DV Info Net - Panasonic Anamorphic Adapter with XL-H1?

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Panasonic Anamorphic Adapter with XL-H1?

Hey, I'm sure most of you have heard of Mike Krumlauf, a young filmmaker on Youtube, putting a Panasonic anamorphic adapter on an XL2 and getting native 2.35:1 when in 16x9 mode... but, what happens when you put the anamorphic adapter on HDV (1080i) XL-H1 footage? What aspect ratio would that be?

Thanks,
Colin Worley

Technically it would be the same 2.35, however, you don't really want to do that. You may be gaining 2.35 however, you are gonna be losing alot of resolution and picture quality. Tried this myself and doesn't look good at all...

Why would you loose quality? All it does is convert 16x9 footage to 16x9 footage (essentially), creating 2.35:1. Correct?

Thanks for the help,
Colin Worley

Depends on how you are at handling the anamorphic adapter. I'm using it on a class project right now with my HV20. The image quality is there but focusing is an issue with such a small LCD and with everything squeezed slightly. In post, using FCP, I set the aspect ratio to -36 and the footage looks great! What's better is that I'm looking at it stretched all the way on my Apple 30" display at 2K resolution, not bad at all!

With an XLH1, I would imagine you would have an easier time focusing due to the focus ring on the lens; my little HV20 just has the little dinky focus wheel on the side of it. Be careful when focusing, an on-camera LCD/external monitor would be best for this.

The main problem is that you would ideally want to stay wide all the time and move the camera instead of zooming because of focusing complications and the adapter taking away half of your zoom capability. Zoom in all the way and you're stuck with blurry images and you're basically focusing on the inner glass elements of the anamorphic adapter.

I can't remember if the XLH1 has a 72mm front or not. I know one guy tried the adapter on his HVX200 which has an 82mm front, thus requiring a step-down ring, and he had some distortion issues. This can be alleviated because you can still zoom but you only have half the zooming capabilities but it can work. Like I said, an external monitoring solution will really help.

Try it out, because it really does work.