GH4 First look at 24p anamorphic & V-Log on GH4

[Batutta]

New short film shot using anamorphic and beta V-Log L

A lot of banding in those skies, but could be the youtube compression. The best anamorphic footage I've seen so far, but still too soft for my taste, and this is using Cooke optics. I still think I'd shoot normally and just crop for 2.39.

 

[Jaime Valles]

New short film shot using anamorphic and beta V-Log L

Very nice, though the last shot with the guy looking over his shoulder was full of noise in the dark areas. Quite distracting. But overall, I thought it looked quite filmic, and had pleasing colors and highlight rolloff.

On a personal note, does every film made now have to have every single shot be a moving shot? That short lasted 3 minutes, and there wasn't a single shot where the camera just stays still. Not one. They were all slider/dolly or crane or pan/tilt or zoom. It's maddening! Give me a moment to breathe, and use the camera move to emphasize the important moment!

Anyway, rant over. The footage looks lovely!

 

[TheDingo]

The best anamorphic footage I've seen so far, but still too soft for my taste, and this is using Cooke optics.

The wide shots looked quite soft, but the medium and close-up shots looked quite sharp to my eye. I have no idea if this is the lens or simply a focusing error.

 

[-griffy-]

New short film shot using anamorphic and beta V-Log L

Forgive my ignorance on shooting anamorphic on these cameras, but this video, along with several other anamorphic ones I've watched, show a definite skew in several of the shots. This one several of the shots show the whole image slanting to the right. What's going on here? Do they just have their anamorphic lens/adapter on slightly crooked, or did they not desqueeze in the proper ratio? It's very distracting to me.

 

[refocusedmedia]

I noticed the slant-right in a few shots as well. I have to imagine it's an adapter or lens or balance issue, as a recording mode would simply capture what is sent to the sensor.

 

[-griffy-]

I noticed the slant-right in a few shots as well. I have to imagine it's an adapter or lens or balance issue, as a recording mode would simply capture what is sent to the sensor.

I was reading that with some anamorphat adapters on some lenses, what happens is if you change focal lengths/focus it actually changes the FOV and therefore the squeeze of the image, so it may not be 2x all the time? So if you just do a 2x desqueeze for all your footage some of them may not end up 100% correct. I wonder if that's an explanation?

 

[KINOKS]

But isn't the v-log profile pretty noisy in the shadows as well?

LOG is always noisier than a REC709 curve. This is because it pushes middle grey even further down (towards the noise flor). And cameras that have lots of stops alocated belov middle grey (GH4 for instance) are there for even more noisy in log.

 

[refocusedmedia]

I was reading that with some anamorphat adapters on some lenses, what happens is if you change focal lengths/focus it actually changes the FOV and therefore the squeeze of the image, so it may not be 2x all the time? So if you just do a 2x desqueeze for all your footage some of them may not end up 100% correct. I wonder if that's an explanation?

Squeeze and desqueeze shouldn't introduce slant or skew into the image though. should it? It's a linear stretching process, not a shift in vertical geometry.

 

[Bern Caughey]

I had a Letus35 PL adapter for the AF100 that worked fine with spherical lenses but was slightly misaligned & skewed anamorphics.

 

[stoneinapond]

...this video, along with several other anamorphic ones I've watched, show a definite skew in several of the shots.

I haven't had a great deal of experience with actual anamorphic lenses (in fact none, having used only adapters). But from my adapter experience and watching movies leads me to this. All but the most expensive anamorphic glass has some linear distortion that become more pronounced the further out to the edges one goes. It's a bit like a wide angle lens. This gets further amplified if the object in question that we think should be vertical, is in fact leaning in the first place. I've also noticed that the angle at which scenes are shot can also be critical in amplifying or reducing this effect. Focal length is also a factor.

Since the video in question was using Cooke glass and not an adapter, I think what you are seeing is the results of the above. But as an aside, if an adapter is being used and is not properly aligned, you will get a similar effect although there all the vertical lines will be skewered.

 

[Simon Shasha]

The is a reason Roger Deakins doesn't shoot anamorphic, has never shot, nor plans to ever shoot, anamorphic - lens distortion. He can't stand it.

Anamorphic will get you a higher-resolution, greater depth-of-field in wide-angles, the trademark flares, and so on, but the trade off's, like lens distortion, really need to be taken into account by those that want to shoot anamorphic.

