I maintain a number of rear anamorphic zoom lenses at the rental house where I work, including some that can be converted back and forth from spherical to anamorphic. They don't squeeze the image horizontally, they actually stretch it vertically, acting as tele-extender that only acts in one direction. You can't squeeze the image from behind the lens (particularly in 2x) since the image circle doesn't have enough leeway to cover the super 35 frame. That's why when we apply the squeeze biscuit, the focal length is doubled. 25-250 becomes 50-500. Horizontal field of view stays the same, vertical field of view is halved. This also results in a loss of one stop and change, and because you're stretching the image circle, the image becomes softer, especially on the top and bottom of the frame. When mounted properly, the tiny cylinder is actually sitting sideways, whereas in a front anamorphic lens, the squeeze axis is right side up. That said, anamorphic zooms have a very practical purpose. Most anamorphic sets end at 100mm or 135mm. Even Panavision's long front anamorphic prime lens is the E series 180, beyond that it's all rear anamorphic. When you're shooting a feature and you have multiple cameras, having a long zoom is vital. Back in the day, Robert Altman, the Scott brothers, Brian De Palma and many others did miracles with a Cooke 10-to-1. Not to mention Kurosawa and generations of Japanese and Hong Kong filmmakers. There's nothing like the look of anamorphic at 500mm! Ovals or not, it's epic as balls!
Yes and there's an implication in the video that these lenses were used to retain image quality and spherical characteristics for special effects purposes, which is not true. The lenses still have a lot of distortion (the softness mentioned, and the changing squeeze ratio, etc.) All of the clips used to make your point are a result of anamorphic blowups with wet gate printing done on completely spherical super 35 film.
Panavision have been using rear anamorphics on their spherical zooms for decades so cinematographers can easily drop in a 24-275mm to their anamorphic prime package. This Laowa rear anamorphic is an excellent modern tool for the same purpose and a great item for Super35 16:9 users. It adds 30% resolution to a 16:9 sensor for a 2.40:1 delivery. Great product.
I own the OOOM and the 1.33x rear anamorphic. Yes it does noch produce the typical light streaks. The bokeh will be changed a little. Depending on the focal length you choose the bokeh will get a slight oval look. And the OOOM flares a lot more with the adapter in general. In my opinion it gives the OOOM a lot more character (the lens itself does have an unique character, what I like a lot). If you have the OOOM I can recommend to choose the rear anamorphic as well. If you want an image with it's own look it is a good choice for the money. The OOOM is not a perfect lens. But to be clean and clinical is not what the OOOM wants to be.
I discovered that using the Laowa anamorphic on the rear and a 1:33 anamorphic lens (Century Optics 16:9 adaptor for Sony PD150) on front of the prime lens will yield a sort of 2x cinemascope look with the Nikon lenses with 52mm fronts.
Definitely an interesting product, but I could never give up those anamorphic-like traits. Really cool how the OOOM can alternate focus markings though.
Sounds great for a faster-paced production! Right now, this would be a rental for me. It's fast but has its own individual look. Add a streak filter and I immediately think of a handheld Sci-Fi film.
In some ways, it seems like a relic. Avoiding the anamorphic look isn’t as much of a goal as it was for a span of time. And with the ever growing resolution of sensors, cropping to wider aspect ratios seems plausible in more situations.
Perhaps using a front horizontal squeeze and a rear vertical squeeze can be an option to get the "look" on a 16:9 sensor without getting aspect ratios in the 3x ranges. LAOWA is coming out with anamorphic lenses soon. There is a super35 "Nanomorph" 27mm 1.5x coming soon. It showed up on some Chinese trade show (among other things). This rear adapter is good idea of what it might be quality wise. While LAOWA is known for Zero-D and great macros, their cine lenses are just rehoused lenses so far... I am sure you will end up making a video in this new lens. But my suspicion is that it's between the other modern options: Sirui and Vazen.
