I just finished shooting for 5 days with a rented Panasonic 16x9 anamorphic adapter and I have a few first impressions.
In all fairness, I didn't have a chance to test the adapter before we started shooting. The adapter landed in my hands about 2 hours before we started to shoot the first scene, and I just had to go with the information I had gathered here and elsewhere from other people's experiences.
The PROS:
- Wider FOV helps in small spaces.
- True 16x9 uses all available lines - helps with resolution.
The CONS:
- I didn't like the visual line-up scheme with the white lens cover - the square seemed to favour the right side of the frame.
- Practical usefullness seemed to be limited to the 6-30mm range of the zoom lens. (Wider FL renders optical distortion, and I was unable to focus sharply on longer FL at various distances)
- The longer minimum focus distance combined with the inability to focus properly on a long-lens limited my use of extreme close-ups.
- The small lens cover tended to allow many more flares in than my grips were used to - you should have seen the flags all over the place!
- The DOF at different focal lengths varied wildly. I didn't have time to write down distance/focus setting/zoom setting for my setups, but sometimes everything would be in focus on a med focal length, and then my DOF would go down to practically nothing on a slightly different focal length. I found this to be very weird, and I would like to rent it again someday and track DOF, min Focus, focal length into a chart.
I was annoyed that I couldn't fit my 4x4 Petroff matte box on, but I was able to tape a 4x4 1/4 Pro-mist to the front of the 16x9 lens cover on Day 1. If the corners of the filter could have been shaved off by 1/2mm each, it may have squeezed right in there.
On our first night shooting exteriors it rained and I was having problems keeping the adapter clean and fog-free. The next day I removed the back filter stage from my matte box so that it would butt up against the adapter and then I used camera tape to seal the edges. I shot with full bellows extended the next two days and managed to keep the rain and fog off of the glass.
We did still manage to shoot alot of great stuff, and the director was happy so I guess it was still a positive experience in the end.
I'll post some stills after I digitize them.
Tim
In all fairness, I didn't have a chance to test the adapter before we started shooting. The adapter landed in my hands about 2 hours before we started to shoot the first scene, and I just had to go with the information I had gathered here and elsewhere from other people's experiences.
The PROS:
- Wider FOV helps in small spaces.
- True 16x9 uses all available lines - helps with resolution.
The CONS:
- I didn't like the visual line-up scheme with the white lens cover - the square seemed to favour the right side of the frame.
- Practical usefullness seemed to be limited to the 6-30mm range of the zoom lens. (Wider FL renders optical distortion, and I was unable to focus sharply on longer FL at various distances)
- The longer minimum focus distance combined with the inability to focus properly on a long-lens limited my use of extreme close-ups.
- The small lens cover tended to allow many more flares in than my grips were used to - you should have seen the flags all over the place!
- The DOF at different focal lengths varied wildly. I didn't have time to write down distance/focus setting/zoom setting for my setups, but sometimes everything would be in focus on a med focal length, and then my DOF would go down to practically nothing on a slightly different focal length. I found this to be very weird, and I would like to rent it again someday and track DOF, min Focus, focal length into a chart.
I was annoyed that I couldn't fit my 4x4 Petroff matte box on, but I was able to tape a 4x4 1/4 Pro-mist to the front of the 16x9 lens cover on Day 1. If the corners of the filter could have been shaved off by 1/2mm each, it may have squeezed right in there.
On our first night shooting exteriors it rained and I was having problems keeping the adapter clean and fog-free. The next day I removed the back filter stage from my matte box so that it would butt up against the adapter and then I used camera tape to seal the edges. I shot with full bellows extended the next two days and managed to keep the rain and fog off of the glass.
We did still manage to shoot alot of great stuff, and the director was happy so I guess it was still a positive experience in the end.
I'll post some stills after I digitize them.
Tim