Anamorphic lens or Dog Schidt Optiks w/ oval aperture?

[Cosimo murgolo]

@richg101

This lens caught my attention rich, I would love to have one   :D , I'd love to pair one with an anamorphic (sankor16D) Is it a  possible combination, using a ff camera?

Which of your lens shall I choose for this combination?

Please let me know all about it, why not ;)  

PM me if you want!

Cheers man!

 

[valid]

The original aperture is completely removed and in its place sits a very thin and precisely milled brass insert.  There are a number of other people doing similar things, but they just seem to go for the laser cut acrylic route and as such the actual ovals are never as perfect due to the cut always being a bit graggy.

 

Rather than modify the limited range of alternative focal lengths from the same era and source, I have developed a ultra high quality wide angle attachment (the FF38), which FF58 users can install on their lens to widen the fov to 38mm.  all of the lens character of their ff58 remains intact, but the fov is widened.  and as it happens the wide angle attachment improves sharpness.  Moderate barrel distortion is visible, but nothing too bad!

 

 

Sounds great! How do you increase sharpness with a wide angle attachment? :o how is the CA?

 

 

with regards to the topic... i've been having the similar thoughts:

 

I'm a vfx artist and for any cgi integration, working with anamorphic footage is such a ball-ache, compared to spherical stuff.... Mainly, of course, because of the non-uniform distortion the anamorphic lens gives... I do love shooting anamorphic for my own personal work, but professionally, I can't see myself working with anamorphic footage for any shots which require heavy vfx/cgi comped in, simply because the workflow becomes such a PITA... (unless of course it's a massive budget with super modern anamorphics)

 

for me it's also the fact that all (or almost all) of the anamorphic "voodoo" can be recreated in post:

- flares - either purely cg or shooting real flares on a black background with real dirty anamorphics to get the grimeyest flares and just comping them in ;-)

- lens distortion. using grids from real lenses like 40mm panavision primo you can get pretty close to

- oval bokeh can be sometimes done - anything with a depth map or where the foreground/background/etc plates are separate layers, (which have been filmed/rendered in-focus) can easily be de-focused with any shape aperture. It would be good to have an oval aperture modified spherical lens, though - for portrait shots and things where I'm not filming separate background and foreground plates, though. Maybe I will look into that :-)

 

I'm still an anamorphic fetishist, but I guess i'm realising that I like having the freedom of controlling the intensity of the voodoo, rather than having it "baked in" to the footage. :D (That and anamorphics do degrade sharpness/resolution, even a red isco HD plus ultra star or cinelux :-)

 

just my two cents... :-)

[richg101]

Sounds great! How do you increase sharpness with a wide angle attachment? :o how is the CA?

 

 

 

 

The design criteria was to develop a 'close to zero' degradation of the original imaging capabilities of the Biotar 58mm f2 design.  So as little light loss, CA or MA, and as little barrel distortion as possible, when used on sensors of 24x36mm.  Without using modern techniques that have been developed since the biotar was conceived.  Rather just use brilliant glass types in a simple and unrestricted traditional design

 

Since i worked in partnership with a optical boffin who is purely scientific, he took my criteria very seriously.  We decided on one of Schott's most costly Lanthanum flints for the primary optic since it was so critical to the design.  The other elements are also of esoteric nature.  upon delivery of the optical prescription to the manufacturers, very few would touch the design since it uses Glass types very few ever work with.  Most asked for the design to be simplified (in manufacturing and material sourcing terms) using more cheaper and smaller elements rather than using less elements of large and costly materials.  In the end we found a manufacturer who would undertake the job, and would fulfil the tolerances required - but even they struggled and caused so many delays I'm still suffering with a backlog!

