Anamorphic Cinemascope in Native 1920x810 MJPEG Mode

Singer 16-D 2x Anamorphic Adapter (50mm mount)
http://www.anamorphic.biz/

Some of the most widely available anamorphic adapters on Ebay are the Japanese Kowa line of 2x anamorphic projector lens. They were marketed under numerous brand names: Kowa, Sankor, Elmoscope, and Singer. The Singer 16-D I found has a 50mm filter ring mount, which I converted to 52mm with a non-standard 50-52mm adapter ring. This adapter is a size that really requires mounting separately on 15mm rails on top of a tripod. While it can work without vignetting down to a 50mm prime lens, I found it best suited to a vintage Konica Hexanon 80-200mm f3.5 zoom lens: (http://www.buhla.de/Foto/Konica/Objektive/e80-200_35.html)

singerkonicavideocam.jpg


As with all 2x anamorphic adapaters, the image produced by the Singer 16-D is compressed horizontally by a factor of two. However, the 1920x810 MJPEG video frame automatically expands the image width by 33%, making it look less extreme:

brickwallsingerana1920x.jpg


Before these videos can be viewed normally, the image must be upsampled horizontally in a video editor. With my MJPEG 1920x810 Patch, it requires an additional 50% stretch to a 2880x810 frame. This is then cropped back down to 1920x810 to produce the rendered result:

brickwallsingeriso1920x.jpg
 
Last edited:
Lomo 35NAS4 1.85x Anamorphic Adapter (72mm mount)
http://rafcamera.com/info/movie_lenses.htm

The Lomo 35NAS4 anamorphic adapter is one of the most unusual I've seen. It is a Russian lens from the 1980's with a non-standard 1.85x squeeze factor. These lenses are quite rare and difficult to find even on Ebay. (I obtained mine from dvxuser HHL, thanks again!) The Lomo is too heavy to attach directly to a lens, but it looks awesome mounted on 15mm rails, mated to a vintage Konica Hexanon 35-100mm f2.8 zoom lens: (http://www.buhla.de/Foto/Konica/Objektive/e35-100_28.html)

lomokonicavideocam.jpg


Here's a close-up of the interface between the Lomo anamorphic adapter and the front of the Hexanon zoom lens. I've custom mounted the zoom on a collar in front of its focal length ring (which is uniquely enough at the front of the lens). This fixes the position of the front barrel of the lens, allowing me to slide it right up to the rear of the Lomo. Thanks to the rigidity of the 15mm rails, no physical attachment is needed between the two lenses:

lomokonicadetail.jpg


The Lomo's 1.85x factor produces only a moderately squeezed image out of the camera:

lomoanamorphic1920x810.jpg


After upsampling the image horizontally and cropping it back down to 1920x810, the Lomo-Hexanon combo produces these results:

lomoisomorphic1920x810.jpg
 
Last edited:
Here is a pic of the complete Lomo Anamorphic Video Camera rig, with a matte box and sunshade in front. Below it is a pair of Audio-Technica AT875R short shotgun mics in shock mounts. These are plugged into a Zoom H4N 4-Track digital audio recorder, which is mounted at the top of the legs of a Matthews M25 tripod along with a pair of Sima SL-20XLi LED fill lights. And mounted at the far rear is a Lumix GH1 video camera.

lomokonicamattebox.jpg


Foam packed in its wheeled, waterproof Calumet flight case:

lomoflightcase.jpg


There's more! Don't miss the GF-1 Anamorphic Pancake Camera on page 2:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthrea...0-MJPEG-Mode&p=2126471&viewfull=1#post2126471
 
Last edited:
man... what a anamorphic post! will take me a good few reads to digest it and follow all the rabbit holes.
i've been playing with a sankor 16c and the LA7200, had a chance to get the century optics anamorphic, wish i had! size and weight would have loved my pancake lens.
Konica Hexanon 35-100mm f2.8... f2.8 constant? i've been looking for a manual zoom.

Ipowell! thanks for sharing your knowledge/patch and great examples, massively appreciated! i'm sure i speak for everyone :smile:

now i'm going out shooting! LA in pocket!
 
Last edited:
Amazing stuff. Like terra1 said, lots to digest here. Thanks for posting all this and, of course, your tireless work with refining the hack.

Almost never see mention of the AT875R on these forums. Shame, because it's a great little shotgun for the money.
 
@Ipowell: just FYI - I like these widescreen settings very much. Yesterday and today I was shooting with the widescreen settings 1920x810 on a GH13 + lens (old/new) + LA7200 + Sandisk extrem SDHC Class 10 (30MB/s).

Yesterday: with a old Canon FL 50mm/F1.4 lens. -> 10 Shots -> No problems!

Today: with a new (very sharp) Panasonic Lumix "Leica D Vario-Elmarit 14-50mm/F2.8-3.5/ASPH (O.I.S.)" -> 20 Shots -> 2x hang-up while recording with camera movement/focus change (1x vertical pan / 1x follow focus).

But it is great to have in camera widescreen recording!!!


P.S.: your "GF1-anamorphic setup" looks cool!
 
