Native 2:35:1
 

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Cgs9pkf6khs

Should I just invest in this lens and an adapter rather than a 3x Wide Angle?

I had debated getting hold of an anamorphic adaptor to get 16x9 on my XL1s.

Quick math time: 4x3 (1.33:1) square the numbers = 16x9 (1.77:1) square those = 256x81 (3.16:1) So it's a bit wider than cinemascope.

Fact is, lots of the s35mm stuff being shot 2.35 is done either by cropping or using an anamorphic lens. Because s35 isn't natively 2.35 either. Cinemascope was a marketing ploy to keep butts in the seats when TV started getting more popular...I love cinemascope...the marketing people did a great thing with it!

Here's a doc with info on different aspect ratios.
http://www.cinemasource.com/articles/aspect_ratios.pdf

and locally:
http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=20412

If you use the adapter, what happens in post? I think the DVX guys just stretch the pixels out, so as XL users what do we do? If you don't stretch the pixels out then wouldn't the picture appear warped?

There should be an anamoprphic checkbox somewhere in the NLE that will auutomagically stretch it back out for you.

I don't think your math is right there. Using your numbers, the anamorphic adaptor changes 1.33:1 into 1.77:1 and 1.77 / 1.33 = 1.33 which is like squaring 1.33 as you say. So we have therefore determined that the anamorphic lens changes the aspect ratio by a factor of 1.33. To determine what effect that would have on a native 1.77:1 image you would multiply 1.77 x 1.33 instead of squaring it, and that gives you 2.35:1.

Regardless, I don't think it makes a lot of sense. If you want to shoot 2.35:1, get an HDV camera and matte the footage. That will give you a width of 1440 pixels instead of DV's limit of 720.

boyd: You wanna take my next math exam ;) sorry, I carried the wrong bits forward. You are right...but they still crop or squeeze in the film world to get there...so pplpplt! :)

Still, should I invest in one of these Lenses with the adaptor or just go with the 3x Wide Angle?

I'd get one, but the only reason would be to preserve pixels in a wider screen representation...the wide angle adaptor will actually change the properties of the image you're collecting. It depends on what you need it for. I love what the anamorphic adaptor does for you, but the wide angle will give you more lensing options...basically, just a shorter lens. Both would be ideal (more options).

-For 16x9 anyways, but what if you are shooting 16x9 with an xl2, or xl-h1 that have native anamorphic sensors? What i'm thinking is that if you shoot with an xl2 with the dvx's adapter, your picture will be squished onto the 16x9 sensor, and to have an undistorted picture you would have to stretch it out further.

Chris,

i want to make clear that using the Panasonic Anamorphic adapter does give you true 2:35:1. Now as the guy said about the HDV camera, i dont have the money to just change cameras at the snap of a finger, but he is right about it. Anyway, i dont want to get in a heated debate about this because i have the proof myself and i have filmmakers that can back me up on this. If you look at the film Dancer in the Dark, that was done by shooting on the PD150's 16:9 squeeze with a custom built anamorphic lens that Lars Von Trier built resulting in 2:35:1 although it was not full res because he still was dealing with sony's squeeze function which make the image loose res. I dont understand why people need to question my methods and make me feel like complete crap, you know this one works, i have the lens on the camera in a shot and the image is MUCH wider then what u can do with the XL2 alone. Also check DVXuser, someone did this test with an HVX200 and got 2:35, thats where i got the idea from.

The frame is anamorphicly streched inside the 16:9 frame then in final cut i go to distort>aspect ratio> and set it to -36 in a 24p 16:9 timeline and i get the proper viewing of the 2:35 frame! its very cool, i like it, i know it works, and i am happy with it.




Mike

Those who are familiar with DV Info Net will tell you that we never allow those kinds of personal attacks here. If you'll notice, I've removed the offending material from this thread. In the future, instead of responding to it directly, please just use the "report bad post" button to the left of every message and a moderator will take care of it.

I apologize for letting this one get past us and go for a few days before catching it.

Could you walk us through your post processing of the footage to get it onto a 2.35:1 timeline? Do you check a box as I posited earlier...or do you have to scale it up manually?

I made a new thread on the Xl2 Watchdog explaining my process with this amazing lens!

Please feel free to check it out: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=95761

Mike

But that misses the point completely.
I love anything shot in anamorphic but not because of the aspect ratio.
The real beauty of Anamo shots is the distortion of the out of focus elements of the image and the effect of focus pulls.

Sorry Mike, but I don't understand this sentence. Could you please explain?

I don't get it either -- just how is that effect related to shooting anamorphic?

What you are refurring to i think is what people do when they shoot Super 35mm is they crop the 2:35 image from the square frame.

If you wanted to do anamorphic with HDV cameras u just do what i do with the Xl2 which is using an anamorphic lens in front of the camera's lens. I would love to see someone try that with a high def camera.

I mean u could get true 2:35 with a varicam or cinealta when using the anamorphic adapter! that would be cool to see!

This was actually a query about another Mike's post, above.

It's this one:

Thanks, Chris! I coulda, shoulda, oughta done that myself.

Here's an explanation of the focus past half zoom (search page for astigmatism):

http://www.gthelectronics.com/anamorph.htm

Michael, so you just put on the adapter and shot in 16:9 mode on tha XL2, then unsqueezed in in FCP? How does the footage look in the viewfinder? Any problems there?

The only reason for doing this is if you are going to be viewing the final product on an extremely large screen, am I mistaken? Personaly, I hate a letterboxed image! You pay all this money for a widescreen tele only to fill up a small portion of the screen.

