Anamorphic lenses

[01maciel]

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Anamorphic lenses are not only suitable for video. They can also be used for normal still photography. Depending on the squeeze factor, the photos must then be de-squeezed in post-processing. I will post some photos with my new acquisition, a brand new Sirui 35mm T2.9 Anamorphic FF 1.6X, here in loose order. 
This is an open thread so you are welcome to post your photos - it is not a thread for an intensive discussion on the sense or nonsense of anamorphic lenses 🙂

S1R + Sirui 35mm T2.9 Anamorphic FF 1.6X - one of my first shotswith typical flares for this type of lenses, here in blue

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[01maciel]

S1R + Sirui 35mm T2.9 Anamorphic FF 1.6X

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[01maciel]

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[Olaf_ZG]

Dumb question: with such lenses one basically can transform the sl into an xpan? What does one see in the evf?

always loved the xpan …

[01maciel]

vor 1 Stunde schrieb Olaf_ZG:

Dumb question: with such lenses one basically can transform the sl into an xpan? What does one see in the evf?

always loved the xpan …

I have never used an xpan so I have no idea, sorry for that. The EVf shows only the squeezed live scenery and photo. There are some tools out there in order to view the de-squeezed world. It could be an external 5" monitor or an adaptor for a ordinary smartphone mounted on the hot shoe. I guess it is useful for filming which would actually be the primary use of anamorphic lenses.

 

[01maciel]

Another one from today, early in the morning, postprocessed with LUT W-8370-STD.3dl emulating a filmic view. Click to view properly.

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[JMF]

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Nice results !

I did play with a Sankor 16C 2x anamorphic lens attached to a 80mm R Summilux on a SL 601 :

Cropped shot:

 

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Uncropped :

 

 

Best

JM

[JMF]

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2x Sankor 16C - 80 Summilux  - SL 691

[01maciel]

vor 10 Stunden schrieb JMF:

I did play with a Sankor 16C 2x anamorphic lens attached to a 80mm R Summilux on a SL 601 :

Very interesting. Does the Sankor comes with a clamping kit to mount it to 80mm lens or is it a simple filter screw? Anyway the bokeh looks fantastic and Summilux-like

Edited April 16, 2023 by 01maciel

[Simone_DF]

17 hours ago, Olaf_ZG said:

Dumb question: with such lenses one basically can transform the sl into an xpan? What does one see in the evf?

always loved the xpan …

That's the closest thing you'll get to an Xpan format ratio. In the EVF and back screen you'll see the squeezed image. It looks weird, but it's not a big deal. Once at home, you have to de-squeeze the image before importing it into Lightroom (or your post processing platform of choice), it takes only a few seconds. 

If you don't want to invest in a anamorphic lens, there are also third party adapters that cover full frame. Great Joy (they are in the process of changing their terrible name to a more western-friendly Blazar) makes a budget friendly version with a 67mm filter thread, which means you can mount it on a Summicron Apo and retain autofocus. The reviews and samples on the web are good.

https://greatjoylens.com/1-35x-anamorphic-adapter/

[JMF]

1 hour ago, 01maciel said:

Very interesting. Does the Sankor comes with a clamping kit to mount it to 80mm lens or is it a simple filter screw? Anyway the bokeh looks fantastic and Summilux-like

Thanks.

No, I had to order a clamping kit from a company in Canada !

I then gave up playing with this set up as it was too bulky and fiddly .

Your Siriu lens is more compact and only one lens to focus at a time I presume  .

Years ago , we were filming Super8 and 16mm cine anamorphic movies with the 2x Hypergonar Chretien , or 35mm cinema with russian cameras using square and round front 2x anamorphic Lomo lenses fitted on prime lenses 🌞😀 

Edited April 16, 2023 by JMF

[01maciel]

vor einer Stunde schrieb Al Brown:

I have yet to meet a photographer who uses these for other than fun

Agreed it's a lot fun.

vor einer Stunde schrieb Al Brown:

you have to lose about 50% or more real estate from the sensor to de-squeeze the image in post

I understood the procedure differently. My Sirui full-frame lens uses the entire sensor of the S1R and optically squeezes the image in horizontally way. This is called the open gate method. As far as I can tell, you don't lose a single pixel in the process.

A fantastastic introduction into the anamorphic world can be found here:

 

Edited April 16, 2023 by 01maciel

[01maciel]

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[catacore]

I got quite interested in those anamorphic lenses after seeing your thread. I was doing some "web research" since then, but still left with some question marks.

@01maciel how do you proceed with your (horizontally) squeezed image? Are you de-squeeze on the horizontal axis, or are you squeezing the vertical axis to meet the aspect ratio? If the former, then do you observe any image degradation?

As far as I understood, apart from those couple of "features" gained when using the anamorphic lenses, which have been mentioned above (the (blue) flare - which can be overhelming at some point - and the oval shaped bokeh), there is another consideration: the resulting image has a different perspective than the one given by the FL of the lens used. And this is exactly the opposite of what I was used to when I was using m43 system. For the m43 system, when using (say) a 25mm lens, I got a 50mm FOV with a 25mm lens perspective. In our anamorphic case, they say it's the opposite: one gets the 35mm perspective (when using a 35mm lens) with a 35:(squeeze factor) field-of-view (e.g. a 35mm perspective with a 35/1.66=21mm FOV). So this can't, actually, be achieved by simply cropping a 35mm image from 3:2 aspect ratio to 2.49:1 aspect ratio.

All-in-all, this seems to be another way in getting away from the "perfect lens" which more and more photographers seem to look into avoiding these days.