I think it makes more sense for slightly older cameras that maybe can only shoot 1080p where cropping to 2.35 makes you loose a bunch of footage. Im really interested in shooting with something like the blackmagic micro and its relatives and sensor and resolution dont really give you too much margin to crop in so something like this could make sense
With it lacking the looks of anamorphic it seems quite pointless add on as you could just crop top and bottom, most filmmakers arent using Anamorphic because of just the squeeze but more for the anamorphic look. Only in some rare instance if you are filming film and want to mix in a zoom lens for a certain shot and not want to mix up rolls of anamorphic shot an non anamorphic during developing and transfer to digital. But most people filming with actual film, likely would rent and Angenieux anamorphic zoom lens and still have anamorphic look in all the shots.
FWIW, I am remaking the barrel of a Laowa adaptor to be able to mount Nikon F-Mount AIS stills lenses on front yet still attach to a PL-Mount camera. It is doable - just. It requires also making a centre cylinder which supports the Nikon F-Mount ring. This inserts inside the barrel from the front and has to be secured by grubscrews on 120 degree centres. The existing barrel cannot be modified for the Nikons non-destructively, hence the remake. - Why?? I am too cheap to sell my Nikon set and replace it with fewer Rokinon Cine lenses in PL-Mount. Laowa's website advises that they will be offering their adaptor in other mounts. An EF-Mount modification of the existing PL-Mount to PL-Mount version does not appear to be possible. Laowa's EF-Mount will be different if offered. I examined the EF-Mount to EF-Mount route as I have EF-Mount to F-Mount adaptors but had no success in trying to work around the existing hardware. Visually it works as described. Shooting faux cellphone camera upright framing using the adaptor is something that had not entered my head.
Hmmm... The main thing I see being potentially useful is reduction in size/weight for an anamorphic conversion. It'll also work on lenses that have a rotating front element (making front-mounted anamorphic adaptation somewhat more cumbersome). For instance, the x-fujinon-z 50-140 zoom is _almost_ perfect for conversion by using it as a taking lens, but you can't screw on a front adapter because the front element rotates as you focus (zoom is internal though). I shoot it through an unattached projector anamorphic lens so that's not an issue, but the rig is large-ish and not particularly sturdy. By converting from Nikon F to PL, I could use something like this on the back, maybe use a streak filter on the front and/or go crazy and figure out how to put in an oval iris... Now that I think about it, this _might_ be useful for shooting those Helios conversions actually anamorphic (at least on micro 4/3 or APS-C), which already have the bokeh and flare thing.
They should make a reverse version of this that de-squeezes your anamorphic lens for when you have too high of a squeeze factor but still want that sweet oval bokeh
it only when you use the Expander that makes you lose a stop of light that you can use the alternate markings. the rear anamorphic adaptor doesn't change the 25-100mm focal length but the expander does when added as the field of view changes. Love your video BTW just some Missinfo there
As much as I'd love to believe this, the claim doesn't hold up mathematically or optically. I have an overlay of two shots with identical settings, one with the anamorphic back and one without it, and the light loss plus magnification is visible. The tele extender might be more intense, but the numbers definitely change with the anamorphic too. :)
The flares and bokeh on rear-anamorphics are weird, almost square! The Bridge scene in Apocalypse now illustrates this perfectly- flares from the lights beacons and make veiling on the opposite side of the frame... I would love to use them to shoot more square formats! they add a kind of punchy character to the Cooke lenses, can't wait to try one!!!
Tito, you said we can ask questions: Have you tried this anamorphic rear adapter on your Lomo 37-140 Zoom lens (anamorphic front module removed)? I am just so curious if it fits and how the quality of the image changes. Thanks man!
Do you prefer rear or front anamorphic adapters? I'm looking to get the Laowa Ananmorphic Prime Set and wanted to combo either the Slr or Sirui front adapter or the Laowa rear adapter.
Wonder what the rear anamorphic paired the opposite way with Orions or Mercuries to lessen the squeeze without loosing the anamorphic look would be anything?
