What Anamorphic Lens?

[JohnF]

I'm asking around myself but I'm wondering what or if any RED fans are thinking about shooting anamorphic and if anyone has some thoughts on what would be the most appropriate lens(s)?

I'm looking for true 2.35to1 type panoramic wide shots @4k for landscapes and cloud/skyscapes...

Any thoughts?

JohnF

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Er.... Wouldn't you just use some really wide glass. Like the rectilinear Arri Ultra Prime 8R and then crop the top and bottom of your image in post to get the 2.35:1 aspect?

Does anyone actually make a 35mm PL mount "Anamorphic" lens that does horizontal compression? And if they did, what would be the purpose when shooting 4K. You wouldn't gain anything horizontally, but would rather be required to scale the image down vertically before cropping. ...I suppose you could stand to gain extra vertical resolution for film out to 65mm or IMAX formats by scaling the 4K image horizontally beyond 4K. Wow. Hmmm..

[M Olsen]

Better mark up the aspect ratio in post, staying with spherical glass means more lens options, cheaper, faster and more depth of field... remember anamorphic is double the focal length of 35mm to achieve the same angle of field of any given focal length.

[Stephen Williams]

Hi,

No suitable lenses exist at this moment as the Red sensor is a different shape to a 35mm film frame. The standard stretch for film anamorphic lenses is 2:1.

The reason people shoot anamorphic is to use the full negative gaining resoloution and smaller grain. Cropping an image reduces the resoloution, so that's not an ideal solution.

Stephen

[Kenn Christenson]

They crop the image all the time, in film, to get 2:35. Of course there's the old Technoscope (where they cropped a standard 35mm frame)- think Spaghetti Westerns and THX-1138 up to The Lord of the Rings - shot in Super35 and cropped and then there are the two latest Star Wars films - cropped high def.

Yes, you lose resolution, but then, you lose resolution with anamorphics, (compared to spherical.)

Note: Canon does have an anamorphic adapter for high def cams - so you can use the full height of your CCDs. I'm pretty sure it's in a B4 mount so you'd end up with a cropped CMOS sensor if you used it on the Red, anyway.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I guess the way I'm looking at it is this... If you shoot with anamorphic glass on RED, to 4K at 4096x2305, you then have two possible options to get to 2.35:1 aspect while retaining as much quality as possible:

1> Up-scale the horizontal resolution, preserving the 2305 vertical res. You would be working in greater than 4K.

2> Keep the 4096 frame width, but scale down the vertical resolution to get the proper pixel aspect. You won't be gaining any resolution, but there may be some added detail that transfers through the vertical scaling.

Both options seem a little curious given the available formats to shoot in and that most 2.35:1 features are cropped as it is. If we were dealing with a 4:3 3K * 2K sensor and we wanted to get a full 4K * 2K out of it (16:9) the best option would be be to shoot with anamorphic glass and scale horizontally to 4K. Preserving the vertical resolution... Without anamorphic glass, you would have to crop to 16:9 and lose a lot of detail.

Since we're already shooting 4K 16:9 on RED, I would really like to know what the perceived benefits of shooting anamorphically would be. I can see applications for film outs and post processes at greater than 4K res or larger than 35mm transfers. Since we're already working in 16:9, I would think an anamorphic lens that compresses the image vertically would be more applicable. Then the 4K horizontal resolution would be preserved, but the vertical would be condensed and then could be scaled up to make a 4:3 type aspect for film out to larger formats like IMAX as that would be better than cropping the sides of our 16:9 footage to fit or letterboxing 16:9 onto the 4:3 IMAX frame.

So yeah, I'm just wondering what the perceived application and advantage of anamorphic glass for the RED would be? ...I can think of a few things that may be nifty for FX shots though.

[M Olsen]

We have all made assumptions on JohnF's end user requirements. My suggestion of doing the top and bottom crop in post was based on an assumption of him wanting a simple widescreen look for general distribution and being able to use the full sensor width to do that with a racking ability and black top and bottom.
Jeff K has raised the bar with possible options for a projected widescreen. All involve compromise.
My anamorphic operating has been 2.25:1 framing but even dating from "Willow" in the 80s we allowed safety outside this for video.
Lord of the Rings was the same we used combi ground glasses and key framed for 2.25 even though we shot spherical.
My point being it is all a compromise. As a DOP I had to do a shoot for a specially constructed wide screen theatre, the best option was to shoot S35 and blow up the print to Cinemascope.
It almost seems that every situation is different and this will hold true to the Red fraternity.
What awes me is the technical knowledge some of you have and the fact that we can all submit and get an opinion.. this is what I like about Red. Makes a change from DPs giving each other the "hairy eyeball" across the bar !

[Stephen Williams]

They crop the image all the time, in film, to get 2:35.

Hi Ken,

Yes it's done & it looks nothing like anamorphic. Do you want the anamorphic look or just a letterbox?

An anamorphic film with a conventional finish will far out resolve the best 4K ever done.

Stephen

Edit:- The Technicolor process is no longer available, shooting 2 perf today does not look as good as it did 30 years ago. It does look better than 16mm blown up,but that's all.

[Evin Grant]

2.35:1 will look very good on the extracted from Red 4K but SW is right, it won't look anamorphic. Highlights, flare and Bokeh have a very distinct look in Ana. Even whhen I was shooting a horror film and used a DVX100 with the Panasonic Anamorphic adapter it had a certain feel that was just more cinematic. There is a set of filters out there that are supposed to replicate the look on spherical lenses, kind of like streak filters but more specific to the anamorphic feel. Either way a nice comprimise would be a 1.85:1 anamorphic lens set like the DVX but high quality of course. This gives you right about 2.35:1 from the 16:9 sensor.

[Zack Birlew]

I remember the thread where a guy put the anamorphic adapter on his HVX200. Must admit, the stills he posted looked pretty darn cool.