I’ve been contacted by a number of customers lately using the Hot Rod PL system with Lomo Anamorphic lenses. The lenses are sharp and have the that tell-tale epic movie lens flare. If you can handle opeating with a squeezed image on a GH1 it’s an awesome combination. I haven’t see any front anamorphic adapters that comes close to the qualities of these purpose built lenses.
In the first part of 2010 there are at least two projects shot with this camera/lens combination which will be posted on-line. I’m also trying to convince a filmmaker that recently won a film festival (with a GH1/Hot Rod/Lomo Anamorphic shot project) to post his Anamorphic workflow on how best to de-squeeze the anamorphic image in FCP. In the meantime you can see a blog from one of my clients here.
I’ve actually been working with an optical designer to create a 1.34x adapter that can approach the quality of purpose built lenses, but it is not easy. Why 1.34x? 1.34x gives the exact correct dimension of 35mm anamorphic production. I’ll have regular updates in 2010 about the progress of the project.
One thing worth noting, if you want the best possible image on 35mm film- shoot anamorphic. And this time by “best”, I mean most apparent (visible) resolution. If you want some further reading on the subject, take a look here at the section of this book entitled “Comparisons of 1.85, Anamorphic and Super 35 Film Formats”. It was written by my former boss, Rob Hummel.
There’s a good reason why Christopher Nolan and Wally Pfister shot anamorphic 35mm to intercut with the 70mm IMAX photography used periodically in the The Dark Knight, and it wasn’t because of the glorious anamorphic lens flare. 35mm anamorphic lenses (particularly Panavision’s lovely glass) pack in a lot more vertical resolution than standard non-anamorphic (or as they are typically called) spherical lenses.
More anamorphic information to follow in 2010!
I.
Illya Friedman
President
Hot Rod Cameras
Following your progress, hearing the buzz, looks like my new direction is GH-1 plus Hot Rod, keep me posted.
Hi Illya
Just got my GH1 and will be buying one of your PL mount rigs soon
Some (10) years ago i was responsible for designing and operating the infamous 100 cameras on Lars Von Triers “Dancer In The Dark” that we did with the then newly released Sony PD-100.
I got in touch with an optical designer here in Copenhagen that had worked with Arri on the Arriscope lenses and he helped us with the design and production of anamorphic front adapters for the cameras.
To produce the right squeeze for 1:2,35 we calculated that it should be around 1,77X, so how you arrive at 1,34X has me puzzled ?
I still have a couple of these around – both an uncoated prototype and the final coated production model that are made to screw onto the front thread of the cameras (52mm as i recall) and would very much like to show you some tests if you are interested.
Best Regards
Edvard Friis-Moller
Hi Edvard,
The Sony PD-100a is a 1/4″ CCD camera with a 3x CCD sensors in a native 1.33 aspect ratio. Adding a 1.77x (rounding off) would result in a 2.35 aspect ratio. The PD-100a did also feature a 16:9 mode which used a much smaller slice of the tiny CCDs. The correct method of deriving 2.35 would be to utilize an anamorph that would use the maximum vertical resolution of the CCDs, even if it meant a higher squeeze ratio.
On the other hand, the GH1 (as well as Canon HDSLR cameras) can only capture HD utilizing a 16:9 aspect ratio, the correct amount of squeeze to reach the genuine anamorphic aspect ratio of 2.39 is 1.34x. 2.39 is commonly (and incorrectly) referred to as 2.35 and 2.40. The actual aspect ratio for 99%+ of all movies being released in “35mm anamorphic” are in fact 2.39. All of this information can be found inside the ASC manual in a very comprehensive paper by Robert Hummel, who at the time of the original writing was I believe also the editor of the ASC manual.
Hope this clears up any confusion. I would be delighted to see the prototype lenses.
Warm regards,
I.
Illya Friedman
Slightly off the topic of anamorphic. But on the subject of flares. I have been using the GH1 as a sort of digital eymo on the TV series Human Target on which I am often using “BLUE STREAK” filters from the Filter Gallery in New York. I just like mucking up that often too clean HD image I get from the D21’s – as good and film like as they are. Anyway, I have used them on the Lumix with a Hot Rod PL mount and a clip-on mattebox on a Cooke S4 and they look great. These filters are like those ones from Germany ( I forget what they call them) that they want 15 grand apiece for but these ones sell for about 400 bucks. Contact Stan Wallace at the Filter Factory. They really do great things with highlights. So far only Clairmont rents them that I know of.
Cjeers,
Rob
I’m going to have to pick up one of those filters. I can’t wait till this airs! Thanks for keeping me posted.
Also a little off topic I just saw a demo of digital anamorphic flare created in about 30-seconds with Apple’s Color using the square vignette tool squeezed down to a thin rectangle with defocused edges. I think, it may have fooled just about everyone.
I.