post-production with anamorphic lens

[catrhinehart]

im sure this has been covered but i cant find it...so here goes:

i am shooting a project for festival release with the dvx100a and anamorphic lens adapter. this is my first time with this lens and was wondering what settings in final cut pro4 hd i need to have in order to achieve the best picture for screen and export a picture close to the picture originally captured/intended on camera.

i have log and captured some footage in 24fps mode and the picture looks lower quality and i cant tell if it is stretching out right and when to actually do that.

sorry if this is a stupid question but like i said, this is my first time with this lens.
thanks for your time.

 

[khmuse]

I don't know the procedure for correcting the pixel aspect ratio in FCP, but in Premier Pro it is referred to as "conforming" the footage. For a 1.778 aspect ratio (16:9) with 720 x 480 pixel imager, the correct pixel aspect ratio is 1.2:1 (approximate). This multiplies out to an effective 864 x 480 or about 1.8 to 1 (853 x 480 being nearly perfect). You might want to do a search for either "conforming" or "pixel aspect ratio" in FCP's help file.

You also need to keep in mind that any anamorphic lens has different local points for the horizontal and vertical planes. The use of a focus chart (and a really good monitor) along with the use of the correct aperture is absolutely necessary to get good results with the adapter. Using a focus chart, open up the aperture, zoom all the way in and focus for both horizontal and vertical and then average the resultant indicated numbers from the 100a to get the "correct" focus point (actually the square root of the product is a better approach, but the difference between the average and mean will likely be insignificant). Then stop the lens down enough to assure that both focus points fall within the depth of field to assure good focus.

In the end, the anamorphic adapter can provide excellent results, but you must be aware of it’s (and all anamorphic lenses) characteristics.


Best of luck on your project,
Kevin Halverson