Are there "poor man's" anamorphic lenses/adapters out there?

Also I'd like to know what are the differences between the Iscorama 36 and Iscorama 54 ?

and going with a cheaper anamorphic lens - what would you recommend I go with? I found a few on ebay but I'm not sure of their quality and if they will go with a Canon T2i ?

some help? http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...=STRK:MEWAX:IT

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...=STRK:MEWAX:IT
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Hi Digifruit,
Which ever brand of an anamorphic pjojector lens you buy, please avoid the one for 35mm cine, buy only the 16mm cine one. The focal lenght of the 35mm anamorphic projector lens is too long and will cause a vignetting unless your prime lens FL is more than 70mm.

P.S. My test video: a makeshift anamorphic lens with Camcorder
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlZN8yZnmxA
 
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biginvegas thank you for providing me with the link. That is something I'm definitely going to read to further understand the anamorphic lens.

I only saw Old Boy, and a few Leone flicks plus a bunch of Shaw Bros - that's exactly why I love the anamorphic. Has a great look. Just not acquainted with the technicalities, hopefully the link you provided will clear up much of it.

and juud. you say get a 16mm cine.. are you saying that there are, for example - a 16mm cine Iscorama and a 35? As you can tell I don't know much about this.
 
readers, please research further the subject before uninformed statements such as nosys70 posted discourage you from trying a true scope adapter.
most opinions about "quality" are obviously based upon charts and not taking visual appeal into account.
using anamorphics is all about the distinctive look those bent glass elements bring to the picture. flare, streaks, softening, vignette, distortion, oblong bokeh and highlights that will put the viewers into a specific mood. embedding such artefacts while shooting brings a filmic quality to your footage that separates it from the native video results.

editing such footage is not a problem anymore on average desktop computers. it's just like regular HD, the only difference is the displayed pixel ratio you can set when interpreting footage. the data load and workflow is identical until the very final steps when you export.
projecting the oversized resolution via splitters driving an array of beamers is getting quite common these days for outdoors installation. i've been shooting 2x anamorphics and showing the unsqueezed 3840*1080 results without a glitch for quite a while now. even at most theatres you just plug in that DLP and it will show beautiful scope.
letterboxing is just cropped video. it has none of the character and flaws we have grown up to love in movies.
 
and juud. you say get a 16mm cine.. are you saying that there are, for example - a 16mm cine Iscorama and a 35? As you can tell I don't know much about this.
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Hi Digifruit,
Yes , there are two main format of an anamorphic lens from the film projector, 16mm one and 35mm one. The 35mm anamorphic or cinemascope lens will be much bigger ( in all dimension) than the 16mm one. The 35mm cinemascope lens is not suitable for DSLR or camcorder due to its bulky size and focal lenght.
 
"but I've always thought that an anamorphic lens gives you "true" and much more "unique" widescreen picture than having a wide lens with added black bars.

You're cropping in wide angle, while anamorphic just stretches (?, regardless, it doesn't crop anything) the image."

anamorphic just compress like any wide angle (and does not stretch) more field of view. the fact it does that only horizontally gives the stretched looks, but you should really call it the compressed look.
(because you squeeze what would require about 3000 pixels into only 1920).
From that point of view it does not give a big difference with an aspherical wide angle + black bars (here the secret is in "aspherical").
wide angle lens add-on are causing 2 majors drawbacks (call it enhancement if you want). They make the picture hazy, that is why they are usually not zoom thru (means you can not zoom).
the second one is the flare, requiring that no bright spot is in the field of view.
Matte box and flags recommended.
From the historical point of view, the anamorphic system was not designed to bring more field of view (you can reach that easily by simply back up the camera from the subject, with any lens, but causing subject to be smaller) neither to give a rectangular picture (they could have cropped the existing one as well), but to give a wider picture (feel the difference ?) in theater with same quality.
Don't forget that before 2.35, movies were pretty close to square format, but by opening the curtains a bit more, they can make the screen larger (while keeping same height).
This is half realized with an anamorphic adapter (and video). Since it is an add-on to the lens (and your screen ratio is fixed, you cannot make the screen larger, you can only make the height of picture smaller), you can get wider field only by making the subject smaller. (just measure the height of your subject with the regular lens, then add the adapter, measure again, the subject should be a bit smaller, and when displayed on screen with black bars it will be A LOT smaller).
That is mainly why anamorphic adapter on video sucks and why movie seen at 2.35 ratio in theater usually sucks too when watched on TV
The best is you find a WA adapter, shoot a test , then find a anamorphic adapter, shoot same test again and compare. You will find if the difference worth the hassle and the money.
lot of info about adapters here
http://lavender.fortunecity.com/lavender/569/anamorphic.html
you have to take in account that adapters screw on fixed diameter and you need to match your lens, plus that not all adapters have the same ratio
in that particular point, the iscorama adapter has a factor of 1.5, so if you start from a 16/9 ratio, you end up not with a 2.35 picture but a 2.7 picture, that is considerably larger (and then considerably smaller on an 16/9 lcd screen = BIG black bars !) and your vertical resolution (provided you use 1920 as horizontal will be only around 700 pixels).
 