As for this video. Looks great. That speckled redish noise it the shadows and dark-areas was terrible though. Other than that, was awesome.

 

[wwjd]

that's what is funny to me: MOST of the stuff desired from anamorphic (and film for that matter) are failures caused by the older technology: grain, lens distortion, "FLARES"....oval bokeh over round? why does THAT matter?

Never heard of a lens flare supporting the story....
"WHY.... BACK IN MY DAY, LENS FLARES WERE SOMETHING BAD THAT GOOD PHOTOGRAPHERS WORKED HARD TO AVOID!! ....AND GET OFF MY LAWN!"

 

[thorn]

And if it's really those Bladerunner / JJ Abrams flares you're after, just add them in post. Certainly more control over them if they're composited.

 

[Zak Forsman]

I'm not crazy about the flares, but i do love the unique bokeh and distortions of anamorphic cinematography. and i love the combo of compressed space associated with longer focal lengths and the wider field of view from the anamorphic component that you can't get from matted spherical. roger deakins be damned!

 

[Batutta]

I love anamorphic when it's done well. I never notice lens distortion in those classic 70's-80's anamorphic films I grew up on. Must be hard to do well.

 

[Zak Forsman]

it's basically just regular barrel distortion that takes on a unique quality from the 2x squeeze, meaning the distortion is twice as aggressive horizontally as it is vertically.

 

[Batutta]

Yeah, I've noticed that in Wes's movies. Grand Budapest had some pretty extreme distortion. Works for him I guess.

 

[Illya Friedman]

The is a reason Roger Deakins doesn't shoot anamorphic, has never shot, nor plans to ever shoot, anamorphic - lens distortion. He can't stand it.

This seems an odd thing to attribute to Deakins. I may have read every interview the guy has ever given in the English language and have never heard 'distortion' sighted as the reason for his preference for going spherical. Like many DPs, Roger prefers more DoF, rather than less. If that is your preference as well anamorphic makes your job more difficult. In a 2011 interview Roger says the following:

"I like the immediacy of spherical lenses, cause I like being close to the subject. I like the feeling of the background staying more present and more sharp. And with anamorphic it tends to push the backgrounds away and put them out of focus."

In the same interview Deakins also says he was going to shoot anamorphic for what maybe the most tragic Coen Brothers movie to never make it to production, and very regretful that he didn't get to shoot that movie:

"The Coen Brothers were going to do a film “To the White Sea,” which is one of the greatest regrets I have that the film never happened. It was a wonderful project. And that film we intended to shoot anamorphic, but it was interesting I wanted to create… the film was set in Japan during the Second World War – about this gunner from a bomber which was shot down in Japan, and it was about his escape across Japan. And we wanted to do it – I suppose – in a sort of painterly way, and we were thinking of using anamorphic just for the scope of it, but also to create flat images also. But the film never happened, so I never got to do it."

Every top level DP I know chooses what's right for the project, and does not prescribe to the dogma of 'I can never do ____' because of an imaging artifact. It's no secret that Super35 films generally have noticeably more noise than anamorphic films, the noise artifacts become more prevalent during re-sizing on the frame. This is not subtle, easy to reproduce and particularly easy to see with large screen projection should anyone want to do the test.


This is a long debated topic among cinematographers, and for ever 1 who comes down on the side of Super35, I can probably find 4 or 5 who prefer anamorphic. Here's a quote from John Toll on the comparison between Super35 and Anamorphic in regards to the movie The Last Samurai (shot anamorphic):

As much as I love the look of anamorphic, it's always been a temptation to shoot the widescreen format with spherical lenses because of depth-of-field issues and the variety of lenses available. Also, we were planning a certain amount of visual-effects work, and Jeff Okun said that although he could work in either format, shooting in Super 35 would simplify his work. We took the anamorphic/Super 35 comparisons all the way through answer-print and release-print stages, and in the end, I essentially confirmed to myself that I do, in fact, like the look of anamorphic more than that of Super 35.

 

[wwjd]

fyi, you guys can get that barrel distortion (kinda fisheye, but not) from a $20 adapter

note pic in upper and lower left. works on wider shots too - just didn't really have any in this one

 

[Zak Forsman]

not quite the same. this actually gets you closer to faking it... http://vashivisuals.com/vashimorphic40-free-anamorphic-effects-project/