HVX + Anamorphic Adapter = 2.35:1

A

andy_starbuck

Well-known member
I was playing around and attached the Panasonic 16:9 anamorphic adapter to the HVX using an 82mm-72mm step-down ring. Loaded into FCP, labeled the HD 960x720 footage as anamorphic, and then duplicated and modified the DVCPRO HD 720p24 setup and clicked "anamorphic". Voila: 1692x720. 2.35:1

Here's a scaled down version at 752x320.
752x320.jpg


The following is full size with JPEG compression, 250k.
http://www.kymovie.com/areas/hvx_dvx/1692x720.jpg

Is anyone shooting the HVX with an anamorphic adapter?
If so... what's the application?

Andy
 
And the great thing is... you don't lose that "tupperware" lens cap feel.

BTW, I have the anamorphic lens for my DVX and I didn't even think of this, so Kudos to you. This was a true stroke of genius! Can I get a step-down ring anywhere?

Finally, how does the HVX feel on the Bogen 516?
 
Yes. Pretty much anywhere. B&H has them. I got mine from adapterrings.com.
http://www.adapterrings.com/

I like the HVX on the 516. The support underneath my HVX is a redrock rod support system. I've been playing with their 35mm adapter. And with the 18 inch rods, the M2 adapter, a 35mm lens, a focus knob, and an extra screen to flip the image, the whole thing starts to get pretty heavy. The 516 handles the load without a problem.
 
Andy,
That's the exact set-up I'll be using mine with. Thanks for the info.
BTW, do you have as much difficulty getting the anamorphic lens off as I do?
 
Well, I used to have a heck of a time getting the anamorphic on and off of the DVX.

Finally I realized that when the adjustment knob on the anamorphic is tightened, its just a 72mm screw mount inside, and it comes on and off like a filter.

I only loosen that knob when the anamoprhic is on the camera. Then the lens turns freely so that I can level it, and also I sometimes rotate the lens 90 degrees so that I can read the autofocus numbers for average focusing. Then I always tighten the knob back as a habit. If I forget to tighten the knob then I can be rotating the lens instead of unscrewing it, which is really frustrating.

I'm careful not to tighten the anamorphic too much on the HVX because I want the adapter ring to stay separate from it. So I make sure the adapter ring is pretty tight on the HVX and then screw the anamorphic on just enough to be secure.

The other thing I did was to put a black horizontal line on the inside of the white tupperware cap. There is a raised 16x9 frame inside there that is intended to be just visible through the viewfinder for leveling the lens. (That's why the cap is translucent instead of black). There are two problems with that. First, it's white and almost impossible to see through the viewfinder without a strong light. Second, if you had your anamorphic hood shaved down to enable it to be used with a matte box, the lens cap will fit too close to the lens, and you won't be able to see the framing marks when its on the lens like you are supposed to. So I just used a small ruler to put my own black frame about 1/4 inch inside of the white frame, and now I can see to level the lens.
 
Have you tried burning a DVD with this anamorphic set-up? I've been wondering how that would work and what setting one would use. Please keep us informed.
 
Awesome! It looks good.

Does your anamorphic lens have issues with focus through the
HVX's focal range?
The one I had for my Sony would only focus up to 75% of max focal length.
.. unusable at the tele end. It also induced a lot of barrel distortion at the wide end. It worked well, but the image did go a bit soft, and was only usable between 20% - 75% of max focal length. Also you do have to watch for vignetting.

Actually, I see vignetting in your image. Oddly it appears more present on the left side.



I like this idea.
It makes me wish I did not sell my dang Century 16:9!
 
Last edited:
i dont think you really could? the dof would reek havok on the anamoprhics quirky focusin system? wouldnt it?
 
I haven't tried output to DVD yet. I just did some test shots. I guess its going to look something like 16:9 with letterbox.

I have the M2. The Panasonic 16:9 anamorphic has a 72mm screw mount. I'm not sure how to attach it to a 35mm lens. I've read of 35mm anamorphic converters, but they are expensive and hard to find. In any case, I don't think it would work.

See, the anamorphic adapter focuses in two places. If you turn on autofocus with it level and watch the numbers, and then rotate the anamorphic 90 degrees and watch the numbers again you'll see this is true. So to really get things in focus you have to average between the two and then stop down the iris until the depth of focus covers both focus points. With the M2, you are trying to open the aperture (on the 35mm lens) as much as the exposure will allow to get a shallow depth of focus. Anamorphics imply stopping down the iris, 35mm adapters imply opening the iris; and I sort of doubt that there would be a happy medium between these two -- or if so, it would only work under very specific lighting conditions. (Or you start playing with the shutter speed for exposure control...?)

Because of the way the anamorphic focuses, I often look for strong horizontal composition in the shot with strong vertical lines in the background -- like a tall bookcase or columns far behind. And then rather than focusing properly, I will just use autofocus on the closer horizontal composition and allow the iris to open more, throwing the background out of focus. Under certain conditions (if the background is far enough away from the foreground) the blurred background looks a lot like shallow depth of field, which is the look I'd be going for with the M2 anyway.

