Mike, I understand what you are saying. And yes, with the adapter, you don't lose resolution, because you use the full width of the sensor. BUT BUT BUT, when you output this to the most popular format such as DVD, what I'm trying to say is that the FINAL RESOLUTION of the anamorphic footage, and the cropped footage will be EXACTLY the same. This is simply because DVD doesnt support 2.35:1, so the frame still needs to be cropped. Therefore the only advantage of the lens is the extra wide angle, which you can simply achieve from a wide adapter. I'm attaching an image to explain what I mean. The only reason you would go for an anamorphic adapter with the XL2 is for simply for the look of the extra wide angle, which I don't like anyway because you only get barrel distortion with it, you'd only want this look as an effect. The CANON 3X would be a better investment, just for the occasional shot.

Don't get me wrong, I love 2.35:1, I think it looks awesome. But if you want that wider look, you'd just get a wide angle lens. The canon 3X would give you a much clearer image than any adapter would. And, as I said, if you're outputting to DVD which most people are, the resolution will be the same no matter what. It's simply the look that you would be after, and the true Canon 3X or any high quality adapter would do better than a cheap Panasonic adapter.

The advantage of the anamorphic comes in the intermediate process. I’m sure effects are easier to do with the extra resolution however small it might be. Basically is however you like shooting. I personally shoot all of my stuff in 2.35:1 so I would love to have one of these, to bad I’m so poor all I can afford is a plane XL2 (that’s sarcasm in case the tone doesn’t come through)

Optically is always better then digitally when it comes to this subject and anamorphoic just makes stuff look cooler. Most people dont notice the differences but anamorphic treats blurry lights differently the extracted 2.35. It also has a few quirks with it that I actually kinda like. Basically anamorphic 235 and matted 235 look different and its all about taste and what you are shooting.

On a side note another cool thing about this lens is that if you rotate it 90 degrees you can capture 4X3 video using the full sensor. I'll do that simple math for you.

16X9

Multiply the 9 by 1.33. It ends up being 12. So 16X12 reduces to 4X3.

Kinda a cool effect.

Better how? I watched your video twice, and saw nothing that made me think the image was better. In fact the anamorphic washed out some color and created lens flare.

Hi Alan !

could you describe your 90 degree 4x3 Method a bit more! Or could you upload an image. i dont get how this would look like....

One experience of mine was when I used the 16:9 mode on my GL1 with a WD-58H wide angle lens for one of my school projects. At the time I was still messing around trying to figure out the perfect formula for 16:9 DVD's with my software (good ol' cheapie Nero Express) [I had my Mac Mini at the time but, because of price, didn't get the superdrive model so I could use iDVD]. Anyway, I filmed everything like this and when I outputted to DVD, I accidentally doubled the 16:9 effect, essentially giving a 2.35:1 squeeze on a 16:9 image =P. To my surprise, however, it really held up and actually helped the film's overall look, even if it was a bit squeezed.

So, in this sense, the wide angle with 16:9 method makes sense to me. However, I wasn't filming in true 2.35:1, which I'd like to. So the more tests the better in my book! =)

I see what you are saying, but i do enjoy being able to get a 2:35 frame during shooting so i can better frame things, and actually what you are showing us all is the same thing they do with film. They either shoot anamorphic or if they used Super 35 they just crop the 2:35 image from the square frame!

I prefer shooting anamorphic its just me.

i guess it all comes down to personal choice.

Nic, you had me convinced for a minute, but then I started thinking more deeply about it, and it seems to me now that shooting with an adapter is indeed better than cropping.

First off, if you shoot with an adapter, the horizontal squeezing occurs before the camera downsamples the picture information and applies the DV compression. As a general rule, I find that it's always better to do something in the camera before compression if it's at all possible, whether we're talking about aspect ratio, color balance and saturation, gamma, or any other kind of image manipulation you can think of.

Second, if you crop in post, you're not outputting the full 720x480 NTSC raster as it came from the camera, but only the center portion of it; even though both images end up being exported at the same resolution, you're using all of the information that originally came from the chips if you use an adapter.

The above being said, it's clear to me at least that shooting with an optical adapter would in fact give you better results than cropping would.

The 4X3 would just look like normal 4X3, but you would be using all the sensors.

Its all coincident with this whole 1.33 thing. 4X3 expanded 1.33 times horizontally is 16X9 which expanded 1.33 times horizontally is 2.35.

4/3 = 1.33

2.35/1.77 = 1.33

16X9 expanded 1.33 times taller is 4X3, but that makes sense cause you are just now you are expanding it vertically instead of horizontally like you did before.

It’s all math. Play around with the numbers then look it up on wikipedia. You will learn the history of WHY 1.33 is the magic number and improve your fraction computation skills at the same time.

Loads of fun for us smart people that get bored at work. After all you can only edit for so long.

Uh, that's not right, is it? Since the XL2 has ±16:9 CCDs (962x480 pixels), 4:3 uses only the center portion (720x480 pixels).

Did I misunderstand your post?

Alan's talking about mounting an anamorphic adapter on an XL lens in a vertical orientation while shooting in 16:9 mode in order to use the entire sensor and end up with 4:3.

They wouldn't look the same. With the adapter mounted vertically while shooting in 16:9 mode, the resulting 4:3 would have a wider field of view than the native 4:3. Also, because more pixels on the chips would be used before compression, the perceived resolution would be higher and the resulting picture quality would be a bit better--the optical effects of the adapter aside.

We've strayed from the topic a bit, gents.

So, in order to get the finished product on DVD (in 16x9) and make it playable on the simple DVD players, will the initial picture (shot with anamorphic adaptor on 16x9) be cropped? If yes, is it going to cropped from the top-bootom or right-left? I am a bit confused.

P.S. The look of the footage is amazing!

I'm a little fuzzy about what you're asking. If you want to convert 2.35:1 footage to 16:9, then yes, you'd have to crop it. I don't know why you would want to do that though, so I'm assuming you were asking if 2.35:1 footage would have to be placed in a 16:9 stream with mattes...

In that case, yes, you'd have to export the footage as letterboxed 16:9 in order to go to DVD, because the only aspect ratios that DVD players will accept are 4:3 and 16:9. Any footage with an aspect ratio other than one of these two will have to fit into one of those two shapes with either letterbox or pillarbox mattes, depending on the situation.

2.35:1 is wider than 16:9, so the black bars would be on the top and bottom (i.e. in a letterbox configuration).

In case Jarrod's assumption about what you were asking is wrong, and you mean how do you get basic 16:9 on a DVD, it's simple. Set the dial on your XL2 to 16:9, shoot, edit and burn.

If he's right, then I can't imagine why you would want to go trough all that to get a wider aspect ratio. I don't think it would look that great by the time you were finished, either. And since you would have to crop anyway, why not just shoot and capture 16:9 then matte to 2.35:1?

We have gone WAY off topic.

Bottom line is that if you like shooting 2.35:1 and you are going to something higher resolution then a normal DVD then using this adaptor would be a good choice. If you are not shooting 2.35:1 then you really get no benefit from it.

I through out the idea of shooting 4X3 with the camera in 16X9 mode but that was just a cool side effect. Really its not totally practical.

While on the subject, how do you even get the 960 vertical pixels out of the XL2 in 16:9 mode?

It ends on the tape at 720, so where do the 240 pixels go? Or a better question would be.. Why does the sensor have 960 pixels, if dv only supports 720?