Titanic actually wasn't anamorphic, it was largely super35 cropped to 2.35:1, with some evidence that parts of the film were shot regular 35 and cropped all the way to 2.35:1. The 3D rerelease in 2012 was open matte and showed a 16x9 image.
super 35 is 1.33:1 and regular 35 is 1.37:1 (academy, allowing for sound) so both were cropped to 2.35:1. Super 35 just doesn't have optical sound and has thinner framelines, and uses that space for a small gain in image area.
Although most of Titanic Might've been shot 3-perf, which is Super 35 and is 16X9. but I am not certain of that's the case - I do know that they used 2-perf for some of the underwater rigs to get more filming time with a smaller magazine, as a 400 foot load can get you roughly 8 minutes in 2-perf.
@@lovesickmovie My understanding was Super 35 was (roughly) 16x9 and was purely an acquisition format since it used the soundtrack space. Naturally, the release prints were all scope.
@@KnapfordMaster98 super 35 can be 4-perf, many early 1.33 silent films are technically super 35, although I'm sure advances in things like pin registration and film advancement play a part in its actual definition.
The reason some stuff for a time was still 4-perf mixed in with mainly 3-perf shot 35mm is probably because of MOS cameras not having 3-perf capability, like certain older cameras they used for Highspeed shooting. I wouldn't put it past James Cameron to be on the ball and shooting 3-perf for most of the movie if he wanted to, he has always been cutting edge with everything.
What are you talking about with a "super 35 sensor" are you referencing APS-C? Because I thought full frame was equivalent to super-35. Also, imagine this paired with those so-called hybrid anamorphic lenses that are $30k.
I'm thinking of using this guy for a music video, but stretching the image to 4:3 vertically. - Is that something you'd recommend, or am I better off cropping out the sides?
You can totally do that! I think this rear attachment is best to virtually change the sensor size rather than expanding the field of view horizontally. :)
I still don't understand why wouldn't you just crop it at that point? If you lose image with the lens you might as well lose image with a spherical and save yourself all the hassle. Is there something I'm not getting at?
If you're not getting anything visually, yes, cropping and filming spherical is fine! I've done it a bunch. :) Some folks will be purists and must obtain the aspect ratio optically.
Thanks for doing this review! You mentioned that the rear anamorphic adapter could be paired with the expander. Does this mean you could combine them with a MFT lens (not a Laowa) and a full-frame sensor?
If you were shooting a style that looked like shooting from your phone (tilted 90 degree or shooting tall) which is becoming more popular for internet. This could be more interesting
hey, now that we know of the nanomorphs, do you think these adapters will be compatible to make the squeeze 1.8 or 2x?(I don't know how it would convert :P)?
Hi Tito. How is the depth separation in comparison to professional anamorphics like Cooke or Angenieux? Other than squeezing the image, is the background image pushed further?
Using anamorphic lenses on digital cameras is inconsistent in my opinion, unless if it's on 35mm or 16mm film because celluloid film have a box shaped aspect ratio (4:3 or 3:2) & cropping on it will just reduce the image sharpnest so anamorphic lenses are made to achieve a wider field of view while preserving the image quality of the film, digital cameras on the other hand have a sharper image quality so using anamorphic lenses isn't needed & it will just decrease the quality of an image making it look softer. The good news is that you can replicate the anamorphic look (lens flares, distortion, oval bokeh) in post production using spherical lenses, bokeh & lens flare filters, & with the help of editing softwares like Adobe Premiere.
I disagree. The point of using anamorphics with digital cameras is not to maximize sensor/film area, but to achieve a look. What you can do in post is still severely limited compared to getting it on camera, plus it takes A LOT of time and effort to replicate everything to the same level. If you have evidence that it's "easy" to recreate anamorphic traits in post, please share them here with us!
Here's how to replicate the anamorphic distortion: m.ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-OPnqDFUQbV0.html Lens flares & oval bokeh without anamorphic lenses: m.ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-5hHJ3CkR04s.html Edit: it can't replicate perfectly the true anamorphic look but it will still look good.