Last edited:
The Lomo 35NAS4 anamorphic adapter is one of the most unusual I've seen. It is a Russian lens from the 1980's with a non-standard 1.85x squeeze factor. These lenses are quite rare and difficult to find even on Ebay. (I obtained mine from dvxuser HHL, thanks again!) The Lomo is too heavy to attach directly to a lens, but it looks awesome mounted on 15mm rails, mated to a vintage Konica Hexanon 35-100mm f2.8 zoom lens: (http://www.buhla.de/Foto/Konica/Obje...35-100_28.html)

I can't tell you how happy I am to see that my lens found such a HAPPY HOME! Your work here is AMAZING lpowell!! I can't wait to implement these hacks on my GH1 and GF1....so incredible!! Thanks for all of your hard work. We all benefit from your hard work! YOU ARE THE MAN!!!
 
awww the GF1 with an ANAMORPHIC looks so cute! a wolf in sheep's clothing perhaps. :smile:
 
Hi guys!
I ´m not sure about this ..
You are saying here that you can get 2.35:1 image without the anamorphic adapter? This patch gives you 1920x810 but I did some testing and I was not able to get true 2.35:1 image in post-production ..
The best way would be to use the *whole* size of the chip and shoot squeezed image and then correct it in the post. With this mode I´m not getting a properly squeezed image without the anamorphic adapter, right? And there is no way to get true 2.35:1 without anamorphic lens and without cropping the bottom and the top - only in post-production?

Thanks!
 
Last edited:
You are saying here that you can get 2.35:1 image without the anamorphic adapter?
Rather than take my word for it, you could try this experiment: 1920 divided by 810 = ??

(To be precise, it's an aspect ratio of 2.37:1, for reasons I explained in an earlier post.)

And yes, the MJPEG encoder does produce an anamorphic image when its frame size is set to 1920x810. If, on the other hand, you'd prefer to get an isomorphic image from this patch, you can attach a 1.33x anamorphic lens to your GH1. With the adapter properly oriented, the anamorphic effects of the patch and the lens will cancel each other out, producing an undistorted widescreen image without cropping or further post-production.
 
Well ok.. Sorry for that 2.35:1 .. (and thank you for your time)

My goal is to get 2.37:1 image with your patch - without using the anamorphic lens (because I don´t have one yet.) but with using of post-production (in AE, Vegas ..) .. But if I deeply think about it I´m not sure if it is even possible?
 
Yes, Thank you. I saw you posts before, but are you sure this is the good result:

screenshot001ks.png


(I hope it is right because I´m getting same looking video right from the GH1 as you can see here in the preview in Vegas.)

There is still something in my mind that is telling me that I should get the 1,333 squeezed image from GH1 like on the 35mm prints to get the post-production anamorphic image.. now I´m lookin like a ass but hey.. everyone should help each other.. :-)
 
Last edited:
i think... this hack without anamorphic lens produces 1920x810 mjpeg that is 2.37:1 ratio. stretch the height by 1.3333x to get 1920x1080 mjpeg that is 16:9 ration. that is better than stretching 720p30 mjepg to 1080p without the hack.

i'd use this setting w/ 1080pN24 avchd.

lpowell, can u apply it on 720p60 avchd to produce 1920x810 image? if not possible, how about on 720p30 avchd.... please!!!
 
As Ryan mentioned above, the native MJPEG frame size for a 2x anamorphic adapter would be 2560x720, producing an exaggerated 3.56:1 screen aspect ratio. Not only is this much wider than any commercial film or video format, it's also not possible to patch MJPEG widths greater than 1920 in current versions of PTool.

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthrea...-concentrate&p=2107674&viewfull=1#post2107674

In this thread Vitaliy said that it might (fingers crossed) be possible to up the 4:3 sensor mode up to a point where we could shoot 1600x1200. In case we are able to shoot even 1440x1080 we can use those cheap 2x Japanese anamorphics to get 2880x1080, which is a 2.66 aspect ratio. This is quite wide still, but not the ridiculous 3.56, and 2.66 can be easily cropped to 2.39 (2.35) or even a little less wide to view on a Philips 21:9 tv (http://www.philips.co.uk/c/televisions/33092/cat/#/overview) , which has a 2560 x 1080 resolution. ( a loss of 1/9th of the screen width compared to 2880x1080 which could be perfect to cut some vignetting off the sides.)

I find the image is crisper if the GH1's aspect ratio is preserved. Somehow the image loses sharpness when the aspect ratio is distorted when shooting MJPEG. At least that is my impression. For that shooting 4:3 would be a dream.
 
Last edited:
Those mentioned before : Sankor, Kowa, Singer, Eiki, Elmoscope, ... They're not very cheap, but they are a fraction of the price of an Iscorama or even a LOMO anamorphic lens.


Thanks for the great info lpowell. I wondered how the Century Optics would behave. Maybe perfect on 50mm Summicron with 39mm thread?! I don't think you'd have any artefacts then.
 
Last edited:
Yes, Thank you. I saw you posts before, but are you sure this is the good result:

screenshot001ks.png
If you use the 1920x810 MJPEG patch without an anamorphic lens, you will need to stretch the video vertically, from 810 pixels high upsampled to 1080 pixels. Set Pixel Aspect Ratio to 1.0. Crop the resulting image back down to 810 pixels high and you'll have an isomorphic image with a 2.37:1 aspect ratio. While it's not the same as shooting with a real anamorphic lens, it does stretch out-of-focus bokeh vertically, similar to an anamorphic effect.
 
Un-friggin-believable!!! :)

I say there's a lot of benefit to doing it this way. No secondary lens for one thing...(any lens you want to use. That stretched out bokeh is what I would like. I don't mind the crop also. Nice.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top