strange problem with anamorphic lens - seems ok except bokeh oval is wrong

[j169]

my lens seems to be generally working. It's facing the right way (ie, a 0 shape rather than a... hmm not sure how to type that  but you know what I mean, from the front, the oval goes up/down portrait, not left and right landscape). the picture de-squeezes ok (although 60% seems better than 50% even though it's a 2x lens).

But... when I blur lights in the background, they go wide, not tall..?

any idea why?

bit of background on the lens. using an iper minor 35 2x. it was very soft when I got it (it's a very old Spanish cinema lens and the glass is a bit misty), but I cleaned it up fairly well, and last week I set about sharpening it by unscrewing the lens screws, and - whilst at infinity on the taking lens and the anamorphic, I adjusted the glass at the front slightly and got a nice sharp image whilst zooming in to a background and outputting the picture to a 48(?) inch tv.

but it has been doing this odd oval thing since the day I picked it up so that hasn't caused it.

and since last week I've put it on another, bigger, lens (85mm instead of 50mm) which prevents vignetting, but it meant I've had to use some more step-up rings to hold it in (just) until my clamp arrives. the extra distance between the two lenses seems to have knocked the sharpness out a bit? unless I didn't tighten the screws properly and the front anamorphic lens has moved a bit

is there something obvious I am doing wrong or wrong with my lens?

thanks

 

 

 

[Justin Bacle]

Can you share some images ? I'm not sure I totally get it

As for the distance between the adapter and the lens, it is usually preffered to get them as close as possible. In my tests however (with the ulttrastar) I did not see much of a difference except for vignetting.

[elgabogomez]

Horizontal oval bokeh instead of vertical oval bokeh happens when the taking lens is on close focus and the anamorphic lens is on far focus, or in another words, when both lenses are not focused precisely at the same spot. Maybe the focus marks in your ana lens are off?

[j169]

Ah thank you Elgabogomez (and Justin). I'm new to this and still working it out. I have a clamp on the way from the US so once I get that, and I have a permanent 'fixed distance' between the taking lenses and the anamorphic I'll look at re-aligning the lenses again to tighten the focus, and then practice some more to see what I'm doing wrong.