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24mm lens + anamorphic x1.33 adapter on APS-C sensor (550D) looks like this :
http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/5275/aschowek23.jpg
http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/3941/aschowek8.jpg
http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/4364/aschowek26.jpg
http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/6137/aschowek21.jpg
http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/7315/aschowek9.jpg

And 50mm lens on APS-C sensor with 2x anamorphic adapter looks like this :
Uncropped
clipboard2x.jpg

Cropped
http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/8458/aclipboard2.jpg
http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/6839/clipboard8s.jpg
http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/6632/ysschowek1.jpg
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/6793/ysschowek0.jpg

I prefere the look of 2x adapter AFTER crop (dont like it that much uncropped ,its too "tall" and too wide )but 1.33 is useful for wide shots ,its not THAT anamorphic cause its only 1.2-1.33 but it looks kinda ok on 24mmm and its not 2.4:1 , cause mine is not really 1.33 if you move glass to catch close focus on it(i disassembled 1.33 lens to get focus without stopping down f stops).
You can find cheap 2x lenses and they work OK with some 50mm lenses on APS-C sensors,You can focus quite close with them to infinity,with 1.33 adapter you cant focus close ,you must stop down your f stop on lens or disassemble it and move glass elements closer to each other.
AFAIK with iscorama you cant focus closer than 2 meters,thats odd.Because anamorphic looks great on closeups.
 
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bwwd, thanks a lot for that visual demonstration - those usually help out a ton amidst the terminology for noobs like me.

One thing I'd like to understand... so what gives that ultra wide look as you have shown in the second example is a combination of a lens like 50mm and ON? as well as a 2x adapter?

What if you used your 50mm with a 1.33 adapter, how would THAT look? can you demonstrate?

Also... so pretty much in order not to get that extreme wide look, you pretty much have to "crop" that image to your likings? How does that work. I mean I have my guesses but I'd rather keep them to myself before I get an answer.

Cause to me, it does not matter whether I get a widescreen look like in your first example OR the widescreen look you have in your second example AFTER cropping. As long as I don't get the ultra wide look, I'll be good.

I too prefer tho the after crop 2x adapter look however.
 
1.33 and 50mm
http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/9930/aschowek1.jpg

BUT , this is impossible to use because i had my anamorphic disassembled here ,you wont find focus if you wont bring front and rear anamorphic glass closer to each other ,you wont be able to focus with 50mm lens at all unless you will stop down and lose shallow DOF and i didnt wanted to do that, also you would need to move both anamorphic front glass back and forward (depends how far or how close you focus with 50mm lens) ,bcause both lenses have to be focused at the same point ! Anamorphic lens 1.33 is static lens,you would have to modify it to focus closer without stopping down lenses, even on 24mm without modifying anamorphic 1.33 you can focus only on infinity and you cant focus closer unless you stop down lens.
2x lens is moving lens(from projectors),you can focus with it and front glass moves closer to rear glass which is good BUT i couldnt focus with my lens on 100mm and more telephoto.

Second pic /example was 24mm and this anamorphic 1.33 lens, i wanted to have those bent sides thats why i bought 24mm for it,28mm could work too i guess but as i said you have to stop down or move front anamorphic glass closer.
this superwide on cemetery is 50mm and 2x anamorphic lens.All under it are also on 2x anamorphic and 50mm.

With cropping its quite odd because stretch is not even on anamprphics ,it stretches more if you are closer and if you are far then you are taller,so you have to cut sides a bit different on infinity and on close ups so you wont be fat on closeups and tall on infinity.So you have to guess yourself how much you want to stretch and crop.
With 2x cheap anamorphics you cant use wider than 50mm, with 1.33 you could use 20mm i think but edges would be soft ,you would have to stop down a bit.That is on APS-C sensor of 7D and 550D.
 
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Hey, if I get a Kowa 2x anamorphic lens... how do I get my films to have this ratio - http://vimeo.com/3507164 once again apologies if I sound redundant, it takes a while to soak in a lot of the technical aspects of anamorphic filmmaking.

Would I need to choose certain mm lens to get that? or would I need to crop?
 
digifruitella said:
Hey, if I get a Kowa 2x anamorphic lens... how do I get my films to have this ratio - http://vimeo.com/3507164
Would I need to choose certain mm lens to get that? or would I need to crop?
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This video appears to have a 2.35:1 ratio. This can be achieved using a 1.33x anamorphic lens and correctly adjusting the pixel aspect ratio in post.
A 2x anamorphic ratio will give you a much narrower vertical size (and a wider horizontal field of view) like this http://vimeo.com/8700480 (the video is from member rhervag). I think the ratio is 3.86:1
If you want to replicate a 2.35:1 ratio from a 2x anamorphic you would have to resize and crop your video loosing resolution, and part of your image (from the cropping).
Hence, if you aim at a 2.35:1 ratio maybe you are better off getting a 1.33x or 1.5x ratio anamorphic lens.
 
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question is what can u find, and how much will u pay.
there arent lots of them, its not like we have lot of choice, and add to that the very high price
 
This is nice. I actually like the barrel distortion on some of the wider shots but others would disagree. Nice exposure. I have an Opteka 16:9 anamorphic lens that is quite nice. 52mm mount. Using it with a Nikon lens (adapter to EOS). It'll cost you around $400 if you can find it. Got mine years ago. Works pretty good. I have found that shooting with anamorphics slows me down and that I have to stop down the lens considerably to get good focus. To me it is not a good run & gun option but GREAT if you have the patience. Provides a look you cannot beat.
 
nosys70 said:
but you are aware that shooting anamorphic 2.35 is pretty useless if you stay in video ? There is no support for such ratio and there is no way to display it.
The only reason you would go to anamorphic 2.35 would be if you translate to film or DPX
(and if you cannot spend more than 500$ on a lens , i doubt you plan for film transfer)
It should be way easier to shoot full HD and add the black bars, because at the end, that's what you will get.
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This is not quite correct. There is the Phillips "Cinema 21:9". 56 inch LCD Panel with a resolution of 2560x1080p.

Absolutely stunning job of displaying an aspect ratio: 2.39:1; a decent job of upscaling 16:9 :)

They were released in 2009, but the price here in Australia has just dropped by 40% to about 5K.
 
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