Anamorphic Lens

[Nintembo]

I am about to shoot a short DV film (Probably on DSR 500) And I wanted to shoot footage with an anamorphic lens (To have wider shots) But I was woried if I were to do this, would I get a compressed image on a normal TV (4:3) or would it be letterboxed?

Cheers,

Nintembo

P.S. I heard to DSR 500 has a built in 16:9 feature - is this recomended (and could I just use a normal lens?)

[Alan Roberts]

If your only reason is to have wider shots, why not use a wide angle adaptor? It'll be cheaper (lots) and give better contrast and abberrations than any anamorph.

An anamorphic lens will take a 16:9 image of the real world and put it on your 4:3 ccd(s), so it'll occupy all the raster, and people will look tall and thin unless you output to a 16:9 display, when they'll look right.

[Nintembo]

Originally posted by Alan Roberts:
If your only reason is to have wider shots, why not use a wide angle adaptor? It'll be cheaper (lots) and give better contrast and abberrations than any anamorph.

An anamorphic lens will take a 16:9 image of the real world and put it on your 4:3 ccd(s), so it'll occupy all the raster, and people will look tall and thin unless you output to a 16:9 display, when they'll look right. Hi Al,

Could you please explain what a wide angle adaptor is.

Cheers,

Nin

[jimbib]

Nintembo,

When you say 'shoot footage' with an anamorphic lens, I presume you mean all of it? I mean, you wouldn't want some of your project in 16:9 and some in 4:3 would you? If however you do mean 'wider shots' then like Alan said, a wide-angle lens is what you need, and using this you needn't worry about aspect ratio/letterboxing as they are completely irrelevant. Also, if you do intend to shoot it in widescreen, use the camera's 'in-built' 16:9, as a proper anamorphic lens will set you back waaaay more than you would like to think.

[tom hardwick]

A wide-angle converter does exactly what it says on the box; it converts your normal zoom lens into a wide-angle zoom lens. So if you have a 10x zoom that goes from 6 to 60mm (say) and you add a 0.5x converter, you'll now have a zoom that goes from 3 to 30mm. It'll ''see'' a lot wider, but you'll lose a lot of telephoto reach at the same time.

tom.

[Nintembo]

So would a wide angles lens generaly be reccomended rather than an anamorphic one (As it sounds very simalar)

[Alan Roberts]

They are nothing like similar. Both Tom and I have given detailed reasons for the choice of either. Which part of our statements are you having difficulty with?

[Z Cheema]

A wide angle allows you to shot in a small room and see more of the room then with the standard lens.
Put your hands on either side of you face like blinkers, thats your normal lens, no open your hands out and you can see more round the sides, thats the wide angle lends (not quite fish eye)

[Nintembo]

Basically what I want is nice wide shots, I was told an anamorphic lens (Or the built in 16.9 feature on a DSR 500) Would be best for this, but then wide angle lens was reccomend. Out of the two, which would you guys reccomend?

Cheers.

[Alan Roberts]

If you want wide angle shots, use a wide angle lens. If you want to create a 16:9 image in a 4:3 camera, use an anamorphic lens. This isn't rocket science, it's common sense.

[Skye Studios]

Anybody shooting anything using a Cinemascope(2.35 to 1) format? Fixed in post not in camera.
Just curious.

[jimbib]

You can't change the aspect ratio in post...unless you just clip the top and bottom. Or do you mean in camera? I heard if you shoot electronic 16:9 combined with a 16:9 lens you get close to the cinemascope effect..any light on this anyone? Ok I admit, when making a film I like to clip the top and bottom with Premiere to make it look like Cinemascope, because it gives that instant 'film' look (and no I don't want to start an argument over what we time and time refer to as a film look). Although you lose about 25% of your footage, it can sometimes help cover accidental boom-in-shot etc, and you can even learn to frame 2.35:1 when shooting, with enough practice, on a 16:9 viewfinder, if you think carefully about headroom etc.

[mooblie]

(Just a point: you can change the aspect ratio in post - depends on your NLE software.)

[Alan Roberts]

I've changed aspect ratio in post many times. NLE does it very easily.

Using a 4:3 anamorphic adaptor on a 16:9 camera will give you an image that's 64:27 (2.37037037...:1). Cinemascope is 2.35:1. Close enough for jazz. It'll work exactly as well as it does in getting 16:9 into a 4:3 camera, except that you'll gen significant vignetting if you pull full wide because you're expecting to get greater covering power.