Still Anamorphic

[kid.diabolik]

Hello!

OK, I've been searching for hours and hours (literally) about the use of anamorphic lenses/adapters/converts etc etc.
I know what anamorphic is etc. and I've read the other post on here about anamorphic stuff. This is where I'm getting stumped though:
I love the look of films, but I want to translate the look into purely stills, what i WANT to do, is to have images in the ultra-cool 2.39:1 ratio, but I'm unable to find the information and/or adapters (or whatever) My 35mm camera is just a standard Nikon F301 (nothing fancy, pretty knackered but does the job) Is there some kind of lens i can get to do this job or is there some form of adaptor i can screw onto the front of my current lens? I've read that the Panasonic 16:9 converter will do the job (however discontinued and too expencive) albeit only giving me a ratio of 1.7x:1 (cant remember the exact ratio) and the only other one I've read about is a Sankor lens (where someone managed to 'piggy-back' one onto their 135mm Nikkor...quite how, I cant work out - and aparently theyre only for 16mm...the example photo was however...pretty naff)
Once I have this illusive...um, thing...the idea was to scan the negatives and squish them in Photoshop...is it as easy as that, or will I be dealing with other distortion correction?
One day, I'd love to own a Hasselblad X-Pan (Fuji Tx-1/2) but for the time being, my £70 Nikon will have to do


Appreciate any help anyone can offer,
Thank you!

Joe

[DavidFu]

If you are just looking to get the anamorphic ratio, I'd recommend cropping. A special anamorphic lens (if it exists) for still photography seems like an unnecessary intermediate step.

If you are trying to achieve the clarity of anamorphic, I'd suggest shooting on a larger format, 120 or even 4x5.

[eng-shen]

i totally agree with you, David. in fact, as a still photographer, i always wonder why filmmakers use anamorphic lens? Can't they just use some sort of black matte (say a 16:9 or a 1:2.35 template) to cover the lens and achieve that kinda panoramic look? But then i guess its the lens of the projector which project the feature that makes it look different (true anamorphic), am i right?
But really, in still photography, i really don't see the point of using panoramic camera unless you shoot predominantly on this format; i normally like shooting the way it is, in 35mm format, without cropping, but there are times where its simply necessary. i will show you one example of what i mean, but can someone tell me how to upload an image on this website, and i will post it up this afternoon.

[DavidFu]

Well, in cinematography since the default is often widescreen, the full aperture image must be cropped, but anamorphic does offer the advantage of utilizing the full aperture negative in image capture thus resulting in a crisper image. I know Roger has stated in the past that he prefers the slightly grainier look of Super35 over anamorphic.

[eng-shen]

1. http://www.flickr.com/photos/34495177@N00/2887746063/
2. http://www.flickr.com/photos/34495177@N00/2888578132/

Sorry David & kid.
The above are the pictures i was trying to tell you about before; really, either one of them looks just fine, but when it comes to personal preference, i would do a bit of cropping to get that kinda 'widescreen, anamorphic' look. Don't know wht you think.

[kid.diabolik]

Hey,

Cheers for the reply. I think with widescreen, it fills your view with a lot more, you can tell more of a story when its wide. Its astethically pleasing. I love just travelling in a car and everything go by, just scrolling along. i think its much more of a journey way of telling things, it feels more natural to me. Having said that, I do love square images...i think it comes down to extremes with me, either really square or reallllly wide.

So if im shooting on my cheapy medium format, should i invest in a wider lens? The 90mm I have at the moment is too tight for that, would a wider one like a 30 or a 45 be better, then crop it?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kiddiabolik
most of the images on there are my medium format 6x6 square photos with my 90mm lens. I think i should try and get a wider lens, was just never sure how it would look with a medium format.

Cheers again,

~Joe

[eng-shen]