 

Anyway, when you set such a strict criteria to a scientific person, and let them run with their concept you end up with good things.  The inherent lack of degradation from the ff38 unit, in partnership with compressing more information through the overall optical path delivers a tighter LP/MM in the centre meaning an aps-c using a ff38+ff58 will deliver the same fov as a full frame with just the ff58, but the overall resolving power with the ff38 and aps-c system delivers sharper images (optically).  At the edges when on full frame, the existing aberrations from the helios/ff58 remain intact but are not increased.    

 

CA?  What CA? :)

 

Biotar 58mm @ f2:-

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Biotar 58mm @f2 + 38mm WA Attachment (0.66x):-

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[richg101]

 

@richg101

This lens caught my attention rich, I would love to have one   :D , I'd love to pair one with an anamorphic (sankor16D) Is it a  possible combination, using a ff camera?

Which of your lens shall I choose for this combination?

Please let me know all about it, why not ;)  

PM me if you want!

Cheers man!

 

 

 

glad you like the look of them:)  I don't really want to do business dealings on the forum, but i believe the sankor will be pushing it on full frame before cropping away the sides.  However the use of a rather low contrast taking lens on a relatively long and thin anamorphic can create lovely things since the anamorphic acts as a hood and controls some of the craziness from the ff58.  The behaviour tends to appear suddenly when a lightsource comes into the frame.  a tint in the same colour as the coatings on your sankor will also help to integrate the two lenses so they look like they were made to be together.  The thing with sankors is that they have a really nice character to start with, and a 2x squeeze so are full of life to start with.  a nice clean helios 44 should be on your shopping list no matter what.  A 2x ff58 on its own might be a good move rather than going for something specifically for the sankor.   

[ken]

I have to disagree there.  And I also think as time moves on the resolution gain will become less and less of an argument for anamorphic.  

 

For example...  (and I'm purely saying this from an a7r 36mpx point of view, which is around 8k, and over 14 stops of dr in 'cinema terms', so about 5 years ahead of what we're currently seeing from most 24p cinema cameras today)  Even the Iscorama degrades the resolving power of a taking lens quite drastically wide open at say f2.  It's still usable, and beautiful too, but it doesnt resolve very high levels of detail when compared to the spherical lens on its own.  

 

I'd say that nowadays with 'true 1080p' and 4k, the degradation in image detail from cropping away 1/3rd of the pixels is less harmful than putting any anamorphic lens on the front of a system.  All but the cinelux and similar are not delivering very high levels of resolving power.  2 years ago when everyone was shooting 1080p that looked like todays 720p the benefit of anamorphic for resolution gains was there. - since cropping away footage no more detailed than 720p is gonna result in lower res than 720p.  but IMO the gains are no longer valid now we're able to shoot true 1080 which is often oversampled from 4k (gh4, a7s, etc) which is visibly 2 to 3 times more detailed than what we were getting from 5dmk2's!.

There are two factors that affect the resolution.  One is pixels, other is lens native resolution, which equals to sharpness.  Pixels have not much to do with sharpness if there are not too low.  For example, many P&S cameras have very high pixels, even more than 20M pixels, but the image is still cannot compare with old CANON 5D mk I(with prime lens), which is only 12M pixels.  Because that depends on the lens resolution or sharpness. 

IMO, sharpness gained by 2x anamorphic lens still have advantage over the higher pixel sensor.

[Nikkor]

You said a few things there Ken but they lead to nothing. I think I only have 3 lenses that don't resolve the 36MP sensor, and that would be the super old nikkor 50 1.4 @ 1.4, and the 2 nikon zooms, the 28-70 and the 70-200 in the corners and at full aperture. I don't think there is any lens out there that can't resolve 1080p properly, benefits from good glass comes in form of better general contrast. An anamorphic lens doesn't change that.

The limiting factor have been the recording formats, where the anamorphic stretch looked better to the eye than cropping into the blurry mess, but that's almost gone. I second Rich's experience with my d800 ,the ultra star and tons of old and new glass while taking stills.

