Anyone tried an Anamorphic Adapter on a C-mount lens?

[thisisapocalypse]

Had a thought - may be crazy.

Now, I realize that since you've got to stop down when using these adapters (in order to get a sharp image, thus far I haven't seen any lenses that can shoot at really fast apertures wide open + adapter and get a sharp image - although it might work on *very wide* c-mount lenses at wide open apertures as it does seem that the wider you go, the faster you can go with the adapters because of the much greater DOF) but I'm curious as to whether or not anyone has tried putting an anamorphic adapter (like the Panasonic one) or one of the Kowas on a c-mount lens that typically vignettes.

I'm wondering because it seems possible that once you unsqueeze the image in post, you might then be able crop off the sides for a normal 16x9 HD aspect ratio image...and if you did that, would you gain just enough in the middle so that you'd be able to crop off most (if not all) of the vignetting that typically occurs on the edges?

Obviously YMMV depending on the c-mount lens in question - but if anyone has both some c-mounts & an anamorphic adapter and can try it out, I'd love to see the results.

 

[Zack Birlew]

Well, you'd still have to punch-in in the end, but it certainly does open up wider angle anamorphic options due to smaller lenses, of course depending on the lens being used.

Still, the same principle applies, you're going to have to stop down the lens (forget 0.95 f-stop lenses, the image is blurred by f/1.4, f/2.0 is probably usable for most but pushing it).

I'd certainly like to see some tests done with smaller anamorphics, like the Kowa 2x anamorphics which are 52mm threaded. I've got the Panasonic and it's good but I prefer the look a 2x anamorphic can provide. Actually, if you could handle the resolution hit, a 1.5x or 2x would actually be the better choice for what you're describing as you would normally have to crop off the edges for 16:9 cameras anyway, unless using a 1.33x like the Panasonic, this way you get rid of the vignetting as well as have some side room for adjustment in post due to the extra squeeze ratio.

 

[thisisapocalypse]

Agreed, my guess is that a 1.5x or 2x adapter would be better for this purpose than the Panasonic at 1.33x, just not sure of how the resolution hit would manifest itself...but there's only one way to find out for sure!

With regards to stopping down, agreed shooting at f/.95 isn't going to work, but the widest f/.95 lens I've seen is at 25mm - what I'm really interested in would be seeing how the adapter worked on really wide C-mounts, say 15mm and wider, and there are some fast ones even in those very wide focal lengths, and those should have a lot of depth of field even at fast apertures, and it might be enough to line up with the additional focal plane of the adapter even faster than f/2 (not much faster than f/2, but who knows, maybe you could get a decent image at f/1.4 on something in the 10mm range.

My experience using the Panasonic adapter on lenses even down to 24mm is as you've described, f/2 is really as fast as I've been able to go maintaining any sort of reasonable image quality.