The thing that is beneficial about shooting anamorphic in the first place is the ability to take advantage of the entire real estate of the widescreen television. No?

Sorry, this whole letterboxed image thing is driving me nuts right now. I have noticed that on a specific cable movie channel, not mentioning any names, they are actually taking movies that were manipulated to 4:3 and then letterboxing that image! Now, not only are you missing the picture on the sides, but now the tops of peoples heads are being chopped off too!

I guess my point to this rant is that it all depends on the application, right? If the target audience will be viewing on a traditional television shoot 4:3, widescreen Anamorphic, and then 2.35 on the projection film screen. Please correct me if there is something that I am missing.

Thanks,
Ry

I would say you're mistaken. I see 2:35 TV commercials all the time. One example is the Priceline.com commercials. Though I'm not sure if it's just cropped.

Hmmm. This rather begs the question, why on earth would anyone want to do this in the first place? Not many of us are going to see our work projected on a 2.35:1 theater screen. The future of television is 16:9, and it's been a struggle to get that aspect ratio. My suspicion is that for some, it just looks cool, but I also suspect that it has no practical value.

Am I wrong?

A couple years back, before DV cameras put a high quality 16:9 mode as standard, I sought to take advantage of my new widescreen TV.

The Century Optics 16:9 anamorphic lens for DV cameras was too expensive for me, so I looked for other options.

After reading Ben Syverson's widescreen page, [which is no longer available, but you can read it on the Wayback Machine]:

http://web.petabox.bibalex.org/web/2...een/index.html

I went ahead and found a film camera/projector Bell & Howell 2X squeeze lens on eBay for like $80 and was able to mount it with a Series 7 to 46mm thread adapter.

The anamorphic 2X squeeze len---which squeezes only in one axis-- doubles the width of the 1.33 frame, so you get--voila---2.66 full scope!

Since the lens is made for a film camera, you had to zoom in to remove vignetting, and I had to back up while shooting.

But the results were fun and quite amazing.

I had to scale/letterbox the full image onto a 16:9 DV frame show and then make a anamorphic DVD out of it.

Of course, there are many problems working with this "format". You had to make sure your horizons are level. You have to make sure your lens is completely vertical when mounted on the camera or you will get your fun house mirror effect, where everything is tilted.

The best part of the lens is the cool "effects" inherent in this type of lens. Light flares, bumps and mumps, when you pan across a room. Just like how "Die Hard" looks on film.

In essence, with that 2x lens, I was shooting "Full scope"

I did eventually buy that Century Optics lens, and later I did get a PDX10.

And yes, I briefly tried the double 16:9 trick with the Century Optics on the PDX10--and it definitely works---but I don't think you get the kind of the distortions like a real 2x squeeze lens.

It was fun shooting my "Cinemascope" home movie "masterpieces", but ultimately, it was pain in the butt.

Attached are frame grab examples.

I am posting my method on this thread for easier reading, so u dont have to travel to another post to see what i do, also in the past few days i found an error in my method and have the method updated here anyway so, its all good.

I just recently got the Panasonic Anamorphic Adapter as a gift. As most of you know that lens was made for the DVX cameras to let the DVX100 shoot was the Xl2 already shoots natively, but in my experimenting and research i found that if you attach the anamorphic lens on a native 16:9 camera of any kind, you can get the aspect ratio of 2:35:1. Here is my method for shooting and editing it.

1.) When filming you will see that ur image is anamorphicly squeezed into the 16:9 frame so focusing may be a problem in some tight shots. Also note that you can only zoom in about half way then after that the focal lengths are just blurred.

*I USE FINAL CUT PRO 5 FOR EDITING!!!*
1.) Import the clip as u would a 16:9 image

2.) Depending on what frame rate you shot it at, drop the footage in the --fps timeline which should be set for 16:9. Now in the motion tab, go to distort, aspect ratio, and set that to -32, and there you go, proper 2:35:1!!!! Now because say on a DVD it cant properly show 2:35, i just export the clip as i would a 16:9 file! Looks great and is amazing.

Now a guy on YouTube said that this was not 2:35 because he said the footage had barrel distortion which if you where smart and have shot anamorphic on 35mm that in wide shots there is barrel distortion. so just to clear that up ;).

Mike

You might as well just crop the footage
 

While Mike talks about having no "resolution loss" with the lens, IMO there actually is really not any advantage over just a simple cropping of the 16:9 footage. From looking at the anamorphic footage, you may get a slightly wider angle than when cropping footage from the original lens, but this is not much of an advantage, simply because of the output. I'll explain.

Because the XL2 is a DV camera, most people would only ever output to DVD. Because DVD only supports 16:9, and not 2.35, the 2.35 footage from the anamorphic lens is going to end up having the same resolution as footage that has just been cropped, because 16:9 is the widest aspect supported by DVD.

You could argue, what if the output was to something of higher resolution. If that's the case, the next thing up is HD and you would be better off with a native HD camera to do that.

You'll note that the detail of something shot on 35mm film has the same detail as something shot on an XL2 when viewed from a DVD. The film footage might look better, but in the end it is the detail and resolution gains of an anamorphic lens that most people find attractive, and because of the SD output of the XL2, there is hardly any point bothering with an expensive lens to get 2.35 when the output is going to be exactly the same resolution of a simple cropping from the original lens.

Sorry if thats a bit long. Hope you understand it... :)

Nic you are absolutely right!

please watch http://youtube.com/watch?v=IuV2USTFOvg

This explains everything, i did a test and my theory came out right, you have a better image with the adapter then cropping it. Cropping the 16x9 frame losses resolution with the anamorphic adapter your not loosing anything.

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.