I think it's only a sign of things to come.

2 - Yes consumer cams mostly have 16:9 sensors, with a notable one (GH4) actually having a 4:3 mode, but I honestly feel these people wont be your target market anyway! These are the people that worry about the price difference between an SLR RF vs a Core DNA when the later is only a bit over twice as much but you get way better optics... I don't think many people from that crowd will really be able to afford (or justify) your creations. Thus I don't think it make sense to consider what they would be shooting with. ( I know this because I'm one of them  ).

Personally I'd say stick with 2x stretch and make some lenses that will really stick it to the competition!!!

All the best Brian, keep up the good work!

[Brian Caldwell]

On 3/14/2016 at 9:48 AM, tweak said:

My main concerns Brian are:

1 - Although a 1.75-1.8x squeeze lens is quite useful and makes sense on paper I feel it may become less useful and more obsolete in the very near future. As Zak Forsman points out, new cameras are coming out all the time with updated ratios and I think it's only a sign of things to come.

2 - Yes consumer cams mostly have 16:9 sensors, with a notable one (GH4) actually having a 4:3 mode, but I honestly feel these people wont be your target market anyway! These are the people that worry about the price difference between an SLR RF vs a Core DNA when the later is only a bit over twice as much but you get way better optics... I don't think many people from that crowd will really be able to afford (or justify) your creations. Thus I don't think it make sense to consider what they would be shooting with. ( I know this because I'm one of them  ).

Personally I'd say stick with 2x stretch and make some lenses that will really stick it to the competition!!!

All the best Brian, keep up the good work!

I appreciate your comments, and you certainly make some valid points.  However, 4:3 will never actually become obsolete as it is always available from 16:9 via cropping.  And a 4:3 crop of 16:9 will always have more pixels than a 6:5 crop.  So, in my view the updated 6:5 ratio is simply a nod to an old (and soon-to-be obsolete?) film standard, and its unlikely to replace the ARRI Alexa 4:3 standard.  After all, the recent explosion in anamorphics used for feature films is largely due to the native 4:3 mode in the Alexa.

Regarding the GH4, you are probably correct regarding the market.  Which is one reason I want to make a lower cost Iscorama-type attachment available.  But the prime lenses I have in mind will be really special, and should appeal to people who view the camera as a small accessory that you attach to your lens rather than the other way around.  Bear in mind that its pretty simple to switch from a PL mount design to m43.

Another little thought:  1.79x on a 1:1 sensor (or a 1:1 crop of a wider sensor) gives you 1.79:1 = 16.11:9.  In other words it gives almost a perfect rectangle for anamorphic HDTV.

[tweak]

Sound logic @Brian Caldwell!

4:3 will remain a standard for sure, I just don't know if people will consider the need so much for the stretch you want to produce? I guess that just comes down to marketing. As if they don't know why it's better they wouldn't look to buy it (maybe).

Maybe it's possibly better to consider a 1.79 isco type attachment for the GH4 type crowd (i.e. Me) and the primes in 2x stretch ratio to compete better with the other bigger companies 2x offerings. Or do you think 1.79 stretch in that more expensive market will be received well? I honestly have no idea, but I'm sure a 2x set of primes would be a safer thing to put your time into as there's no guess work needed there.

In the end I'm just a pleb, you know your stuff and you have to listen to what your head is telling you.

p.s. I sometimes shoot 1:1 on the GH4 to fill a 16:9 frame and it works pretty well  .