Pros/Cons of Anamorphic Adaptor vs Letterbox Matte

I still don't understand how on earth you are supposed to change the PAR. With the GH1, rather or not you have a wide angle adapter on the camera, the sensor is still going to output 1.00 pixel size. This doesn't make any sense to me.
 
tommygdawg said:
I still don't understand how on earth you are supposed to change the PAR. With the GH1, rather or not you have a wide angle adapter on the camera, the sensor is still going to output 1.00 pixel size. This doesn't make any sense to me.
Click to expand...

In your Premiere or FC you can set the PAR.
 
Right but your original pixel aspect is still 1.00. It's not like in HDV where the original PAR is 1.33.

Maybe I'm an idiot and just don't understand anything said here, but does the anamorphic adapter actually create a "squeezed" image unless you change the pixel aspect? So if you viewed it normally it would be like viewing HDV without stretching it out 1920x1080?
 
Oh, that's fantastic! The light bulb just came on! I'm brought back to my days of DV camcorders when I thought I was cool to flip on the 16:9 feature, then saw a squeezed image, and then was promptly confused haha.

So, the debate now is if there's a loss of quality by squeezing all that extra information into a 1080p stream? Perhaps using the GH13 hack would help tremendously with that, due to the higher bit rates.
 
That would be quite awesome. And theoretically it seems like it would be possible because the sensor is natively 4k resolution. But I'm sure there's a great technical reason why we couldn't get video at that res, probably due to limitations of the camera's encoding speed.
 
That's a great point. I never really thought out the numbers, I just saw that 1080 was bigger than 858 lol. Though changing frame size is apparently quite hard. But I wouldn't know, I aint the hacker!
 
need not only see numbers, but for video also applicate that's to your target/future environment
 
resolution

resolution

Real resolution is not only measured by pixels quantity, but the quality of each pixel. A real good anamorphic lens will give more horizontal resolution, a bad one will only "blur" your image, and all that "extra" resolution is lost by pixel degradation.

If I shoot using a very wide and good lens, than interpolate a 1920 to 2560, it will be a real 2560, but less sharp than the original 1920. The same if you will use an u$800 anamorphic adapter, maybe the interpolation method will give you even more real resolution, depends on which lens (and adapter) is being used, and of course NO VIGNETTING.

So, the equation is something like this:

1 - Very good anamorphic lens.
2 - Good and super wide lens + interpolation + cropping.
3 - Good lens + cheap anamorphic adapter.

1 - you shoot 35mm or similar ratio on digital with a 2x panavision anamorphic, bang bang, you got it.
2 - easier, cheaper and better results than 3.
3 - very cool, but practically inefficient, unless you dont care your image get blur only to get that cool flares :)

I'm not against the use of those affordable adapters, its very good to start with, and understand how it works. But practically speaking it just dont work.
 
Along the lines of shooting 2.35:1...

I sometimes use 2.35:1, or at least what I think is 2.35:1. I use a mask I made in Photoshop for large segments, or sometimes just a simple crop in Vegas with the pan/crop tool for individual clips.

Anyways, it's what I figure to be a mathematical 2.35:1 crop. But when I watch a Hollywood DVD that is marked "2.35:1" on my 16:9 TV, or even some old movies on broadcast movie channels, they look like they were shot WAY wider than 2.35:1....well over 3:1. Are they adding even more letterboxing when prepping these films for broadcast/DVD?

Take my Boondock Saints DVD. It is marked 2.35:1. Below is a picture of how it looks on my TV, and how a mathematical 2.35:1 frame looks in my editor. As you can see, the movie looks REALLY wide...but it doesn't look stretched. So I wonder if it has been matte'd by the studio? I'm not a real film-maker...I might be totally off here:





FWIW, I marked my GH1 LCD for 2.35:1 a while back (or at least what I think is 2.35:1) with a black marker...right on the clear screen protector (hopefully it didn't bleed through to the actual LCD...but that wouldn't be so bad if it did):


 
That's definitely stretched. I think you've just got used to it and therefore don't see it as streched anymore. :thumbsup:
 
Matthew P said:
That's definitely stretched. I think you've just got used to it and therefore don't see it as streched anymore. :thumbsup:
Click to expand...


I thought Willem Dafoe simply looked that way in all of his movies! :grin:

A lot of movies I see are like that...that wide even on my old 4:3 TV...whether on DVD or broadcast TV. REALLY wide...so I didn't know if they had a matte on them (which wouldn't make sense), of if that much stretch just wasn't that noticable to me.

I was wondering...since I really like that super WIDE look...but I don't wanna crop any further than 2.35:1...and I don't have the lenses for it to look right that wide.

I do, however, love shooting with the 7-14mm and cropping it to 2.35:1...except for the mud that lens seems to generate because of so much detail it picks up.
 
Are you compensating for the change in aspect ratio between tv and digital? Willem Defoe looks stretched horizontally (or squeezed vertically). My guess is that if you take an NTSC DVD and adjust the PAR to .9 (the difference between NTSC TV and Digital) then it will look normal as well as fill in the "template" you created properly. Some Hollywood movies actually are shot at 2.40:1 even though they are distributed under the 2.35:1 label.

Greg
 
If (and thats the real problem!) you can get a 1.5x anamorphic lens, you can shoot in 720p mode and stretch it in post to 1920x720 which gives you that nice cinematic ratio of 1:2.66 with 50p.

- you can make super smooth slowmotion shots (if 2x is not enough, software like Twixtor works really good with 50fps, compared to 25fps)
- you can use the full data rate on the 1280x720 pixels which gives you more details
- you can display the movie on normal HD displays

I'm looking for one of this 1.5x Isco lenses for some time now, but they are really rare and extremely expensive (by now they cost way more than at the time they where manufatured).

If you have a good(!) 1.33x lens you can use it as well and leave a very small black boarder on the left and right.


Cheers!

PS: If someone wants to sell a 1.5x Iscorama 54 ....let me know ;-)
 
tommygdawg said:
So, the debate now is if there's a loss of quality by squeezing all that extra information into a 1080p stream? Perhaps using the GH13 hack would help tremendously with that, due to the higher bit rates.
Click to expand...

The GH13 hack does help tremendously with this. I'm in production on a feature film now and we're using the Panny 7200 adapter and while the pre-hack stuff looked fantastic with anamorphics, the hack definitely improved detail.
 
Psyco said:
I'm looking for one of this 1.5x Isco lenses for some time now, but they are really rare and extremely expensive (by now they cost way more than at the time they where manufatured).

If you have a good(!) 1.33x lens you can use it as well and leave a very small black boarder on the left and right.


Cheers!

PS: If someone wants to sell a 1.5x Iscorama 54 ....let me know ;-)
Click to expand...

Iscorama lenses have become so expensive on the second hand market, it's hardly within reach of most indie shooters to acquire one.
I hope we will see HD 4:3 aspect ratio on the GH1 soon, so we can buy cheap 2x anamorphic lenses and shoot 2.66 aspect ratio. Should you become rich by doing that you can spend the money on a 21:9 tv :tongue:
 
Not that we don't have enough obscure lenses for m43, but it would be awesome if somone (definitely 3rd party) an anamorphic lens specifically for m43.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top