[richg101]

There are two factors that affect the resolution.  One is pixels, other is lens native resolution, which equals to sharpness.  Pixels have not much to do with sharpness if there are not too low.  For example, many P&S cameras have very high pixels, even more than 20M pixels, but the image is still cannot compare with old CANON 5D mk I(with prime lens), which is only 12M pixels.  Because that depends on the lens resolution or sharpness. 

IMO, sharpness gained by 2x anamorphic lens still have advantage over the higher pixel sensor.

 

indeed a point and shoot camera with a tiny 20mpx sensor will very rarely have a lens that can deliver the 300lp/mm resolving power required for so many pixels on such a small area - meaning the pixels are simply a marketing number and a cause of false detail.  And wont lead to as good results as a 12mpx sensor and a lens capable of delivering a required 30lp/mm - pretty much all 35mm photography lenses will reach this level.  

 

The 36mpx A7R and D800's are not point and shoots.  -They're full frame monsters which are only bettered moderately by the best medium format backs.  The pixel size of a full frame 36mpx sensor is around 5micron requiring around 100lp/mm in order to make full use of the pixels.   Your comment seems to be talking down the number of pixels of such cameras without really understanding their benefits.  It also brings up the fact that assuming you have a lens which is capable of delivering 100lp/mm (I doubt very many people here do since we're not tabletop product photographers with 80mpx medium format sensors!), you then have a anamorphic lens which doesnt degrade the resolving power of the spherical lens. 

 

 

lets take a typical 35mm format 50mm f1.8 lens and assume it has a resolving power of 30lp/mm at f2.8 - which is considered a rough benchmark for good optical quality in photographic film terms.  If i put an iscorama on there the resolution feels like it lowers to half what it was without the 'rama.  so lets say we now have 15lp/mm (line pairs per millimeter, or 30 lines per millimeter).  so for the full frame width of the image area (36mm) and full frame height of the sensor (24mm) we are looking at 36mm x 30lines = 1080 pixels wide.  And 24mm x 30lines = 720pixels high.   Lower than full HD!!!

 

Lets assume the taking lens is a crazy high resolution of 60lp/mm while still being a 35mm format lens.  we're still only getting a final optical resolving power of 2160px wide once the degradation from the iscorama is taken into consideration.  

 

take the anamorphic lens away from the signal chain and you maintain your 30lp/mm (60lines per mm) from something like the helios 44 at f2.8 or any similar nikon or canon normal prime.  even then the resolving power at f2.8 only just exceeds that required for fullhd.  

 

 

Obviously we don't want ultra sharp images from an anamorphic anyway, but as i have said, their resolution benefit is moot - particularly in the context of this subject.  

[Cosimo murgolo]

This...especially the last bit.

Its not all about flares & in fact the flares can end up ruining perfectly good shots - you don't want people to say "look it flares!", you want them to be enveloped by your beautiful framing etc...

Also, shooting car headlights, torches etc...is the most boring, pointless, waste of time I can think of.

Dual focus lenses aren't that hard to use, it forces you to be more inventive with your shot selection & you end up learning the basics about framing/shot types far quicker.

 

 

I was watching this movie with my kids this evening, flares are all over the place.

Have a look. 

Fake or real ones?

there are oval bohek too

 

[Julian]

That's a real anamorphic shot for sure. The flares in the trailer probably are a combination of real and added effects. The screen shot is a real flare for sure.

 

You can check the details on IDMB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1291150/technical?ref_=tt_dt_spec

Shot on Arri Alexa Plus in 4:3 with Panavision anamorphic lenses.

[Hans Punk]

Yes, mixture of real in camera/CG and composited real flares would have been used in a lot of the scenes to 'bed' the CG turtles into the scene and help blend the digital makeup on meagan fox's face. Perhaps I'm getting old, but these blockbuster films just look like Xbox game trailers to me - totally soulless turtle power.

[premini]

@richg101, will that ff+ff combo cover a full frame 5d3?