Lomo Anamorphics + AF100

D

drgarciafilms

Member
Here is a video shot with my Lomo Square Front 50mm / 80mm Anamorphic lenses on the AF100. Filmed by my good friend Brandon Moore and myself on our way to Las Vegas for NAB last month and a little night footage out on the strip. Just wanted to share since I see a lot of people inquiring about these lenses and wanting to see some test footage.

www.vimeo.com/42929848

Still looking for a 35mm to complete my set :)

enjoy.

Danny Garcia
 
Looks cool. I'd love to see it projected. I'm going to shoot a music video out in Joshua tree/Wonder Valley in a month or two and was really thinking about using Lomos...
 
The desert scenes were great in that aspect ratio. It didn't work so great in the city scenes except for the closeups. Thanks for posting, a lot of people seem to be buying anamorphics yet there is still very little information out there and it often seems like no one is actually using them. It would definitely look better projected where you would have to turn your head to take it all in. What was the vertical resolution on vimeo? I'm assuming my monitor was further compressing it.
 
An individual eye sees about a 4:3 frame. Two eyes together is more like 2.39:1. 3.56:1 is much wider than we would normally perceive.
 
I have "four eyes" so that must be why I love the dang effect! Very interesting and perfect for desert and prairie landscapes
 
Barry_Green said:
An individual eye sees about a 4:3 frame. Two eyes together is more like 2.39:1. 3.56:1 is much wider than we would normally perceive.
Click to expand...

Ha! I wonder if some people have wide eyes.
Out of curiosity, I also wonder how that's calculated. I've been sitting here trying to find my perceptual limits with my fingers R-L and up down. (I'm sure if I had a peeping tom it would be quite amusing.) I can't figure out where to stop.

I've heard and read a bunch of times that Hitchcock primarily used a 50mm lens on a 35mm camera because that is the closest to human field of vision. I'm still not totally sure what that means, but I've always taken it as gestalt.
 
Might be something to most of that... "wider" eyes and the whole 50/35 preference thing. 50mm always feels a touch close and claustrophobic, I generally prefer that 35-40mm look as "normal." Growing up and learning to hunt, part of the adaptation was to "decentralize" your vision, and develop a good sense of space and movement in the periphery. Hadn't considered a possible relation until now.
 
50mm on a 35mm stills camera doesn't come anywhere near replicating or approximating what the eye sees, in terms of field of view. Not even close. But it does approximate the magnification factor and the perspective of what our eyes see.
 
This was my first time working with Anamorphics. As a filmmaker, I have found it important to experiment with new mediums i.e. anamorphic lenses and different aspect ratios even if they are unconventional or "funky". I would agree that 3.56:1 would be a less resourceful ratio given a different environment, however who can argue with seeing these desert landscapes like this!

Also, since there seems to be an abundant number of 2x Anamorphic lenses on the market, what is the solution for today's common 16:9 camera sensor? I'm surely not trying to drop 2-4K on an Iscorama 1.5x! And yes, I want ALL of my resolution; no post cropping for me.
 
Brandon Moore said:
Also, since there seems to be an abundant number of 2x Anamorphic lenses on the market, what is the solution for today's common 16:9 camera sensor?
Click to expand...
There is no readily available good solution. What is needed is 1.33x anamorphics, and -- pretty much nobody makes 'em. There's a set by Hawk, but they're extremely rare.

If the choice was 2x anamorphics and cropping to 2.39, or shooting spherical and cropping to 2.39, you'll actually get more resolution by shooting normal than by shooting anamorphic. Anamorphic results in a squished 3.56:1 image, and to unsquish that to proper 2.39, you have to chop off the sides, cropping your image to 1280x1080, then stretch it to 2560x1080. That gives you your basic anamorphic image, but how do you distribute it? If you're going to film or uprezzing to 4k for digital 4K distribution, okay, but when you go to blu-ray you're going to have to crop down to 1920x803 for distribution (and add black bars to get it to 1920x1080). So why not just shoot 1920x1080, letterbox it, and be done? At least that way you'd have a true 1920 horizontal resolution, instead of an uprezzed 1280...

(and yes, I know you wouldn't get the flares, that's a different situation and if you want the flares or anamorphic stretched bokeh you'll have to shoot anamorphic and just live with the notion that you're going to have a lot lower-res picture).
 
Barry_Green said:
There is no readily available good solution. What is needed is 1.33x anamorphics, and -- pretty much nobody makes 'em. There's a set by Hawk, but they're extremely rare.

If the choice was 2x anamorphics and cropping to 2.39, or shooting spherical and cropping to 2.39, you'll actually get more resolution by shooting normal than by shooting anamorphic. Anamorphic results in a squished 3.56:1 image, and to unsquish that to proper 2.39, you have to chop off the sides, cropping your image to 1280x1080, then stretch it to 2560x1080. That gives you your basic anamorphic image, but how do you distribute it? If you're going to film or uprezzing to 4k for digital 4K distribution, okay, but when you go to blu-ray you're going to have to crop down to 1920x803 for distribution (and add black bars to get it to 1920x1080). So why not just shoot 1920x1080, letterbox it, and be done? At least that way you'd have a true 1920 horizontal resolution, instead of an uprezzed 1280...

(and yes, I know you wouldn't get the flares, that's a different situation and if you want the flares or anamorphic stretched bokeh you'll have to shoot anamorphic and just live with the notion that you're going to have a lot lower-res picture).
Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing all this technical info Barry!

Say if and when I move on to shooting on RED or ALEXA, would I be able to utilize these 2x Lomo Anamorphics and retain all of my resolution after unsqueezing the image? I guess it all depends on the size of the sensor, right? Also, are 16:9 and 2:39 the only acceptable aspect ratios for film festivals?

Thanks in advance.
 
The Red provides for an anamorphic shooting situation with 2x anamorphics, but I believe it involves a substantial crop off the left and right sides of the sensor, so -- no, it's basically the same situation.

For the Alexa, it depends on which Alexa you're talking about. The Alexa works just like the Red or any other 16:9 sensor camera, which is that you have to crop the 1.78:1 image down to 1.2:1, and then upres that in post. But the Alexa M and Alexa Studio have a 4:3 mode that gives you a lot more sensor area vertically (2582x2160 instead of 1936x1620 for the regular Alexa) so that works out much better for anamorphic.

As for festival distribution, it depends on how they're projecting. If you're supplying a film print, then you send 'em either 1.85 or 2.39. If you're supplying a digital cinema projection file, then anything that's DCP-compliant is appropriate. But most festivals and most screenings are going to take place from some HD video source, so what you really send them is a 16:9 video HD file, and you can letterbox that to whatever aspect ratio you want.
 
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