Honestly joe, i really don't see the point of cropping your images coz' they look good on its own format. But i do have to say there's a bit of flare goin' on with the images. i hope its due to the lens, which can be easily solved with the addition of a lens hood. but i experienced some of this same problem recently with my leica M6, which is not due to flares, but light leaks. yeah, light leaks on leitz, can you believe that? very distressing!
I do own a very old Mamiya 645 camera as well, which i rarely use that much. But i have to say, shooting with a 645 has a very different feel to shooting a 35mm camera. first of all, the reflection of image from the mirror of a medium format camera feels like a 'movie'/moving image. Does anyone of you feel that? That aside, i also feel like i have more freedom in terms of the composition. With 35mm, i either compose 'horizontally' or 'vertically', but rarely tilt my composition, though i do that every once in a blue moon. However, because medium format is a square format, i am more laid back in terms of its composition, i never really bother it to be a perfectly straight or upright composition.
secondly, i personally think its easier to shoot with a 35mm format using a wide angle lens, then crop it to whichever way you want. I simply think cropping images (of a medium format) is a bit of a waste, but the resolution of a medium format is definitely much better than a 35mm if thats wht you want. Like David said previously, perhaps the anamorphic lens may provide you with a much sharper and crispier images, but does it really matter?
Lastly, i don't know if this may be of any relevance to this whole discussion. But go watch a couple of Wes Anderson's movie (shot by Robert Yeoman) and Stanley Kubrick's; i believe most of Wes's films were shot with anamorphic lens whereas Stanley kubrick's films were just clean 'square' format (apart from Space Odyssey of course). I still think the latter stands out very much (not because he is Stanley Kubrick), but i do believe sometimes when our visual aesthetic are so used to a certain kind, and we look back at the old greats, you can't help but ask yourself, why do i shoot it this way, and not the way it is? Perhaps the content will speak for itself, NOT the format.

P.S. 'The Apartment' dir. Billy Wilder, photographed by: Joseph Lashelle; is another old greats that uses anamorphic to a good extent and purpose. I hope i am right so far, but correct me if i am wrong, thanks.

[kid.diabolik]

Hey,

thanks for the reply. Yeah, the flare on the images was intentional, for the situation I prefered the look, I thought it felt more intimate. Yeah I know exactly what you mean about cropping MF film, It does feel like a waste. I am a huge fan of Wes Anderson films and have been influenced by him a lot, but thats not to say I dont have other influences. I'd love to have a Mamiya or Hasselblad. I'm surprised to hear about your leaking Leitz. Leicas are beautiful cameras, my mum used to have an M2 and it was fantastic to use, so heavy and felt so real. My medium format SLR that I used on those photos is a £60 Kiev-6C, which I really love. The only downside is that the lens is very soft. Despite it being cheap, it's still nice to use, though the shutter release is on the left (!) which is a pain as im right handed!

The photographic quality I'm trying to achieve is similar to this http://flickr.com/photos/keithbg/1402701617/in/set-72157601890758198/ ~I didn't take these. Some of these were taken using a Hasselblad X-Pan. It's the cinematic wideness Im attracted to. I do have a swing lens panoramic camera, but the problem with swing lens cameras is that they exhibit an incredible about of distortion...and take forever to capture an image!

I think I'm just going to have to save up and get an X-Pan from eBay or something. Why is photography such an expencive hobby!!

Cheers again,

Joe

[filmfan]

As for the matter of using an anamorphic lens with a still camera, this is something I have been doing for a few years now. I use a Canon AE-1 with a mount that I made which basically the camera is bolted to thru the tripod mount, and the lens is held in front of the lens. This way, the anamorphic lens is not actually attached to the camera's normal lens , but sits in front of it. The lens is an Iscomorphot 2X compression, and so with 35mm film the resulting uncompressed image is a 3to 1 aspect ratio. I have to use a focal lenght of 100mm with the normal lens, because with the standard 50mm there is some serious vignetting. Normally I like to use a 135mm because getting in closer to the subject or into the scene fills up the frame very nicely. Slide film is what I shoot with, and I project them thru the same anamorphic lens, which of course is held in a custom made mount in front of the projector lens. So seeing the images projected at 8 feet wide and 32 inches high can be pretty fun!
I have had some of the slides scanned and stretched out and then printed. I have found that at least for projection purposes, the trouble of having made the custom mounts and then doing the extra focusing when shooting is well worth it. By eye, I can see no loss of quality or sharpness between a non anamorphic slide image compared to one shot with the anamorphic lens.

[kid.diabolik]

Ah wow, do you have any examples online anywhere? This sounds exactly what I'd like to try and achieve.

J

[Roger]

I find this discussion misses the crucial point of using the anamorphic system for film (or stills). For film anamorphic utilizes the entire 35mm frame. This is done primarily to maintain image quality, which in terms of film grain, is considerably enhanced by the size of the negative area. Secondly, the use of anamorphic lenses and their relative 'length' when compared to spherical lenses naturally creates a shallower depth of field, which is preferable to some film makers. The downside is that anamorphic lenses tend to be slower and, in the past at least, have been less consistent in their colour and overall quality.
An image taken using the anamorphic system as designed for the feature film ' The Robe' will always be different from one taken on a spherical lens and cropped.

[filmfan]

kid.diabolik, I have posted 4 widescreen photos on flickr. I'm going by the name anamorphicman, so do a people search there and you should see them. Keep in mind these are scans made from printed out copies of some of my slides. I'll try and post more later.