With regard to vignetting, I'm sort of accustomed to the idea that whenever I put any kind of lens in front of a zoom lens I'm going to lose some of the zoom range, and its only going to look decent zoomed in some. I didn't play a lot with the zoom setting for the HVX+16:9. It probably needs to be zoomed in more. I'm not sure why it looks like I'm getting vignetting on one side. What occurs to me is that the front of the anamorphic was shaved down to accomodate a matte box, and maybe it wasn't shaved down equally on both sides.

With regard to the barrel distortion, I think that's just a characteristic of wide angle lenses, and the horizontal direction of the anamorphic is super-wide. I took wide angle shots with a .8x on my DVX and compared them with the same shot using the anamorphic and the distortion of vertical lines was actually pretty similar. I think its just more noticeable with the anamorphic because its so wide. A little extra zoom and careful framing to keep stong vertical lines away from the edges seems to help.

Oh, by the way, the wide angle lens from the DVX won't mount on the HVX with the 72mm-82mm adapter ring. The glass sticks out in the back of the lens too far and would run into the HVX lens. I guess an 82mm spacer tube might work. And the 1.6x Teleconverter from the DVX is 72mm bayonet mount so it won't work on the HVX.
 
Looks great. The question is, how much of the HD resolution are you keeping using a SD anamorphic lens? Depending on how much you are losing, it would be easier, faster and cleaner to just crop it in post to 2.35. That way you lose about 30% of resolution. Have you shot a test chart with the anamorphic lens to see how much you lose?
 
andy_starbuck said:
I haven't tried output to DVD yet. I just did some test shots. I guess its going to look something like 16:9 with letterbox.

....
Click to expand...

Probably won't work.

If the video on your timeline is actually shaped 2.35:1 it will play stretched in a 16X9 frame, just like it looked on your camera.

You have to either make a 16X9 time line and adjust the aspect and scale of the clip so that it rests in the 16X9 timeline with black voids (letterbox) on the top and bottom, or do it somehow in compressor (though I'm not sure how).

The DVD's of Gladiator or Lord of the Rings at blockbuster are made the same way. THere's no such thing as 2.35:1 shaped video. All of those are actually 16X9 shaped and letterboxed to 2.35:1

Your DVD player will interpret the fooftage by asking the footage
"Hi, are you 16X9/anamoprhic 4:3 or 4:3?"
and your video will say
"Neither, I'm 2.35:1/anamorphic 16X9"
and the DVD player will say
"huh?"

What it says after that is a guess ... but according to Barry Green, who's told people countless times not to shoot squeeze mode + anamoprhic on a DVX which also yeilds 2.35:1, because video like this won't display properly on any TV and you don't gain any resolution vs. just shooting 16X9 with the anamorphic.

While you do gain resolution here, there's still no monitor that it will display correctly on and if your DVD player can make since of it it will play streched with no black bars on a 16X9 television and strecthed with black bars on a 4:3 television.

But I say burn a disc anyway like you have it because it will be cool to see what happens.
 
those are good points jack. i mean what is the value in using anamorphic if you have to squash the images vertically in post anyway in order to be able to display it correctly on a television and so therefore lose all those vertical resolution anyway?

seems better to spend money on something like a wide angle adapter. if you want 2:35 look then just crop the image to that or what aspect you wish to achieve for that matter.

it would be interesting to see a comparison of using an anamorphic compared to just cropping though? has anyone got any examples of that?
 
Jack_Felis said:
There's gotta be some way to put a 2:35:1 DVD out. Any ideas on Bluray or HD-DVD possibilities?
Click to expand...
it's not an issue of resolution or file size
HD is shaped 16X9 pr 4:3 too.
and the problem isn't outputting or making one.
the problem is that there is no DVD player that will play it.
You would have just invented a pigeon language that no hardware on the planet speaks

DV is one shape only in the US and one shape only in PAL countries.
720X480 in NTSC and whatever it is in PAL
16X9 video is 720 X 480
4:3 video is 720 X 480
the difference is the pixel aspect.

DVD players will interpret a .9 pixel aspect and make your 4:3 play properly on 16X9 or 4:3 monitor or DVD players will interpret a 1.2 pixel aspect and make your footage play properly on either a 4:3 monitor or a 16X9.

DVD players would have to know and understand a third pixel aspect that is just not part of the format in order to play full rezz 2.35:1 ... besides the only thing you could ever do anyway would be to play it with letterbox in a 16X9 frame (just like every 2.35:1 movie at blockbuster) because ... there are no 2.35:1 shaped TV's ... which is a bigger problem than a firmware hack to get the DVD player to recognize it correctly obviously -- you'd have to build your own TV.

.....

So if you shot video like this there's a reason there's only one way to output it, and that's letterboxed in either a 4:3 or 16X9 frame because that's the only kind of TV's that exist and that's the only languages DVD players speak. You would get to work with the extra resolution in post but you could not output it and have it display properly.

You could play it on the web where the resolution won't matter or maybe you could project it if you had the right kind of adaptor to go on the lens of the DV projector ... but this would be impractical also because if you are doing that for a festival release then you are taking a huge risk of your picture showing in the wrong aspect because who knows if the projectionist would have that adaptor for a DV projector when you would be the only one on the planet doing it like that.

It's a cool thing and if you were going to have your own screening and had the adaptor for the projector, then yeah sure why not, but other wise ...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top