anamorphic adapter

[Nasser]

I'm confused, If the HVX200 has native HD , why would someone needs anamorphic adapter for this camera ?

[Jeff Anderson]

I dont think one would... perhaps you could anamorphically stretch to an even wider aspect ratio like 2.35:1 with one?

[Brian@202020]

perhaps you could anamorphically stretch to an even wider aspect ratio like 2.35:1 with one?

That's what I want one for.

[THoff]

And how will you display that 2.35:1 material? DVD? HD DVD/Blu-Ray? You may be better off recording without the adapter and cropping in post.

[Brandon Freeman]

This seems to be a continuing debate: crop vs. adapter. The concern with cropping is that you lose a chunk of the picture and a piece of resolution.

But technically, you'd only lose resolution if you were to actually blow up to a 2.35:1 screen (i.e. print to film). And even so, with HD, is it really that big of a deal? I mean, Collateral was shot 90% HD in 16x9, then cropped to 2.35:1 for theatrical release. I sure as heck didn't even notice, and thought in fact they were using some kind of adapter (I found out later that they did indeed crop).

I used to think that the adapter would be the best choice, but I've been reading that in the end, you lose the same amount of resolution by having the adapter stretching the picture out (I guess it can make things fuzzy). You lose flexibility (can't go too wide without distortion), and even in film, anamorphic adapters seem to cause undesirable flare artifacts. At least I don't like the squashed flare look.

So, why not just shoot 16:9 and leave it uncropped?

Two reasons, for me.

One, I like the look of "super wide" as I call it.

But the more important reason, if the mic accidentally bumps down into frame a bit, or a lightstand, or something, no worries -- that'll get cropped out. Not that you shouldn't try to plan better and watch with appropriate montioring gear.