16:9 Documentary Shooting w/DVX?

S

stidle

Active member
Hi all --

I just purchased the Anamorphic Adaptor for my DVX100A. I plan to use the adaptor primarily for narrative/fiction films, due to the array of focusing/vignetting/etc issues that it apparently creates.

Still, I have a few questions:

1) Does anyone have any experience with doing a documentary in 16:9 using the anamorphic adaptor? Is it possible, as long as you keep its limitations in mind?
2) Can someone direct me to a thread listing all of the drawbacks of the adaptor?
3) This might be silly, but I do not have a 16:9 television. I'm mostly concerned with film transfer quality rather than how it will look on a television...still, it would be nice to see the footage in unsqueezed mode somewhere other than my computer screen -- any suggestions of affordable and decent 16:9 televisions?

Thanks!
-matt
 
Bonus question:

Would it not make sense to just buy a 16:9 projector and throw my films up against my wall? I have a completely blank room in my apartment that I was going to make into a film room anyway.
 
I used to have a 16:9 adaptor. Its a PITA, and I'm pretty happy shooting in squeeze mode now. You have to use a tripod, focusing is extremely difficult and high zoom levels, and the level of quality is marginally higher than using squeeze mode. You can do it, but if you've never used the adaptor, you'll probably give yourself a headache the first dozen shoots taking the adaptor off the camera when you're done.

Dust accumilates very easily on the internals of the lense (so you'll have to find a place you can trust to clean it every few months, or after extended storage.) You cannot use auto-focus or image stabilization, and if you zoom out all the way you will get noticable barrel distortion (which will go away if you zoom in slightly.) The lense is not good for hand-held or run-and gun situtations, and is most suitable for interviews when you have good control over light. You will need to light more, or open the iris larger than if you did not have the adaptor.

The dual threads on the adatper make it difficult to put on, and even more difficult to take off. Each time you put it on you have to align the lense with the cap, and there is a process which (supposedly) you have to do to properly align it. With this information you will probably want to add an extra 15 mintutes (on the safe side) to set the thing up, get good focus, get the proper exposure, lighting, and framing. Also, the DVX100 and DVX100A (don't know about the B) will not show you the full frame and will show a squeezed frame so you have to be mindful of your shot in that what you see on the screen is not what you will get (their will be an extra 10% of border around the frame that you cannot make out on the screen, unless you purchase an external 16:9 monitor for use with the shoot.)

So... again, the anamorphic adaptor is a PITA, and I would suggest shooting squeeze or buying an HVX if you're really worried about how your production will look when you go to film.
 
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well it's a bit late for that, since i just bought the thing.

surely there must be some success stories?
 
I hate the thing and would never use it again for reasons that have been stated over and over. I would rather lose resolution.


ash =o)
 
I've used it to shoot a documentary, and although it's construction is not so sturdy or dependable, I would have to wholeheartedly disagree with the posters who say the resolution gain is not that noticeable compared wiith squeeze mode. With the adapter, you're actually gaining resolution, with squeeze mode, you're losing it. It's especially evident to me porting footage into Studio Artist for rotoscoping, and comparing between squeeze mode and footage shot with the anamorphic. The anamorphic footage demonstrates far more detail, given how much easier Studio Artist can find the texture in anamorphic footage versus squeeze footage. My eyes see that it looks better, but the program isn't using eyes to determine this, it only has analysis of the available pixels.
 
Resolution is indeed notable better... but it comes with a huge hassle. Pick up a used HVX or XL2


ash =o)
 
I'm actually setting out to shoot a documentary using the anamorphic adapter. I was ready to use it only for interview situations where the focus length could be measured easily and all of that.

But then I saw a post on here somewhere where someone said that they were able to just focus the damn thing, even using focus assist to do so. I didn't think this could possibly be true, but I tried it and lo and behold, it appears to work. I've used it a few times now just as I normally would - interviews, walk and talks, run and gun and all - and as far as I can tell, my footage looks perfectly fine in terms of focus and light levels.

What I haven't tried, though, is viewing the footage when it's projected large, to see if any subtle focus issues raise their ugly heads. Any ideas about this? I'm still planning to shoot two weeks worth of footage coming up soon with the adapter, but I'd really appreciate someone telling me if that's a terrible, terrible thing to do.
 
stidle said:
Bonus question:

Would it not make sense to just buy a 16:9 projector and throw my films up against my wall? I have a completely blank room in my apartment that I was going to make into a film room anyway.
Click to expand...

Yes, that should work pretty well. Make sure you're able to control ambient light, though (i.e., use heavy curtains on the windows). You'll also want some kind of sound output other than the projector's built in speaker, if it even has one. I have an InFocus X1, and hooked up an old stereo. The picture and sound are better than any TV I've ever seen.

See http://projectorcentral.com/ for some projector reviews.
 
stidle said:
Does anyone have any experience with doing a documentary in 16:9 using the anamorphic adaptor? Is it possible, as long as you keep its limitations in mind?
Click to expand...

I just returned from shooting our documentary fundraising trailer in Copenhagen. I would say that we shot 95% with the anamorphic lens, shooting only once without and using an aspect correct overlay guide on the LCD screen.

We found a pretty easy solution to focusing with the anamorphic. We would either use focus assist to get an initial focus, or focus by eye, and then use the chart in Barry's DVX book to adjust it to the correct focus. Because you have to focus for both the vertical and horizontal planes, you have to adjust what looks like correct focus by a few steps. The importance of this was made clear to me when I got home and looked at the footage in widescreen. The properly focused footage looks a little soft in 4:3, but is then in focus when opened up to 16:9. For some of the footage that wasn't properly focused, the opposite is true. It's hard at the time you're shooting to take what looks like great focus and then adjust it to what looks like soft focus, but it really does work out when viewing the footage in the correct aspect.

After a couple of days of pulling the book out to get to the chart, we solved the problem of having to focus on the run by copying Barrys' chart onto a card that we taped onto the back of the camera batteries. This way, we always had the proper adjustment right in front of us.

Even when doing run and gun, you have to get the correct focus as you go anyway, so adding the additional step of making a slight adjustment turned out to be not such a big hassle (and there is a sweet spot in the mid eighties where you don't have to make any adjustment at all). You do have to be mindful of light levels and iris settings. If your iris is open too wide, you'll lose focus and, by the time you add 24PA and the lens to the mix, you lose a fair amount of light.

So, yes, there are some limitations to using the anamorphic, but I would recommend making the effort. The footage that we shot with the anamorphic is really very lovely.
 
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