[01maciel]

vor 35 Minuten schrieb catacore:

how do you proceed with your (horizontally) squeezed image? Are you de-squeeze on the horizontal axis, or are you squeezing the vertical axis to meet the aspect ratio? If the former, then do you observe any image degradation?

Hi catacore, thanks for following up this thread. I shoot raw files and the de-squeezing is simply an aspect adjustment in postprocessing as shown in the screenshot, red square.

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After the de-squeezing you'll get a 1.6:1 format or 16:10 since the lens has a 1.6X squeeze factor.

My Panasonic S1R uses the entire full frame sensor, horizontal and vertical. This is - apart from many other optical things - the main difference to shoot just with asperical lenses and a crop afterwards to 16:10 format. But I am not an expert, some forum members can probably explain it much better than I do, e.g. @Al Brown - he seems to be experienced with anamorphic lenses.

vor 54 Minuten schrieb catacore:

All-in-all, this seems to be another way in getting away from the "perfect lens" which more and more photographers seem to look into avoiding these days.

Agreed, anamorphic lenses are far away from being perfect. In particular a "budget" lense like the Sirui 35mm T2.9 1.6X

What camera to you use?

[catacore]

I've seen your image with the Sirui 35mm anamorphic lens, it seems to be the "Venus" version (82mm filter thread). I saw also a "carbon" version called Saturn, which is smaller and lighter while still covering the full frame: https://store.sirui.com/collections/full-frame/products/sirui-saturn-35mm-full-frame-carbon-fiber-anamorphic-lens

 

Well, I have an Sony A7c, and my thinking was that, with a 1.6x factor, I will get images like this:

- if shooting in 3:2 image ratio on my A7C , then I will get 1.6*3 : 2 image ratio, so an 2.4:1 ratio (the whole sensor will be used, but the longer side will be stretched/interpolated from 6000px to 1.6*6000=9600px).

- if shooting in 16:9 image ratio on my A7C (this means already cropping off the original ratio), then I will get 1.6*16 : 9 image ratio, so an 2.84:1 ratio (initially, the sensor area will be cropped to 16:9 ratio, then the resulting longer side will be stretched/interpolated same as above).

Maybe for your S1R camera some in-camera processing is involved since, as you said, the whole sensor is used, so probably the AI/camera is doing some "magic" for the final image, but still, some pixels need to be either discarded, or interpolated/added to change the final image aspect ratio with respect to the initial image ratio.

[BernardC]

2 hours ago, catacore said:

there is another consideration: the resulting image has a different perspective than the one given by the FL of the lens used. And this is exactly the opposite of what I was used to when I was using m43 system. For the m43 system, when using (say) a 25mm lens, I got a 50mm FOV with a 25mm lens perspective. In our anamorphic case, they say it's the opposite: one gets the 35mm perspective (when using a 35mm lens) with a 35:(squeeze factor) field-of-view (e.g. a 35mm perspective with a 35/1.66=21mm FOV). So this can't, actually, be achieved by simply cropping a 35mm image from 3:2 aspect ratio to 2.49:1 aspect ratio.

The other way to calculate this (which yields the same result) is that an anamorphic lens will keep the original field of view vertically, but it behaves like a wider lens horizontally.

So, a 35mm with a 1.66 anamorphic attachment is a 35mm vertically and a a 21mm horizontally.

A "perfect" anamorphic 35mm would behave like a 21mm lens cropped to 2.49:1, but anamorphics aren't perfect.

1 hour ago, catacore said:

if shooting in 3:2 image ratio on my A7C , then I will get 1.6*3 : 2 image ratio, so an 2.4:1 ratio (the whole sensor will be used, but the longer side will be stretched/interpolated from 6000px to 1.6*6000=9600px).

Technically, there's no interpolation going-on in your processing software. The pixels are just "not square". You only get interpolation when you output the image to a format that has square pixels (display, print, or file). We typically only deal with square-pixel files these days, but non-square-pixel files weren't unusual in legacy video formats. For instance, a "wide screen" DVD has the same number of pixels as a "4:3" DVD, but an analogue widescreen TV would know to display each horizontal line for longer in order to fit the whole screen. Conversely, a "4:3" DVD shown on a widescreen tube would display the lines over the central portion of the screen only (leaving the right and left edges blank). There were a number of ways to get this wrong, of course.

[musers]

2 hours ago, 01maciel said:

Hi catacore, thanks for following up this thread. I shoot raw files and the de-squeezing is simply an aspect adjustment in postprocessing as shown in the screenshot, red square.

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Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

After the de-squeezing you'll get a 1.6:1 format or 16:10 since the lens has a 1.6X squeeze factor.

My Panasonic S1R uses the entire full frame sensor, horizontal and vertical. This is - apart from many other optical things - the main difference to shoot just with asperical lenses and a crop afterwards to 16:10 format. But I am not an expert, some forum members can probably explain it much better than I do, e.g. @Al Brown - he seems to be experienced with anamorphic lenses.

Agreed, anamorphic lenses are far away from being perfect. In particular a "budget" lense like the Sirui 35mm T2.9 1.6X

What camera to you use?

What app is that? LR will not let me do a proper aspect de-squeeze.

I do this type of shooting with my xpro3 and Siriu lenses too.

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[catacore]

58 minutes ago, musers said:

What app is that? LR will not let me do a proper aspect de-squeeze.

I do this type of shooting with my xpro3 and Siriu lenses too.

For LR there is some example here (from 04:22)

 

 

[musers]

51 minutes ago, catacore said:

For LR there is some example here (from 04:22)

 

 

Ya like I said LR doesn't desqueeze properly. You have to take into photoshop.